A majority of people might enjoy astrology, but beyond watching a TikTok video or reading a horoscope here and there, they just consider it good fun.
Serious astrologists, though, believe they are experts and can really discern truths about our nature and the future by reading the stars.
This study, though, says they are actually really bad at their chosen field – no better at divining the future than random chance, in fact.
About 25% of Americans believe that the movements of the planets and stars has an effect on people’s day-to-day lives.
No scientific evidence has ever been found to support these claims.
A 2024 study looked at a variety of characteristics (religiosity, political persuasion, etc) in 308 people as well as various life outcomes (mental wellbeing, achievements, social lives, etc).
The team worked with six astrologers to create a test that went deeper into astrology than a simple Sun sign, wanting to see whether or not astrologers could match people to their charts based solely on the characteristics and life outcomes.
152 astrologers attempted the test, and none of them performed better than someone picking at random. In fact, the “world class experts” performed worse than most, despite the fact that they were confident they were picking correctly.
“If astrologers as a group had been able to do meaningfully better than chance, this study design would have supported the conclusion that astrology works. But, as it turned out, astrologers in the study performed in a manner statistically indistinguishable from random guessing.”
Hellenistic astrologers got the most right – a whopping 2.9 out of 12 – but this was still statistically no better than guessing.
What was interesting was that most of them did pick the same incorrect answer.
“The agreement rates among astrologers are very low, ranging from about 21 percent to 28 percent depending on experience level. This suggests there is little consensus among astrologers when interpreting the same charts, even among those with high levels of experience.”
The study hasn’t been peer reviewed and the team admits it has its limitations, but it still seems to be pretty convincing proof that astrology should be nothing more than a lark.
“An individual study can only provide strong evidence related to a claim, not definitive proof. Every study, including this one, should be interpreted in the context of other evidence.”
Have fun reading your horoscope if you want.
But don’t make any life decisions based on what any so-called experts says.
If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about a second giant hole has opened up on the sun’s surface. Here’s what it means.