Many people believe that astrology is nonsense. Then there are many people who believe in astrology and avidly read their daily horoscopes. What is the truth? Let’s explore this with some new ideas, so bear with me as I start a few threads and then join them together at the end.

I have a degree in physics and for many years I disdained astrology (although I took a look at my horoscope from time to time). In fact, I cannot accept the proposition that there are 12 basic personalities defined by one’s zodiac sign.

We all agree that the tides are primarily governed by the moon and the sun (although there are several hundred terms in the equation used for tide prediction). It is worth keeping in mind that not only the sea has tides: the land itself and the atmosphere also experience tides, but these are not noticeable in everyday life. That’s thread1.

In the last 20 years I have come to realize that I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (‘SAD’). This is due to seasonal variation in the level and intensity of sunlight in people living outside of the tropics. It is a depressive disorder and, by definition, seasonal in nature.

The mechanism is believed to be related to the production of serotonin and melatonin in the body. So this leads to the notion that people’s behavior (governed by mood) can be influenced by seasonal sunlight levels. That is line 2 of the discussion.

I recently read a book called ‘Outliers’ by Malcolm Gladwell. It is a fascinating work, but I will choose only one element. Analyze NFL teams and star players (that’s football). It turns out that star players tend to have birthdays at a particular time of year. Astrology you say!

No, it’s just that players born early in the year tend to be the oldest in their school/college peer group. Because of this, they are physically more mature than other students in their school year born later in the year. So if there is an 11 month difference in birthdays between the oldest and youngest in a given school year, then at age 12, say, there is a 7-8% difference in physical maturity. Stronger (older) students tend to excel in their school year and receive more encouragement and support, and so on. That is strand 3.

So let’s try to put these threads together:

– We can see that the physical components of the earth and the biosphere are subject to astronomical forces (tides).

– There is (outside the tropics) a propensity for part of the population (SAD patients ~17%) to be affected by seasonal sunlight levels (which are in fact just the result of the earth’s orbit around the sun ), by a mechanism that alters body chemistry. Besides, the human female menstrual cycle is generally tied to the lunar orbital period (although obviously not all women are in phase).

There are segments of the population whose fitness and success are determined by the time of year they were born. Obviously, we could test this by looking at countries where academic years differ (Malcolm Gladwell explored this, but only in the context of the length of summer vacations, East versus West).

Many people believe that astrology is nonsense. Then there are many people who believe in astrology and avidly read their daily horoscopes. What is the truth? Let’s explore this with some new ideas, so bear with me as I start a few threads and then join them together at the end.

Now, we might reasonably assume that ‘time of year birth’ effects might be visible in academic prowess (as opposed to sporting prowess), although surely the educational profession would have detected this by now.

So could we be seeing, at least at a first-order level, effects on population and individual personality arising from the movement of the earth around the sun and the moon around the earth? I’m sure we are.

So what about astrology and star signs? Astrology could be a proxy for this set of effects, although I can’t believe second-order effects (like the Sun on Uranus) are significant. Still, it is in the nature of human beings to refine ideas and systems.

© 2009 Phil Marks