[saithound]

A horoscope is a fine mixture of fortune-telling bullshit and verifiable astronomical facts. The latter have the form of "where the celestial bodies could be seen at the hour of the client's birth", or "does Jupiter currently appear to be moving forward or backward in the sky".

The average Visual Basic programmer and the world's best mathematician are going to be about equally good at writing the fortune-telling part, but the mathematician will have a much easier time getting the factual part right.

[IshKebab]

I don't think the kinds of people that believe astrology are actually verifying the astronomy though.

[_doctor_love]

False. That's just your opinion. The best astrologers are heavily into astronomy and follow astronomy news very closely.

[IshKebab]

Fair enough. Feels weird to talk about "the best astrologers"! Like the most skilled witch doctors or elite roulette players.

[_doctor_love]

Dunno. A lot of Wall St forecasting is honestly worse and less reliable than going to a watch doctor or playing roulette.

I'll confess I'm a little sad at this attitude but people miss out on good stuff all the time.

EDIT: thought about this one a little more. There are definitely better and worse astrologers out there. The good ones will treat your birth chart and transits/progressions as a template for growth, a map to your life. The bad astrologers will condemn you to your fate because of when you were born. There's an enormous world of difference.