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Astrology is a funny thing. After having put up with decades of scientific probing, it has retreated to the one area that shields it from a rational critique: mysticism. It may surprise us to learn that in an age of genetic sequencing and powerful telescopes, a system of divination conjured up in the Levant thousands of years ago is still alive and well. In the midst of our pandemic, astrologers are reporting better business than usual . Whether or not that’s true, it certainly is useful, and that’s also the stance of many modern users of astrology. They claim not to care if it’s scientific or not, and many even say they don’t believe in it. They just find it useful.

It is a complicated universe to wrap your head around, this astrology. I know I’ve only caught a glimpse of it in my research. Astrology rests on a simple foundation: as above, so below. The position of various celestial bodies (planets, moons, asteroids) at the time of our birth reflects deep truths about who we are and what will happen to us, astrologers claim. Some believe these heavenly bodies directly cause events on Earth through some unknown mechanism; many more, especially in our modern age, reject this idea and rather see the sky as a mirror. By learning the language of astrology, they say, we can see a reflection of who we are and what our future might be.

Before we move on to the sort of irrefutable “secular theology” that astrology has become, it’s important to shine a light on the scientific wringer it has been put through since the 1950s. Indeed, a slew of studies looking at specific event predictions, Zodiac sign compatibilities and their professional inclinations, and astrologers’ abilities to match astrological profiles to individuals have resulted in devastating results for the profession’s credibility. (A partial summary can be found in this review article and on this website .) And if the heavenly spheres cause things on Earth, as early proponents of astrology claimed, none of the known forces could explain this effect due to the distances involved.

Honest scientists facing a towering pile of evidence against their theory would, after getting over their bruised egos, work to improve it, study it further, and perhaps come to replace it with a better one. But astrologists have dealt with this evidence by ignoring or rejecting it. They have resorted to hand-waving: they do not yet know what this all means, but astrology works and one day we will figure it all out. Their response to a study published in 1990 encapsulates their close-mindedness to course corrections. The researchers designed their study with the full collaboration of the Indiana Federation of Astrologers. In fact, the lead researcher’s birth chart, which indicates where each celestial body was in the sky at the time of his birth, was inspected by the Federation to make sure he was an upstanding guy.

The study was simple: six astrologers were given 23 birth charts and had to match them to 23 people, for whom they had photos and answers to a long questionnaire the Federation had itself generated. The result? Each astrologer made from zero to three correct matches (the average was one). When presented with this verdict, the Federation twisted itself into a pretzel to provide an explanation, ultimately claiming that “astrology may not always give quantifiable results but it works nonetheless.”

This lack of concern on the part of astrologers had already led philosopher of science Paul Thagard to declare astrology a pseudoscience in 1978 . It wasn’t because its origins were unscientific: chemistry, after all, was born of alchemy. It wasn’t from its lack of mechanism: continental drift was true even before plate tectonics was discovered as an explanation. It was that its community had more or less refused to face the music. It had made less progress than alternative theories, like psychology, over a long period of time. It may have started out as a protoscience (a “science in the making”), but it became an unpromising project before finally deserving the label of pseudoscience.

But for many modern fans of astrology, all of this is a misguided discussion. Astrology has no scientific pretension, they say. It is a tool for introspection. There too, however, there are problems.

Magic mirror in the sky, who is the fairest one of all?

I had my birth chart done for free via a popular astrology app (I know, I know: it’s not the same as seeing an astrologer). Some of the passages were dead-on; others were laughably inappropriate; and there were many contradictions within this nearly 5,000-word essay. I was at once an extreme traditionalist and a rebellious force of nature, a witty intellectual with a serious personality and an intuitive psychic with great belief in the unproven.

These sorts of general pronouncements full of escape clauses are known as Barnum statements after P.T. Barnum, the founder of the Barnum & Bailey Circus famous for allegedly saying “there’s a sucker born every minute.” And boy do they work, these Barnum statements! I have more than once given the same fake astrological personality description to high school students who believed they were receiving a horoscope tied to their Zodiac sign, and almost all of them raised their hand when I asked them if they saw themselves in the text. And it was pandemonium when I told them to check out their neighbours’ horoscopes and they realized they had all received the same text.

I do understand the appeal of modern-day astrology. By focusing on self-reflection, it has attached itself to the ever popular self-help movement. It provides the social beings that make up its fandom with a sense of community and it can feel empowering for minorities who have been oppressed by long-standing institutions. In fact, there is evidence that people drawn to astrology are religiously oriented but unaffiliated to a major religion . The need for spirituality and meaning can easily be filled by an esoteric, decentralized system like astrology. And before we dismiss all of its devotees as scientifically illiterate, surveys show that astrology’s biggest draw is for people with an intermediate level of scientific understanding . Indeed, astrology has the trappings of science: it makes predictions, relies on calculations, and deals in systems and structures.

Even individuals skeptical of astrology can start to warm up to it when it produces positive descriptions of themselves . This appeal for the pseudoscience is reinforced by our brain’s deep wiring for seeing patterns and agents even where there are none. In times of great stress, the predictions of astrology can give the illusion of control. Not knowing what the future holds can be untenable for some. Even when astrology predicts bad outcomes, it’s something concrete on which to hang your hat.

There are, however, less fanciful ways of dealing with uncertainty. Professor Kate Sweeny from the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside, studies this phenomenon and made two recommendations to me via email. “We’ve found evidence,” she tells me, “for the effectiveness of mindfulness practice in coping with uncertainty.” Meditating or engaging in an activity like gardening that forces us to focus on the present moment can alleviate the stress that comes from thinking about the future. Likewise, being “in the zone” can be beneficial, with an activity that is pleasurable, challenging enough and that tracks our progress toward a goal. “Video games are custom-made to create this experience.” As for the illusion of control that comes from astrological reading, it can be relatively harmless but not always. “If you turn down a great opportunity because of something your horoscope said that day, or if you pursue a risky opportunity because of that, it may steer your life in a non-optimal direction.” I can unfortunately imagine someone postponing a life-saving surgery because the stars yield an ominous reading.

If we are to resist the pull that magical thinking has on us, we need to reconcile ourselves with “not knowing,” an important lesson in science which some of us are perhaps better equipped to take on board. Saying “I don’t know what will happen and that’s OK” is grounding. It thwarts flights of fancy. Of course, believers in astrology may not see “as above, so below” as an extravagant view. Carl Sagan was famous for having popularized the saying that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. The problem arises when a pseudoscience, poked and prodded by scientific fingers, retreats to the wishy-washy world of unknowable mysticism. In that universe, where planets have been imbued with an innate mythology by some strange divine force, there are no extraordinary claims. Anything is possible.

Take-home message: - Astrology is a pseudoscience due to its lack of progress and refusal to deal with a large body of critical scientific studies - Many modern fans of astrology do not see it as a science but as a tool for introspection, in large part because its predictions can give them an illusion of control in a time of stress - There are more grounded ways of dealing with uncertainty, like mindfulness practice and engaging in activities that put you “in the zone”

@CrackedScience

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Office for science and society.

June 25, 2020

Is Astrology Real? Here’s What Science Says

About a third of Americans believe astrology is "very" or "sort of scientific." But does being a Pisces, Virgo rising really matter in the eyes of science?

By Everyday Einstein Sabrina Stierwalt

Adriano La Naia Getty Images

Is astrology real? Reading horoscopes is a popular diversion, but is there any science to suggest it means anything?

Inspiration finds you if you’re willing to dedicate yourself to a cause.

Problems may arise when you’re tempted by a familiar disruption and your willpower weakens.

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Something appearing meaningless may be a lesson to learn.

As many as 70 million Americans read their horoscopes daily. Well, that’s at least according to the American Federation of Astrologers. According to a study done twenty years ago by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 25 percent of Americans believed that the positions of the stars and the planets affect our daily lives. In 2012, the General Social Survey found that 34 percent of Americans surveyed consider astrology to be "very" or "sort of scientific" and also reported a decrease—from two-thirds to around one-half—in the fraction of people who consider astrology " not at all scientific ."

Astrology is generally defined as the belief that astronomical phenomena, like the stars overhead when you were born or the fact that Mercury is in retrograde , have the power to influence the daily events in our lives and our personality traits. This is, of course, very different from the study of astronomy, which is the scientific study of celestial objects, space, and the physics of the universe.

A specific aspect of astrology—the forecasting of a person’s future or the offering of advice on daily activities via horoscopes—is particularly growing in popularity. Magazines like The Cut reported an increase of 150 percent more hits on horoscope pages in 2017 than in 2016.

Clearly, lots of people are looking for ways to interpret the stars for advice. Astrology is founded on understanding the positions of the stars, which seems like a scientific enough pursuit in itself. But is there any science to back up whether astrology impacts our personality and our lives?

Here's the short Answer: No. None whatsoever.

But since I have you for five more minutes of this six-minute-or-so podcast to fill, let’s look at exactly how astrology has been tested.

Continue reading “Is Astrology Real? Here's What Science Says” on QuickAndDirtyTips.com

Journal of Population Sciences

Original Article
Open access
Published: 19 October 2020

The validity of astrological predictions on marriage and divorce: a longitudinal analysis of Swedish register data

Jonas Helgertz ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2200-9095 1 , 2 &
Kirk Scott 1

Genus volume 76 , Article number: 34 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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This paper examines astrology, a concept that is considered unscientific by broad segments of the population in the western world. Despite this, astrology remains for some an important source for advice regarding choices in a range of different matters, including career and relationships. The continuing popularity of astrology may at least partly be linked to an insufficient body of empirical research that has been able to test hypotheses formulated by astrological theory, both due to a lack of data beyond very small study populations as well as astrological predictions frequently being vague and thereby difficult to test. This article examines how differences in astrological favorability influence partner choice in marriage as well as the divorce risk among married couples using longitudinal individual-level data from Sweden over the period 1968-2001. The results fail to provide any consistent evidence to support the notion that astrologically more compatible couples are either overrepresented among observed marital unions or associated with a lower risk of divorce.

Introduction

Scientific progress has played a fundamental role in achieving the high standards of living that we currently enjoy. Undoubtedly, innovations and scientific discoveries accomplished by mankind have laid the foundation for progress that individuals with only one or two generations earlier could never have imagined. While most are likely to acknowledge the role of the scientific process for many of the innovations we today take for granted, nontrivial sections of populations across countries in the developed world are skeptical toward the scientific community and either unable or unwilling to weigh the merits of evidence accumulated from carefully designed empirical studies against anecdotal evidence or outlier observations. Recent examples that have attracted substantial media coverage include proponents of anti-vaccination campaigns and supporters of the view that global warming as a result of greenhouse gas emission is a hoax, not to mention current skepticism toward wearing a face mask to counteract the spread of an airborne virus during a global pandemic.

Scientific literacy has been identified as greatly important for well-functioning nations and societies, with claims that populations that are more scientifically literate facilitate democratic societies to make informed and fair decisions about issues that are based on science (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016 ). The concept of scientific literacy roughly refers to individuals’ ability to understand and interpret scientific findings, as well as the capacity to evaluate information on the basis of its source and the methods used to generate it (Miller, 1998 ). The concept of scientific literacy therefore represents an important societal characteristic, as the lack of it empowers decision-making based on opinions and emotions rather than refutable facts. This paper examines the validity of astrological predictions within the realm of romantic relationships, a concept that is met with considerable skepticism by the scientific community and sometimes viewed as synonymous with scientific illiteracy (Allum, 2011 ). It is, however, a phenomenon that has been embraced and consulted by sizeable audiences across the world for centuries. Indeed, astrology continues to offer advice to individuals about personal matters including relationships and career choices in books, on the internet, and in magazines and newspapers, possibly influencing the lives of its most devoted followers. Despite valuable contributions from previous research into the validity of astrological predictions, the bulk of it is based on very small and sometimes strongly selected samples. The main contribution of this article is its use of longitudinal individual-level data over the time period 1968-2001 for a large study population in Sweden to test to what extent predictions regarding couples’ compatibility based on easily accessible astrology outlets are supported by empirical data. More specifically, this is done through examining to what extent favorable sun-sign combinations are reflected in marital partner choice, as well as analyzing its influence on the divorce risks of married couples. While recognizing our study’s limitations, only examining Sweden and a small subset of the astrological predictions available, our results fail to provide any consistent support of the hypotheses tested.

Ideas guided by astrological principles have existed in just about every human civilization, going back several millennia before the birth of Christ (Tester, 1989 ). The basic underlying concept is that the positioning of celestial objects at a time that is of significance to the individual influences fundamental aspects of their personality, motivations, wants, and needs. As a consequence, the astrologer, an individual trained to calculate the position of relevant objects and make an accurate reading will be able to make predictions or recommendations positively influencing individual well-being. Astrology represented an essential part of the culture of several ancient civilizations and was until comparatively recently considered to be a science. Western astrology goes back several centuries prior to the birth of Christ, with the birth of modern astrology being attributed to Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos , considered to be the earliest comprehensive textbook on astrology (Woolfolk, 2006 ). A key characteristic of western astrology is its horoscopic nature, implying that predictions can be made based on the positioning of the planets, and stars at a given point in time, typically at the individual’s time of birth. From the end of the Roman Empire until today, the popularity of astrology among the general public in what is today the western world has varied considerably. It experienced a considerable resurgence among both intellectuals and the general public during the Renaissance, while it came under increasing scrutiny during the age of Enlightenment. This was largely due to the scientific discoveries of—among others—Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, displacing the Earth from the center of the solar system as well as introducing a new understanding of physics.

In recent centuries, however, astrology has experienced a revival, again becoming widely popular and used primarily for entertainment, but in certain cases also with the intent to obtain guidance. Individuals in western countries are exposed to weekly or monthly horoscopes in just about every printed newspaper. Bogart ( 1989 ) reports that about 85% of American newspapers included an astrology column in 1987, a figure that is most likely very similar today. In addition, there is a plethora of horoscopes or other information related to astrology available on the internet as well as in books, for those who consider themselves to be more than a casual consumer. While data is scarce, and it is difficult to directly compare across different studies, the persistence of horoscopes in popular media confirms that the general public’s consumption of astrology remains high. Maitre ( 1966 ) examined a sample of Parisians, showing that about 30% of those surveyed reported to be consumers of astrology. Some 20 years later, in the UK, in 1988, Bauer and Durant ( 1997 ) report that 73% of the adult population read horoscopes or astrology reports, with the majority doing so “fairly often” or “often.” For the USA, in 1999, about half of the population surveyed for the 2000 Science and Engineering Indicators report claimed that they read their horoscope at least occasionally (National Science Board, 2000 ).

Existing data suggests that the majority of individuals who read horoscopes do so primarily for the entertainment value of it, with less than one of ten individuals in the UK, claiming that they take astrology reports “seriously” or “fairly seriously” (Bauer & Durant, 1997 ). More recent statistics from many different countries, however, indicate that the share of the population who look to horoscopes not only for entertainment but also believe them to have scientific value is considerably higher than what is suggested by the figure from the UK. A 2005 Gallup survey in the USA, for example, revealed that one-quarter of those interviewed believed that “astrology (...) can affect people’s lives” (Lyons, 2005 ). This remains true even more recently, with 42% of Americans in 2012 claiming astrology is either “sort of scientific” or “very scientific” (National Science Board, 2014 ). Indeed, the same survey reports that the share rejecting astrology as “not at all scientific” in 2012 was at its lowest point since 1983. Another interesting observation from the US survey that has also been reported from Europe (Allum, 2011 ), is that there is a negative relationship between age and believing in astrology.

In Europe, net of a range of individual-level characteristics, beliefs in astrology are shown to vary substantially across countries. While the results display no clear geographical pattern, Sweden emerges as one of the countries with the lowest share of individuals believing in astrology. Indeed, the 2015 wave of a Swedish attitude survey indicated that only 13% were leaning toward believing in astrology, with only 3% expressing a firm belief that “the positioning of the planet at the time of the individual’s birth influences their daily lives and personality” (Foreningen Vetenskap och Folkbildning, 2015 ). Further corroborating evidence for the comparatively low level of belief in astrology in Sweden comes from the 2005 Special Eurobarometer, surveying individuals in 25 EU countries. Overall, the survey found that 41% of those surveyed gave astrology a score of 4 out of 5 when asked to assess how scientific it is. This study, along with others, have however indicated that individuals tend to conflate astrology and astronomy, indeed suggested by a substantially smaller share who assesses the scientific qualities of horoscopes as high, only amounting to 13% (see also Allum, 2011 ).

Theoretical framework

The theoretical foundation upon which astrology predicts the relationship compatibility of two individuals is based on a belief that the position of celestial bodies at the time of birth has a profound influence on the personality (Orion, 2007 ). While the theory is rather clear about which characteristic that is influenced by which celestial body and about the strength of this influence depending on its position at the time of birth, it is less clear about the mechanism which produces the predicted outcome. The most comprehensive (and, arguably, precise) astrological reading is referred to as natal astrology, and requires information not only on the individual’s time of birth but also the geographical location in order to thoroughly assess a range of different characteristics (Oken, 1988 ). This is needed in order to not only identify the location of the sun at the time of birth but also the location of several other celestial bodies, each associated with their unique influence on the individual’s personality. All ten celestial bodies examined, from the Sun and the Moon to Venus and Uranus alternate between the twelve familiar different sun signs, at varying intervals, and with differing implications for how the individual’s associated traits are expressed (Woolfolk, 2006 ). For example, if the planet Venus, associated with ruling the force of attraction, sexual and otherwise, is in Cancer at the time of the individual’s birth, the individual is predicted to be a nester, whereas when it is in Scorpio, the love life tends to be stormier. The sign of the moon—describing emotional reactions, changes every 2-3 days, whereas those of more distant planets change much less frequently (Orion, 2007 ).

The astrologer also needs to address the twelve so-called houses, representing another dimension of authority over specific areas of interest of the individual’s life. In terms of their areas of influence, the fifth house, for example, influences the individual’s experience in the area of romance and children, whereas the seventh house influences marriage and partnerships. The ascendant, the rising sign or the first house, is the sign that was rising over the eastern horizon at the moment of the individual’s birth, rotating overall twelve zodiac signs over the course of 24 h (once approximately every 2 h), implying that, for every day, each sign is the rising sign during a 24 h period. The outcome of this is that if an individual whose sun sign is Aries is born while Aries is the ascendant, the resulting personality traits will be courageous, ambitious, and impulsive. Having found the ascendant, assigning the remaining eleven houses is straightforward, since this follows the sign chart. Thus, if the ascendant is Gemini, the second house will be Cancer, followed by Leo and so forth, until all twelve houses are occupied.

While a full natal reading requires more comprehensive information and thereby also is argued to provide a more precise astrological reading, the majority of horoscopes consumed by the general public are represented by a sun-sign astrological reading. This type of horoscope bases the astrological prediction solely on the position of the sun on the day an individual was born, without accounting for the position of the remaining nine celestial bodies or the houses. Despite its comparatively greater simplicity, astrologers widely claim sun sign horoscopes to be highly informative regarding matters such as relationships and career, and these represent what is normally encountered in magazines and newspapers (Crowe, 1990 ). The twelve sun signs are argued to be distinguishable according to three different qualities, which together form the basis for the individual’s essential personality traits. The first dimension divides the sun signs into two categories, the positive (masculine) and the negative (feminine) signs. Individuals born under the positive signs are believed to be more extroverted, objective, and assertive, whereas the negative signs are associated with the opposite qualities, namely introversion, subjectivity, and being receptive (Hamilton, 2001 ). The next dimension is referred to as a sun sign’s modality, dividing the sun signs into three categories which describe differences in individuals’ forms of expression. Gemini, along with Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces, represent the mutable sun signs, considered to be flexible and versatile. In contrast, individuals belonging to the four fixed sun signs are focused and determined, whereas the last category, the four cardinal sun signs are enterprising, promoting change, and making things happen. The third and last dimension is represented by the elements, allocating each sign of the zodiac to one of the four elements: fire, earth, air, and water. Following the same logic as the previously discussed dimensions, the twelve sun signs are distributed evenly across the four elements, thus with three sun signs in each. The associated characteristics are informative about the individual’s character, with the air signs (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius) being strong both when it comes to intellect and sociability, whereas the corresponding strengths for the fire signs (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius) are vitality, excitement, and intensity. Taking the three dimensions together, each sun sign is represented by a unique combination of characteristics, allowing the astrologer to make predictions about essential features of the individual, in addition to determining which sun signs are the most compatible in romantic relationships (Orion, 2007 ).

Previous research

Despite the contemporary scientific community’s enduring skepticism toward astrology, frequently labeling it a pseudo-science (Thagard, 1978 ), there is a relative dearth of empirical studies examining its potential validity. Difficulties in evaluating the validity of astrology are intrinsically linked to predictions from horoscopes which are often very vague, making testable hypotheses difficult to formulate. Indeed, the vagueness of astrological predictions is likely to be a key reason for its persistent popularity among the general public, since individuals have a tendency to embrace unspecific (favorable) characterizations of themselves as accurate if they believe that they are the result of a systematic procedure and uniquely generated for them. This phenomenon is named the Barnum effect , and its relevance for astrology was first illustrated by Forer ( 1949 ) who conducted an experiment where he provided students with what they believed to carefully tailored personality evaluations. The evaluations handed out were, however, identical across all students, consisting of a rather general description of personality traits. The students’ high degree of agreement with said evaluations led Forer to conclude that the students’ behavior was consistent with the Barnum effect (see also Fichten & Sunerton, 1983 ).

Another feature linked to astrology is that of self-attribution, referring to how knowledge of one’s horoscope influences how one remembers experiences (Glick & Snyder, 1986 ; Munro & Munro, 2000 ). More specifically, an individual who reads in their daily horoscope that they will meet with some unfortunate event is likely to pay particular attention to situations that could be perceived as threatening or dangerous, thus, positively reinforcing a confirmation bias. Similarly, an individual who knows that they are supposed to be short-tempered because of their particular sun sign, will be more likely to remember behavior consistent with this description than someone displaying a similar behavior but whose horoscope says that they are patient. Related to this, Hamilton ( 2001 ) suggested that a key determinant of an individual’s acceptance of astrology is linked to the degree of favorability that it offers. As a consequence, astrology could affect an individual’s experience, not necessarily because the astrological prediction is correct, but because it influences how individuals perceive events. Clobert, Van Cappellen, Bourdon, and Cohen ( 2016 ) confirm this through showing that individuals subjected to a positive astrological reading not only interpreted ambiguous events in a more favorable light but also that it positively affected cognitive performance and creativity. Further support for the hypothesis that observed effects are driven by self-attribution is provided by the fact that effects were the strongest for individuals self-professing to believe in astrology (Hamilton, 2001 ).

The vast majority of the empirical research has focused on whether an individual’s displayed personality traits are consistent with those predicted by astrology, producing rather mixed results. One strand of literature has investigated to what extent individuals are able to accurately predict which out of two astrology readings—one actually made for them and one for another sign—applies to themselves, depending on their birth chart. The results have failed to confirm individuals’ ability to do so (Carlson, 1985 ; Culver & Ianna, 1988 ; Dean, 1987 ). Another number of papers have examined a fundamental prediction in astrology, namely that individuals born with the sun in a positive sign are more extroverted. Analyzing the personality scores of a comparatively large sample of individuals, Mayo, White, and Eysenck ( 1978 ) clearly found differences in extroversion scores that are consistent with astrological predictions. While a number of subsequent studies confirmed their findings (e.g., Fuzeau-Braesch, 1997 ; Jackson, 1979 ; Smithers & Cooper, 1978 ), several scholars indeed found that the relationship observed was driven by self-attribution. As an example, van Rooij ( 1994 ) shows that aforementioned personality differences can only be observed among individuals with prior knowledge about astrology, a result which mirrors the findings of Eysenck ( 1981 ) as well as the later studies by Hamilton ( 1995 ) and Chico and Lorenzo-Seva ( 2006 ).

To our knowledge, only a small number of previous studies have examined the influence of astrology on outcomes relating to matters of love and relationships. The earliest example is Silverman ( 1971 ), who analyzes marriage and divorce records from Michigan in 1967 and 1968. While being a rather rudimentary test of compatibility, using predictions from two named astrologers, the study fails to find any indications suggesting that the predictions of two independent astrologers are consistent with what is observed in the data. These findings were challenged by Sachs ( 1999 ), using data from Switzerland to examine the relationship between zodiac sign combinations and marriages, divorces as well as a selection of other outcomes. According to Sachs, among the 13 sun-sign pairs that displayed higher than expected marriage probabilities, 12 belonged to pairings that are deemed astrologically compatible. Another study, by Blackmore and Seebold ( 2001 ) found that women who are subjected to positive love advice through their horoscopes were observed with slightly elevated relationship scores, compared to women exposed to neutral advice. Effects were largest for women with greater belief in astrology, consistent with self-attribution. Lastly, Henningsen and Miller Henningsen ( 2013 ) examine a sample of married individuals, investigating to what extent the couple’s astrological compatibility is associated with the degree of marital satisfaction. While simultaneously controlling for individuals’ beliefs in astrology, thus attempting to cancel out the self-attribution influence, the study finds some support for astrological compatibility.

Data and methods

We use the Swedish Longitudinal Immigrant (SLI) database, hosted and administered at the Centre for Economic Demography, Lund University, Sweden. The SLI contains data from several administrative registers, providing longitudinal socio-demographic, economic, and health-related information on about 500,000 unique individuals, continuously observed over the time period 1968-2001. The database was originally developed to examine research questions focused on immigrant-native differences in socioeconomic and demographic outcomes and therefore contains an oversampling of the sixteen largest immigrant nationalities living in Sweden during the time period in question. Despite this oversampling of the foreign born, the nationally representative sample of natives represents by far the largest group in the data. As a result, the dataset is appropriate also for research without an explicit immigrant focus.

Since this study examines astrological predictions of relationship compatibility, the primary outcome of interest is divorce of those in marital unions. We restrict our analytical sample to Nordic born index individuals in heterosexual unions with Nordic born spouses. This provides a study population with a largely similar cultural background and thereby more similar views on marriage and divorce as well as a similar propensity to believe in, and consult, astrology. With the study population additionally restricted to individuals between the ages of 18 and 70, the number of marital unions observed in the data amount to roughly 66,000. Our analysis also examines the determinants of legal divorce with an additional sample restriction being that all examined unions were observed from the beginning of the marital union , since this is necessary to accurately measure time at risk of dissolution. Censoring in the data occurs when (i) either spouse dies or emigrates or (ii) the index individual turns 70 years of age. As a result, the number of unions examined in the divorce analysis drops to about 46,000, with 15,000 ending in divorce during the follow-up period.

Using information on date of birth, we determine the zodiac signs of both the index individual and their spouse, yielding 144 zodiac-sign combinations Footnote 1 . A potential source of criticism of this method is that more detailed information containing the precise place of birth (latitude and longitude) as well as the precise time of day that the individual was born, is required in order for a more exact horoscope to be read. The majority of horoscopes consumed by the general public in magazines, online, and in newspapers is, however, based solely on the date of birth. Consequently, it would follow that our ability to assess zodiac signs only based on the date of birth does not represent an insurmountable disadvantage, but rather reflects the way these signs are constructed in daily use.

The measurements of relationship compatibility based on zodiac sign combinations that are examined in the analysis are summarized in Table 1 . While we are using data on couples in Sweden, the majority of the relationship classifications tested in this article was provided in English, due to the dearth of source material in Swedish. We do not have any information on whether sample individuals actually believe in astrology, something that we claim should not matter, as astrological theory would suggest that individuals are influenced regardless of whether they have any knowledge of astrology.

The relationship compatibility classifications were obtained through accessing alexa.com ’s top 500 astrology websites as well as through Google searches. Among sources whose primary subject matter is astrology, we selected those that offered information on relationship compatibility based on partners’ zodiac signs free of charge. The information furthermore had to unambiguously define varying degrees of compatibility between zodiac signs, enabling an operationalization for quantitative analysis that did not rely on researcher interpretation. As evident from the table, the classifications employ different methods to distinguish between relationship compatibility, with all but one (#3), appropriate for a categorical operationalization. The following column shows the share of possible zodiac sign combinations that are allocated to each respective compatibility category, while the last column shows the visitor volume of each site. To illustrate the importance of these sources, two of the sites used obtained over 15 million monthly visitors during the first 6 months of 2020. Also note that while classifications 1-5 were provided in English, the final classification, #6, is provided in Swedish.

One issue associated with two of the classifications is their lack of symmetry. As an example, while an Aquarius may be indicated as being a great pairing for a Libra, the opposite does not apply. Unfortunately, the source does comment on whether the asymmetry is accidental or on purpose. Since our objective is to test the astrological predictions as they were provided, the main results classify relationships in accordance with the original source, with results adjusting for this asymmetry provided as a sensitivity analysis.

The initial analysis focuses on partner choice through marriage, where we examine the distribution of spouses’ zodiac combinations of all observed marital unions in the dataset, conditional on sample restrictions. We examine the extent to which unions deemed more favorable appear more frequently than expected by chance. Put simply, if an individual is exposed to a marriage market consisting of 50% of individuals who are type “favorable match” and the other 50% being type “unfavorable match,” the probability of marrying an individual belonging to either category simply by chance is 50%. If, however, preferences and compatibilities consistent with the hypotheses tested in this paper exist, the probability of marriage to an individual belonging to the “favorable match” category would exceed 50%. Consequently, if the actual number of “favorable” unions statistically significantly exceeds what would be expected had the process been driven solely by chance (or some other characteristic not correlated with the zodiac sign), this would support the hypotheses tested in the paper. More specifically, this would be consistent with a higher degree of compatibility among astrologically favorable couples, reflected in an elevated share among the observed marital unions. We approximate the marriage market population through the distribution across zodiac signs of the population of index individuals, and differences in means between the predicted and actual number of marriages are assessed using t tests.

The second part of the analysis is represented by the estimation of Cox proportional hazards models. Here, we examine whether astrologically favorable couples are less likely to divorce. The union represents the unit of analysis at risk of dissolution through a legal divorce from the time of marriage. Time at risk is specified as the number of days elapsed from marriage and unions are followed until legally divorcing or censoring. Apart from the key independent variables for the article, measuring the zodiac sign combination of the couple, the main models only control for the sex of the index person as well as their nativity. The motivation for this is that the majority of the standard control variables in an analysis of divorce can be argued to be simultaneously affected by the individual’s zodiac sign, thus making them bad controls. For the sake of being able to compare the size of the associations between zodiac-combinations and the risk of divorce with the influence of other characteristics that are known to be important, such as educational attainment and the age difference between the spouses, we also estimate models including a full set of spousal sociodemographic characteristics. In addition to already mentioned determinants, the complete models also control for whether the individual and their spouse were native born, the highest (observed) marriage order of the current union, and whether either spouse has any children under the age of 18. The sample means of the population examined in the multivariate analysis are presented in Table A1, Additional file 1 .

We begin the analysis by examining the extent to which astrologically favorable relationships are overrepresented among the 66,063 unions that are observed in the data, translating to an average of 458.8 unions for each of the 144 unique zodiac sign combinations. As previously mentioned, we expect the distribution of the index individuals to approximate the marriage market population, implying that—in the absence of any preferences that correlate with zodiac sign—an individual’s probability of marrying someone who, e.g., happens to be Pisces should amount to 8.7% (5778/66,063), unconditional on the index person’s own sign. As displayed in Table 2 , the share of index individuals who have a spouse who is a Pisces ranges from a low among the Aquarius of 8.05 percent, to a high of 9.25% among index individuals belonging to the zodiac sign Cancer. As an initial test of the validity of the astrological predictions presented earlier, evidence in favor of the examined classifications is obtained if an overrepresentation similar to the Cancer-Pisces characterize zodiac sign combinations that are considered to be astrologically favorable. Within each category of compatibility , we compare the mean number of observed to expected unions across all zodiac sign combinations, using t tests to examine whether the difference is statistically significant, consistently finding this not to be the case ( p > 0.1).

Table 3 shows the average number of marriages in each zodiac pairing that we would expect to occur as a result of a random process based on the assumption that the zodiac-sign distribution of the marriage market resembles the population of index individual, by categories of astrological compatibility. Beginning with classification #1, presented in Table 3 , out of the 144 possible zodiac sign combinations, 38 are considered to be “good,” with remaining classified as “less good.” Across all zodiac sign combinations that according to classification #1 are “good,” the mean number of observed unions amounts to 462.47, while the average predicted ( i.e. , random ) number of unions amounts to 463.01, with the difference not being statistically significant, even at the ten percent level. Thus, the mean actual number of unions is lower than what chance would predict based on the index population distribution, at odds with the expectation that comparably more favorable zodiac sign combinations would be overrepresented among married couples. Instead, the data reveals a slight overrepresentation of unions belonging to zodiac sign combinations that are considered to be less favorable, according to classification #1.

Similar results can be observed for remaining categorical measurements of relationship compatibility, also presented in Table 3 Footnote 2 . While zodiac sign combinations that according to classification #2 have “low compatibility” indeed are observed to be less common than predicted by chance, the same is observed among couples with “high astrological affinity.” A similar underrepresentation of observed couples belonging to the most favorable zodiac sign combinations is obtained for remaining classifications. Indeed, while differences between the mean number of observed to predicted number of unions in all classifications remain statistically insignificant, the results—if anything—consistently suggest a systematic overrepresentation of unions characterized by comparatively unfavorable zodiac sign combinations.

Turning to the second part of the analysis, we focus on the determinants of marriage dissolution, testing whether individuals in astrologically favorable relationships experience a lower risk of divorce, estimated by means of Cox proportional hazards regression. While our main models, presented in Table 4 , only include covariates that can credibly be argued not to be influenced by the individual’s zodiac sign, corresponding models including a full set of sociodemographic characteristics are available in Table A2, Additional file 1 .

Models in Table 4 display the hazard ratios from Cox proportional hazards models of the association between the degree of relationship compatibility predicted by the websites used and the risk of divorce. The first classification, in Model 1, distinguishes between two categories of matches, with the reference category representing less compatible couples. In accordance with this expectation, the point estimate indeed suggests that the more compatible couples experience a lower risk of divorce. The size of the association, however, suggests a rather small influence, only amounting to a 2% reduction in the risk of divorce. The point estimate is also not statistically significantly different from the reference category. Given the statistical power of the data used, the observed effect must be considered to be a null effect, and we must reject that these predictions exert any real influence on the outcome.

Model 2 tests classification #2, arranging couples’ degree of compatibility along an ordinal scale, ranging from “low compatibility” to “high astrological affinity.” The “fairly compatible” category is chosen as the reference category, with the results again failing to provide any consistent support for the hypothesis that astrologically more compatible couples experience a lower risk of divorce. The point estimates are not statistically significantly different from each other, and the magnitudes also fail to consistently indicate that increased compatibility is associated with a lower divorce risk. More specifically, whereas the most favorable zodiac sign combination category, “high astrological affinity” is observed with point estimates indicating a lower divorce risk all other groups, the higher divorce risk among couples with “good compatibility” compared to those that have “low compatibility” is inconsistent with the expectation.

Classification #3 is the only one that is operationalized as a continuous variable. Here, the compatibility score ranges from 10-92, with a higher score indicating a greater relationship compatibility. The results are presented in model 3, with the hazard ratio indicating the change in divorce risk associated with a one-unit increase in compatibility. This model fails to provide any support to the hypothesis that couples with zodiac sign combinations that reflect a higher degree of compatibility are less likely to divorce, since the hazard ratio of 1.00 (which is not statistically significant) implies that the compatibility score is not associated with the risk of divorce.

Returning to a categorical specification of relationship compatibility, model 4 tests classification #4, distinguishing between three different degrees of compatibility. The intermediate category, “favorable match,” is the reference category, with “not favorable” and “great match” representing the other outcomes. Point estimates suggest both “not favorable” and “great match” zodiac sign combinations as experiencing a lower divorce risk than the intermediate reference category, both experiencing a 1.6% lower divorce risk. Consequently, the absence of a pattern between the categories that are consistent with the expectations, coupled with a lack of statistical significance, results in the refusal of yet another astrological prediction. We arrive at a similar conclusion from the test of classification #5, in model 5. Compared to the reference category, the intermediate level of compatibility, labeled “so-so,” the divorce risk is lower both in unions characterized as being better (“most compatible”) as well as worse (“least compatible”). The most compatible couples do experience a divorce risk that is almost five percent lower than the reference category, in addition to being statistically significant. However, as the hazard ratio for the least compatible group also is less than for the reference category, the most and least compatible categories become statistically indistinguishable from each other, thus refuting this classification as well.

Lastly, model 6 tests the only classification presented in Swedish, namely classification #6. This classification rates a couple’s compatibility through assigning a number of hearts, effectively becoming another ordinal classification containing six unique degrees of compatibility. The reference category is represented by relationships that are assigned three hearts, i.e., neither particularly good nor, for that matter, bad. Again, while the most compatible couple category is associated with a slightly lower probability of divorce compared to the reference category, it is not statistically significant. Additionally, all categories yield lower divorce probabilities than the reference, with the only category showing a statistically significant lower probability being judged as less compatible than the reference category.

Our results do not provide evidence in support of any of the classifications evaluated in this article. With few exceptions, point estimates have been small in size, something which is further emphasized when compared to associations between standard sociodemographic determinants and divorce, presented in Table A2, Additional file 1 . For example, the spouses’ educational attainment, the presence of children under the age of 18 as well as previous experiences of divorce are all consistently much more strongly associated with the risk of divorce within the current union than the couple’s degree of astrological compatibility.

Robustness analysis

The results have yielded a consistent story, albeit one that fails to find any support for the examined astrological predictions about relationship compatibility, either in terms of marriages or divorces. Before turning to the conclusions, some caveats and our attempts to address them must be mentioned.

The first caveat is linked to the classifications used to identify relationship compatibility, which is only based on the individual’s sun sign and not on a full astrological reading. One could argue that results would have been different if we were able to rely on a more comprehensive reading. Given the fact that sun-sign astrology is the predominant form of astrology consumed by the general public, in combination with many sources for more elaborate astrological readings also offering astrological advice solely based on the individual’s day of birth, we believe it is a relevant subject of study.

Given the comparatively low degree of general belief in astrology in Sweden, the context should be close to ideal for the examination of a phenomenon of proposed universal validity such as astrology. Despite this, a second potential threat to the reliability of our results could be that couples in astrologically favorable unions and with knowledge of astrology are more willing to enter into as well as remain in a marital union. For the marriage analysis, the influence of such a bias is ambiguous. On the one hand, it may serve to increase the number of observed favorable marital unions, as individuals in relationships that they know to be astrologically favorable also may be more likely to enter into a marital union. On the other hand, the number of unfavorable marital unions may also become inflated due to their greater dissolution propensity, and thus greater remarriage probability among those affected. For the analysis of divorce, the outlined process would bias the results toward a lower risk of divorce for the astrologically favorable relationship categories, thus, further reinforcing the validity of our results.

As noted earlier, two of the examined classifications are not symmetrical, as, e.g., the pairing Aries-Capricorn may have been indicated as favorable, whereas Capricorn-Aries was not, despite belonging to one and the same classification scheme. For the main analysis, we opted not to make any adjustments for these asymmetries, as our aim was to test astrological predictions as they are provided to the general public. Table A3, Additional file 1 , however, displays results after making adjustments in order to achieve symmetry, with qualitatively identical results. It should be noted that the coefficient illustrating the experience of couples who according to the adjusted classification #1 are the most astrologically favorable now is associated with a risk of divorce that is 4.1% lower than a less compatible couple, as well as being statistically significant (see model 1). This result should, however, be interpreted in light of the entire set of analyses performed in this article, along with its comparatively marginal association with the outcome, thus, more likely representing an outlier rather than as being part of a consistent body of evidence suggesting astrological compatibility being an important determinant of divorce.

A final sensitivity check pertains to the adjustment of the sample to exclude cusp births. Cusp births refer to individuals born a few days before or after the transition from one zodiac sign to the next, and are sometimes believed to be influenced by both signs. Thus, an individual born on August 24, and thus technically a Virgo but right after the transition from Leo (ending August 23), may display characteristics of both signs. To investigate whether the presence of cusp births influences our results, we restrict the analysis to couples where both partners were born at least 4 days before and after the break dates between zodiac signs. Taking Leo as an example, the period for this sign ranges from July 23 to August 22, but we only include individuals born from July 28 and until August 18. These results (Additional file 1 , Table A4) are virtually identical to those of the main analysis, suggesting that the somewhat less precisely defined characteristics of the sample when including cusp births are not driving the lack of results supporting relationship predictions founded in astrology.

To our knowledge, this is the first study, which uses large-scale longitudinal administrative register data with precise information on dates of birth and marriage and divorce allowing for a thorough examination of the issue at hand. As a result, trivial effect sizes and the lack of statistical significance cannot be the result of a lack of statistical power.

We empirically test astrologically based predictions about couples’ degree of relationship compatibility obtained from six different, freely available, online sources. While by no means representing a comprehensive account of the astrological advice that is being offered online, the classifications tested were found through standard search methods from both high and low traffic websites. The analysis conducted in this article should serve as a valid test of the benefits associated with recommendations provided by astrology in order to achieve happiness in relationships. Our analysis, examining over 65,000 marital unions over the time period 1968-2001, rejects the validity of advice provided by these sites. First, there are no indications suggesting that individuals in astrologically favorable sun-sign combinations are over represented in marriage. Second, our results not only indicate rather trivial and statistically insignificant differences in the risk of divorce depending on couples’ varying degree of astrological compatibility, but they also fail to suggest any systematically lower risk of divorce among couples who are indicated as being highly compatible.

Based on the results presented in the paper, what can be said about the external validity of the results and to what extent they reflect causality? In an international comparison, Nordic natives rank very low in cross-country comparisons of beliefs in the supernatural, including religion as well as astrology. As a consequence, we assert that the Nordic countries represent an optimal context to test astrological predictions about couples’ relationship compatibility. More specifically, the examined astrological principles should be considered to be in operation regardless of whether an individual believes in them or is even aware of their implications. Individuals who do believe in them are, however, more likely to be aware of what they predict and therefore also allow them to influence their decisions. Consequently, at the individual level, the knowledge of and belief in astrology represents an unobserved factor, which may bias the relationship between zodiac sign combination and the risk of divorce, as it is correlated with both. Thus, a lower divorce risk among “good” zodiac sign pairings may be the result of individuals more familiar with astrology choosing partners based on their time of birth, as well as holding out for longer until marriage dissolution simply due to these beliefs. If so, the estimate of the effect of relationship compatibility will not reflect a causal relationship. The examination of a context where the belief in astrology is comparatively low thereby ascertains that the influence of such sources of bias is minimized.

Availability of data and materials

Individual-level data is confidential in accordance with the Swedish law. Access can, however, be granted through the Centre for Economic Demography, Lund University.

78 unique combinations if, e.g., Aries-Pisces and Pisces-Aries are counted as one.

The test is not straightforwardly applicable to a continuous classification of compatibility.

Abbreviations

Swedish Longitudinal Immigrant database

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge infrastructural support from the Centre for Economic Demography, Lund University. Earlier versions of this manuscript have been presented at seminars at the Stockholm University Demography Unit and at the University of Minnesota Life Course Center. Comments and suggestions from seminar participants are gratefully acknowledged. Helgertz acknowledges the Minnesota Population Center, which receives core funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), grant number P2C HD041023. Additionally, Helgertz acknowledges the University of Minnesota Life Course Center, funded by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under award number P30AG066613. The funding bodies played no role in the carrying out of the study.

Helgertz acknowledges the Minnesota Population Center, which receives core funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), grant number P2C HD041023. The funding body played no role in the carrying out of the study. Open access funding provided by Lund University.

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Additional file 1: table a1.

: Variable means, analytical sample. Table A2 : Cox proportional hazards regression hazard ratios. Complete models, with all sociodemographic characteristic. Table A3 : Cox proportional hazards estimates. Hazard ratios. Sensitivity analysis adjusting for asymmetries in original sources. Table A4 : Cox proportional hazards estimates. Hazard ratios. Sensitivity analysis on sample excluding cusp birth index individuals and spouse.

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Helgertz, J., Scott, K. The validity of astrological predictions on marriage and divorce: a longitudinal analysis of Swedish register data. Genus 76 , 34 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41118-020-00103-5

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[Signs of the zodiac and personality]

PMID: 969917
DOI: 10.1007/BF01994375

3074 young men resident in the canton of Zurich, representing 50% of the 19 year old male population, form the fully representative sample of our large scale investigation. We investigated whether personality traits measured by means of the differentiated "Freiburger personality inventory" (FPI) could in any way be correlated to the signs of the zodiac under which the young men were born. The statistical analysis did not reveal any correlation between signs of the zodiac and personality. The claim made by astrologers that people can be characterized according to their sign of the zodiac (sagitarius, taurus, cancer, scorpion) must be refuted. Of course the astrologically founded description of human personality does not base itself on the position of the sun only, however the latter does form a very essential part of the astrological evaluation of people. This, at any rate has been shown to be without any scientific basis. The fact that astrological evaluation of human personality is so popular nowadays can be explained by the fact that even modern people are inclined towards magical thinking.

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40 Astrology Topics: What Do You Need to Study About Astrology?

Believe it or not, Astrology has always been thought of as something that directly affects human lives. Moreover, as something so mainstream, it’s important that young and old understand the implications behind it and how the whole phenomenon even works. Knowing about something and having faith in it are two different things, and being a college student, it becomes necessary to open your mind to the former.

When students expand their insights and broaden their minds to different information and knowledge, it helps them make better references and stronger reason for existence. For this reason and many others, such as the book report writing service , a subject such as astrology is necessary to attend during college life.

Table of Contents

40 Astrology Topics for Good Research

In the meantime, come up with a good topic on Astrology for your own research. Look at what you can research in Astrology:

Astrology as a Historical and Cultural Phenomenon: What Is It?
Primitive People and Their Beliefs Related to Astrology
The Role of Ancient Peoples in Astrology: What Was Achieved?
How Truthful and Useful the Strange Ancient Practice of Astrology Were?
The Basic Principles Laid Down by Ptolemy Nearly 2000 Years Ago
The Influence of Astrology on the Fortunes of Kings and Nations
The Main Stages of the History in Astrology: What Is the Most Significant Period of Time and Why?
The Features of the Development of Astrology from Ancient Times to the Present Day
Why Did Several Prominent Philosophers (Giulio Libri and Cesare Cremonini) Refuse to Even Look Through the Telescope?
The Modern Stage of Astrology: The Crisis of Newtonian Physics
Classification of Astrological Knowledge Through the Ages
The Object, Subject and Epistemological Functions of Astrology
Astrology from the Standpoint of Religious and Philosophical Systems
Astrology and Religion: What Is the Connection Between Fields?
Astrology and Religious Practices: What Combines?
The Emergence of Developed Astrological Systems
The Crisis of “Scientific Astrology” and the Triumph of Newton’s Physics
The Development of Astrology Omens and Calendar Astrology
The Modern Definition of “Astrology”: 3 Aspects of the Concept
Is There Something Really Meaningful Behind Astrology?
How Far Can Astrology’s Musings Go Based on Examples?
Can Astrology Determine the Most Maddening Habits of Every Zodiac Sign?
World Famous Leaders and Their Zodiac Signs
What Will Happen If Hitler Had Another Star Sign?
If Astrologers Knew Who Hitler Would Become: Why Didn’t They Stop Him?
Mental Abilities of Each Sign of the Zodiac
Has It Been Determined Already if Astrology Is a Science or Not?
The Problem of the Relationship Between Scientific and Extra-Scientific Knowledge
The Interaction of Astrology with Various Scientific Disciplines: What Are They?
Are Astronomy and Astrology Two Different Notions?
How Can Astrology Possible Make a Difference in Our Lives?
Moon Can Make People Cry, Murder or Act Funny: What Is the Logic Behind It?
The Human Psyche Through the Eyes of an Astrologer
Mind and Space: Holotropic States of Consciousness, Archetypical Psychology, and Transit Astrology
Top 5 Natal Chart Trends Used in 2019
Why Do Horoscopes of the Same Zodiac Sign in Different Newspapers Differ So Much?
The Rationalization of Esoteric Thinking on the Material of Astrology
The Idea of Similarity in Astrology and Its Rational Equivalents
The Similarity as the Basis of the Astrological View of the World
Astrology as the Ultimate Ontological Framework

To be honest, there are so many hidden depths in Astrology that it can be really interesting to study many questions from different perspectives. Maybe, conducting research on these topics will make you think about this field in a different way and convince you that astrology really is something impressive. Look at what can help you make the research process smooth and pleasant.

The List of Information Sources on Astrology to Write a Good Paper

Despite the fact that a number of scientists do not recognize Astrology as a science arguing that it does not have an irrefutable evidence base, other researchers see the potential for discoveries in this field that can change the concept of life, the universe, the cosmos, and human. To empower your journey into this intriguing area, write my speech on the insights from these books and scientific journals, which you can use as a basis for your work and new discoveries in Astrology. Below, we have collected the most interesting and relevant studies on astrology, providing a solid foundation for further exploration and discourse.

Top 10 Books to Start a Journey in Astrology

If you just have started studying Astrology, it makes sense to start with books explaining basic concepts and then proceed to scientific researches. As a rule, books are written for a wide range of readers because this is a great way to take an introductory course, understand the basic vocabulary and terms, and make a list of questions for further study. Here are the books we recommend starting with.

The Manual of Astrology , 2010
A History of Western Astrology , 1987
A Guide To The Signs , 1992
Fundamentals of Astrology , 1988
Astrology For You , 2005
Astrology: Art and Science , 2013
Astrology: Sense or Nonsense? , 1974
Yogas in Astrology , 2003
Vedic Nadi Astrology And Career , 2005
Secrets Of Astrology , 2013

So, if you are well-versed in the basic concepts, let’s proceed to scientific researches the list of which we have collected below.

7 Scientific Articles on Astrology to Study and Analyze

International Journal of Jyotish Research offers various articles to study on Astrology, including:

Astrological Theory of Siddhars in the Context of Human Diseases Development, 2019
A Look at the Sun from an Astrological Point of View, 2019
Vedic Astrology: The Question of Predetermining Gender of the Unborn Person with Data Mining Methods, 2018
Influence of Planets on Export Trade: Astrology at the Interface with the Economy, 2018
Vaasthu Sasthiram Techniques, 2018
An Empirical Study of the Question If Our Birth and Sex Are Determined in Advance, 2018
Evidence of the Importance and Relevance of Vedic Astrology, 2018

Some More Sources of Information You May Use As Well

An Attempt to Prove That Astrology Is Still Valid as a Science, 1990
Criticism of Modern Concepts of Astrology,1997
Astrology from a Mathematical Point of View – What Is the Meaning of House Division?, 2000
New Attempts and Research Methods Used by Modern Astrologers, 2003
Astronomy and Astrology, 2011

Feel free to use the topic and materials provided in this article for your scientific immersion in the secrets of Astrology. The academic world is waiting for your new discoveries and theories on Astrology! Impress everyone with your well-written research paper , which you order from our specialists.

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Home ⇛ ani: letran calamba research report ⇛ vol. 2 no. 1 (2015), relationship of zodiac sign attributes and personality factor of selected 3rd and 4th year bs psychology students.

Zensam C. Flores | Ella Shane S. Lopez | Rose Anne L. Panganiban

Discipline: Psychology

The study determined if there was a relationship between zodiac sign attributes and personality factor of the 3rd and 4th year BS Psychology students AY 2013-3014 in Colegio de San Juan de Letran Calamba. Using a mix of qualitative and quantitative (correlation) research design, the researchers conducted a survey to determine the Zodiac Sign, name and year level of randomly selected 24 third and fourth year BS Psychology student participants; used a standardized test, specifically 16PF, to know the personality of the participants; and used an interview guide to clarify the data gathered or the Archival study about zodiac sign attributes.

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A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud

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Brian Harold May 0

Astrophysics Group Department of Physics, Imperial College, London, UK

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Written by Brian May, guitarist of the legendary rock band, Queen

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Heliocentric distance dependence of zodiacal light observed by Hayabusa2#

The Mysterious Radcliffe Wave

Interstellar Dust in the Solar System

Brian May PhD
Brian May thesis
Brian May's research
El Teide observations
Imperial College London
Solar System
Zodiacal Dust Cloud
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zodiacal light explained

Table of contents (5 chapters)

Front matter, introduction.

Brian Harold May

Preparations and experimental details 1971–1974

Reduction of the data, interpretation of results in terms of physical models, current developments and future plans, back matter, authors and affiliations, about the author, bibliographic information.

Book Title : A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud

Authors : Brian Harold May

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-77706-1

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50 Astrology Essay Topics

It is assumed that people started observing the sky in the Lower Paleolithic period – then, they identified the seasons of the year.In the 23rd – 22nd centuries BC, Arab astronomers studied several lunar eclipses. All those three phenomena overlapped with the change of three successive rulers of ancient Sumeria.

Thus, it was believed that the eclipses predicted the change of power. In those days, astrology was a mystical teaching, but it was then that the basis of scientific knowledge was created. It was astrology that accompanied the birth of all great civilizations. In ancient times, the exploration of the starry sky was carried out by priests. Their wisdom was considered secret and passed on from generation to generation, but the circle of the trusted people was kept small.

Later, astrology was studied by the outstanding scientists of Babylon and Assyria, Ancient Greece and Egypt, India and China. This way, Pythagoras, Plato, Cicero, Seneca, Aristotle, Claudius Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Avicenna and many others learned its secrets.

CAN’T FIND A DIFFERENCE Between A Moon Sign And A Sun Sign?

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Astrology supports the idea that the whole world is a unified system and its parts are closely connected. Thus, natural cycles affect the rhythms of planetary movement. Studying these cycles, it is possible to predict what will happen at a particular time and how the course of events will look like.

Also, another sphere worth studying is the astrology of personality. It states that each person has chances to define their own path, and its options can be described in the birth chart (horoscope).

Any event can be interrupted by free will. Thanks to astrology, we can get necessary information and warnings that help us avoid something or, on the contrary, realize the plans and intentions.

No doubt, all this makes astrology particularly interesting for college students who have open minds and are willing to broaden their horizons further.

50 Astrology Essay Topics Suggestions To Choose From

How is astrology research different from other school subjects? As it was mentioned earlier, astrology is related to various fields. So you will definitely have the opportunity to apply your knowledge to write outstanding astrology essay topics.

It is also important that many topics are poorly studied or completely unexplored, which allows you to become a pioneer in this matter. You might be inspired by one of the following:

The Essence of Astrology as a Cultural and Historical Phenomenon
How Do Ancient People's Beliefs Relate to Astrology?
Successes of Ancient People in Studying Astrology
Ancient Astrological Practices: Do They Have a Right to Exist?
What Principles Were Laid by Ptolemy 2000 Years Ago?
How Did the Fates of Nations and Kings Change Because of Astrology?
Major Stages in the Development of Astrology and What Makes Them So
Characteristics of the Development of Astrology from Ancient Period to Our Time
Why Did Philosophers Refuse to Observe the Starry Sky?
Hard Times for Newtonian Physics, or Modern Stage of Astrology
Astrological Knowledge Base: Perspective of Different Ages
Astrology: Its Subject, Object and Functions
A Look at Astrology from the Perspective of Philosophy and Religion
The Connection between Astrology and Religion
What Unites Astrology and Religious Practices
Developed Astrological Systems: The Reasons for Their Origin
The Rise of Newtonian Physics and the Decline of Scientific Astrology
Calendar Astrology and Astrology Omens: Their Evolution and Prospects
What is Modern Astrology Characterized by?
What Are the Key Aspects Behind Astrology?
What Can Astrology’s Musings Offer, Based on Examples?
Can Astrology Describe the Negative Character Traits of the Zodiac Signs?
Zodiac Signs of World Rulers and Leaders
Would History Change If Hitler Had Another Zodiac Sign?
Why Didn't Astrologers Stop Hitler Knowing His Zodiac Sign?
Talents and Traits of Various Signs
Is Astrology a Science? Pros and Cons
Scientific and Extra-Scientific Knowledge: What Do They Have in Common?
The Connection Between Astrology and Other Sciences
Astronomy and Astrology: Are They Different Disciplines?
Can Astrology Change Our Life?
How Does the Moon Affect Our Habits and Lifestyle?
A Look at the Psyche from an Astrological Perspective
Archetypical Psychology: Its Basics and Functions
Natal Chart Trends Used in 2021
Horoscopes in Magazines: Is There Any Truth In Them?
Can Esoteric Be Called Rational: An Astrological Perspective
Rationalism in Psychology: Its Foundations
Similarity As A Basic Principle Of Astrology
Can Ontology Be Learned With The Help of Astrology?
The Role of Free Will in Hindu Astrology
Contribution of Nostradamus to the Development of Astrology
Zodiac Symbolism and Its Role In Modern Astrology
Astrology in the 21st century: Characteristics and Perspectives
Influence of Astrology on Contemporary Art
Should Astrology Affect Our Way of Thinking?
Predictions by Medieval Astrologers: Did They Come True?
The Four Elements and Their Key Characteristics from an Astrological Perspective
Why Is Astrology So Popular These Days?
Studying Astrology: Where To Start?

Of course, the field is so in-depth that the list of astrology essay topics can be endless. As you explore it, you may discover things you have never heard of before. Or vice versa, you can ensure that your earlier understanding was right. In any case, deep research always leads to interesting results.

Facing a tight deadline and unsure where to start with your essay? Consider reaching out to a " write my essay " service for professional, personalized assistance that can help you meet your academic goals without the last-minute panic. This could be a game-changer for students aiming for excellence but stretched thin on time.

If Nostradamus Were Still Here, He'd Definitely USE THE HELP OF OUR WRITERS

Place an order and get your astrology paper done by experienced helpers.

Resources to Help you Write A Brilliant Work

Despite the fact that many researchers consider astrology a pseudoscience, many see its excellent potential for understanding the Universe, our destinies and human nature And that is why there is a wide range of sections which differ in tasks. Perhaps some of them will inspire you to complete your astrology topics:

Natal astrology predicts the main trends in the person’s destiny, their character traits, talents, predispositions, etc.;

Synastry astrology deals with how the relationships develop;

Medical astrology studies health issues;

Electional astrology suggests the best moment to do something;

Mundane astrology predicts how states and nations will evolve;

Vedic astrology is associated with Ayurveda, yoga and other esoteric studies;

Astropsychology is a combination of astrology and psychology, based on the theories of Carl Jung;

Karmic astrology reveals the causes of certain problems (debts, diseases), and also determines the purpose of people’s lives, their mission.

Once you select the theme, you need to find books that describe the foundations of astrology and then move on to scientific research. Here’s a list of such resources we’ve prepared for you:

The Only Way to Learn Astrology, by Marion D. March and Joan McEvers, 2018
The Eagle and the Lark, by Bernadette Brady, 1998
The Inner Sky, by Steven Forrest, 2012
The Essential Guide to Practical Astrology, by April Elliott Kent, 2016
Planets in Transit, by Robert Hand, 1980
Aspects in Astrology: A Guide to Understanding Planetary Relationships in the Horoscope, by Sue Tompkins, 2002
The Twelve Houses, by Howard Sasportas, 2009
Astrology: Sense Or Nonsense?, by Roy A. Gallant, 1974
Fundamentals of Astrology, by M. Ramakrishna Bhat, 1988
Astrology: Art and Science, by Sandy Anastasi, 2013

Struggling to capture your thoughts on paper? Our custom essay writing service can transform your ideas into a compelling and academically rigorous essay, tailored to your specific requirements. Let us help you achieve academic success with ease and confidence.

Scientific Articles That May Be Handy

Astrology topics are closely related to various sciences and religions, ancient spiritual practices and modern techniques of self-improvement. Why does interest in astrology grow over time?

The answer is simple – it’s the eternal desire of a person to know their future and ways of shaping it.

Thanks to astrology, it is possible to realize how various spheres of life are connected and get a broader perspective on many things. It also gives a chance to observe the cosmic order in our chaotic life. Knowing what the future has in store, many people feel more self-confident and calmer.

So, what do scientists think about this? We have compiled a list of articles worthy of your attention:

Astrology and Modern Science: A Critical Analysis, by Lawrence E. Jerome, 1973
The Scientific Evidence of Astrology, by Abhinav Kashyap, 2019
How Astrology Paved the Way for Predictive Analytics, by Philip Ball, 2020
What Makes Some People Think Astrology is Scientific?, by Nick Allum
Significance of Astrology In Our Lives, by Rumani Saikia Phukan, 2015

Extra Books For You to Read

From ancient times, astrology was considered as a means for determining the fate of a person by the position and movement of the stars. The famous astronomer Ptolemy wrote the foundational textbook, covering many astrology topics.

Interestingly, the scientist believed that the location of the stars does not determine destiny entirely, as the main choice still depends on the person. And what do you think? In case you are still wondering, if it’s true, here are some materials to get acquainted with:

Seeing Stars: Harness the Power of the Zodiac, by Stella Andromeda, 2019
Astrology for the Soul, by Jan Spiller, 1997
Vedic Astrology for Beginners, by Pamela McDonough, 2020
Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune, by Chris Brennan, 2017
Astrology, Karma and Transformation, by Stephen Arroyo, 1992.

To Wrap It Up

The universe is a system where everything has its laws. According to astrology, those who know the rules can choose what’s better for their present and future. In our modern world where everything changes so fast, people are in a constant hurry. Many find themselves in difficult and even desperate situations. That is why astrology becomes a helpful tool.

We hope that the materials and astrology essay topics mentioned in the article will be useful for your research – be free to use them. And let the world be amazed by your discoveries!

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The Zodiac Killer: History and Profile Research Paper

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Victimology

Perpetrator profiling.

The stories about the murders committed by the Zodiac maniac are numerous. The topic has been speculated about more than once by many people for a variety of purposes. Opinions differ in estimating the number of victims at the hands of the serial killer. Moreover, the maniac attributes many more murders to himself than law enforcement authorities have admitted. Proven victims of the Zodiac are the following people:

Boyfriend David Faraday, age 17, and his loving girlfriend, Betty Lou Jensen. The couple arranged their first date at the lakeshore. The lovers were sitting in the car when a maniac approached them in his car. He made them leave the car and shot them in cold blood. The girl tried to escape but could not escape death;
Mike Mageau at age 17 and Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin at age 22. The maniac began shooting them in the parking lot of the town of Vallejo, California. Mike was lucky to stay alive, but for the girl, the story had a fatal outcome;
Brian Hartnell in his 20s and Cecilia Sheppard in her 22s. The Zodiac used a stabbing rather than a firearm in the attack. The girl died, and the boy, who was stabbed eight times in the back by the maniac, was spared his life;
Paul Lee Stein at age 29. The killer shot him in San Francisco (Wall, 2021).

The list of victims in which the Zodiac is recognized as the killer includes four cases. The maniac may have been involved in several other cases in addition to that.

Robert Domingos at the age of 18 and the girl Linda Edwards at the age of 16. Just like the maniac’s first victims, they were shot and killed on the lake shore;
Cheri Jo Bates, age 18. The Zodiac serial killer stabbed her multiple times. The girl’s head was nearly severed from her body after the attack. It was not until four years after the incident that a journalist for a San Francisco newspaper received private notice that the Zodiac had committed the crime. The facts he received in the report do not exclude the actual involvement of the maniac in the murder but do not constitute direct evidence of this version;
Donna Lass, a 25-year-old girl, had been reported missing until a postcard arrived at the paper’s editorial office. Some believe that the Zodiac maniac had been involved in her disappearance. Nevertheless, no evidence was found to support this version during the investigation (Wall, 2021).

The main feature of the choice of the victims is that they were young people and were not chosen to enrich the perpetrator.

The criminal knew geography well and knew how to calculate coordinates. Graphs with coordinates of longitude and latitude of the places of his crimes form almost parallel lines. Zodiac was familiar with astronomical and navigational instruments for calculating coordinates: astrolabe, compass, sextant, gnomon. Many of these instruments are shaped like the Zodiac emblem – a circle divided into four equal parts. It also resembles a nomogram to translate radians into degrees and back. In his 1969 letters, the killer said that the radians were the key to unlocking his identity. The experts connected the coordinates of the Zodiac crime scenes with lines on the map (Voigt & Edwards, 2021).

The crimes, carefully prepared, were committed each time differently. He did not want to be boring at the risk of making a mistake. He fantasized and perhaps improvised. He was a narcissist; he craved attention and fame; he contacted his victims. They wanted them to see him. By mocking the police, he sought to assert himself. Often his crimes contained the motive of sexual gratification.

Being a skilled liar, Zodiac took offense and got angry when he was caught in a lie. He would then threaten revenge, either with more murders or more bombings. In extreme situations, he acted calmly: leaving crime scenes, moving toward the police, and calling cops from pay phones near the police headquarters to brag about the crimes (Wall, 2021). The Zodiac was a narcissist; he craved attention and fame, making contact with his victims. They wanted them to see him. Mocking the police, he sought to assert himself.

Five of the twenty letters are signed with the astrological symbol of Taurus. He may have been born between April 20 and May 19. The Zodiac follows the lunar and solar cycles, killing at the full moon or new moon. Kathleen Johnson was abducted on the day of the spring solstice. Alleged victim Donna Lass – abducted and killed on the fall solstice.

The attacks occurred on holidays (Christmas and Independence Day) or Saturday evenings and nights. Investigators came to two conclusions: Zodiac worked on weekdays, and his free time because he had no family allowed him to plan the crimes and talk to the press carefully. His income was enough to buy guns, change cars (Zodiac was seen in four different cars in 1969) and move freely around the state.

The police had the sketch, twenty letters, three cryptograms, a pair of bloody gloves, a boot print, DNA, and fingerprints. The audio recording of the maniac’s conversations with the police dispatcher disappeared. The white male is 25-40 years old, 172-180 cm tall, and has brownish or slightly reddish hair (Voigt & Edwards, 2021). The man had a big face, massive horn-rimmed glasses. On the days of the crimes, he was seen wearing a brown sports jacket with cuffs, a black or navy blue zippered windbreaker, navy-style wool pants, black and red wool sweater, and military boots. It is not known for certain whether this man had extensive military experience. But since the perpetrator has basic military navigation skills, it can be assumed that short-term military service was involved.

Zodiac knew at least one way of ciphering: when each character in the text is replaced by a letter from the encrypted alphabet. This is how he encoded his first cryptogram (408 characters) (Voigt & Edwards, 2021). The couple from the Californian city of Salinas, schoolteacher Donald Gardens and his wife Betty decrypted it in 20 hours. The other two Zodiac cryptograms are still unresolved.

The Zodiac is a solo killer because he has a unique M.O. that remains constant throughout all the episodes in which he has confessed. The Zodiac killer emphasized his originality with a series of letters sent to newspaper editorial offices. They contained coded information about the maniac and descriptions of the details of individual episodes of his murders, which constituted investigative secrecy and had not been published anywhere. The maniac claimed that his codes contained enough information to catch him. After summarizing the data on the murders, police officers compiled a description of Zodiac’s handwriting.

These features are present in one way or another in all the murders the maniac has committed. They are used to speculate about the Zodiac’s involvement in all those murders for which there is no conclusive evidence:

Zodiac’s victims are most often young people, usually couples;
The maniac went on his bloody hunt in the dark time of the day or at dusk, but not in the daytime.
The Zodiac was not interested in money and did not commit his murders for the sake of getting rich. Sexual motives were not evident in the composition of the crime.
The maniac used different kinds of weapons to commit murders – both firearms and bladed weapons.
All of the crimes committed by Zodiac occurred either near open bodies of water or in places whose name contained a reference to water.
Zodiac reported his crimes to the police – most likely, this game gave him pleasure (Voigt & Edwards, 2021).

In addition, the Zodiac murderer repeatedly made demands that, if not met, he would kill again. According to him, 37 people have been murdered. The police opinion contradicts his statements, officially, he is credited with seven assaults. The age of the victims recognized by the investigators ranged from 19 to 39 years; four of them were men (Voigt & Edwards, 2021).We can assume that Zodiac did not intentionally create copycats or work as part of a team of people. The main reason for this is the cessation of the crimes, along with the disappearance of the killer himself. The fact that the crimes attributed to Zodiac were committed by him and not by his accomplices can be proved by the DNA evidence collected from the backs of the stamps on the envelopes.

In one way or another, during the active investigation, about 2,500 people were considered potential criminals. But I believe that the detectives’ strongest is Arthur Lee Allen since he matches best the criminal profiling. The man had been discharged from military service in 1958, after which he worked as a schoolteacher in California. But he lost that job, too, for molesting minors. Left with no money, Allen moved in with his parents and worked part-time at a car service, where he was fired in 1969 (Voigt & Edwards, 2021). In 2018, media published a large piece claiming that Zodiac committed crimes in Italy as well (Voigt & Edwards, 2021). In Florence, from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, a maniac operated, shooting up young couples. The criminal, dubbed the Florence Monster, was also never found. According to Tempi, a man named Giuseppe Bevilacqua, an American with Italian roots, was behind the crimes in Italy and the United States. He is still alive and allegedly confessed to the author of the investigation about the crimes; but the conversation was not recorded. When the information was passed to the Italian police, and they became interested in Bevilacqua, he denied the accusations – and there was no evidence other than a number of coincidences. There are no inconsistencies in the dates of the murders. Moreover, the crimes in the two countries could indeed have been committed by the same maniac since the handwriting and choice of victims are similar.

The symbol on the dial of Lee’s wristwatch (a circle with a cross in the middle) matched what the Zodiac left in his letters, a similar shoe size (investigators found footprints of the criminal at the crime scene), the man’s acquaintances recalled that he liked to solve puzzles and ciphers, and moreover, in passing, expressed fantasies about killing people. Finally, the man lived in a trailer not far from all the places where the attacks took place.

Voigt, T., & Edwards, G. (2021). Zodiac killer: Just the facts. Brainjar Media.

Wall, G. (2021) Zodiac maniac: The secret history of the zodiac killer Expanded Edition . Paperback.

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IvyPanda. (2024, April 6). The Zodiac Killer: History and Profile. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-zodiac-killer-history-and-profile/

"The Zodiac Killer: History and Profile." IvyPanda , 6 Apr. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/the-zodiac-killer-history-and-profile/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'The Zodiac Killer: History and Profile'. 6 April.

IvyPanda . 2024. "The Zodiac Killer: History and Profile." April 6, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-zodiac-killer-history-and-profile/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Zodiac Killer: History and Profile." April 6, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-zodiac-killer-history-and-profile/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Zodiac Killer: History and Profile." April 6, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-zodiac-killer-history-and-profile/.

Astrology and Science: A Precarious Relationship Part 2: Consideration of Empirical Investigations on the Validity of Astrology

December 2020
Journal of Scientific Exploration 34(4):792-828
34(4):792-828
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'AI Scientist' Writes Science Papers Without Human Input. Why That's Concerning

These are some big claims. Do they stack up? And even if they do, would an army of AI scientists churning out research papers with inhuman speed really be good news for science?

Wes Cockx & Google DeepMind / Better Images of AI, CC BY.

Scientific discovery is one of the most sophisticated human activities. First, scientists must understand the existing knowledge and identify a significant gap. Next, they must formulate a research question and design and conduct an experiment in pursuit of an answer. Then, they must analyse and interpret the results of the experiment, which may raise yet another research question.

Can a process this complex be automated? Last week, Sakana AI Labs announced the creation of an “AI scientist” – an artificial intelligence system they claim can make scientific discoveries in the area of machine learning in a fully automated way.

Using generative large language models (LLMs) like those behind ChatGPT and other AI chatbots, the system can brainstorm, select a promising idea, code new algorithms, plot results, and write a paper summarising the experiment and its findings, complete with references. Sakana claims the AI tool can undertake the complete lifecycle of a scientific experiment at a cost of just US$15 per paper – less than the cost of a scientist's lunch.

How a computer can ‘do science'

A lot of science is done in the open, and almost all scientific knowledge has been written down somewhere (or we wouldn't have a way to “know” it). Millions of scientific papers are freely available online in repositories such as arXiv and PubMed .

LLMs trained with this data capture the language of science and its patterns. It is therefore perhaps not at all surprising that a generative LLM can produce something that looks like a good scientific paper – it has ingested many examples that it can copy.

What is less clear is whether an AI system can produce an interesting scientific paper. Crucially, good science requires novelty.

But is it interesting?

Scientists don't want to be told about things that are already known. Rather, they want to learn new things, especially new things that are significantly different from what is already known. This requires judgement about the scope and value of a contribution.

The Sakana system tries to address interestingness in two ways. First, it “scores” new paper ideas for similarity to existing research (indexed in the Semantic Scholar repository). Anything too similar is discarded.

Second, Sakana's system introduces a “peer review” step – using another LLM to judge the quality and novelty of the generated paper. Here again, there are plenty of examples of peer review online on sites such as openreview.net that can guide how to critique a paper. LLMs have ingested these, too.

AI may be a poor judge of AI output

Feedback is mixed on Sakana AI's output. Some have described it as producing “ endless scientific slop ”.

Even the system's own review of its outputs judges the papers weak at best. This is likely to improve as the technology evolves, but the question of whether automated scientific papers are valuable remains.

The ability of LLMs to judge the quality of research is also an open question. My own work (soon to be published in Research Synthesis Methods ) shows LLMs are not great at judging the risk of bias in medical research studies, though this too may improve over time.

Sakana's system automates discoveries in computational research, which is much easier than in other types of science that require physical experiments. Sakana's experiments are done with code, which is also structured text that LLMs can be trained to generate.

AI tools to support scientists, not replace them

AI researchers have been developing systems to support science for decades. Given the huge volumes of published research, even finding publications relevant to a specific scientific question can be challenging.

Specialised search tools make use of AI to help scientists find and synthesise existing work. These include the above-mentioned Semantic Scholar, but also newer systems such as Elicit , Research Rabbit , scite and Consensus .

Text mining tools such as PubTator dig deeper into papers to identify key points of focus, such as specific genetic mutations and diseases, and their established relationships. This is especially useful for curating and organising scientific information.

Machine learning has also been used to support the synthesis and analysis of medical evidence, in tools such as Robot Reviewer . Summaries that compare and contrast claims in papers from Scholarcy help to perform literature reviews.

All these tools aim to help scientists do their jobs more effectively, not to replace them.

AI research may exacerbate existing problems

While Sakana AI states it doesn't see the role of human scientists diminishing, the company's vision of “a fully AI-driven scientific ecosystem” would have major implications for science.

One concern is that, if AI-generated papers flood the scientific literature, future AI systems may be trained on AI output and undergo model collapse . This means they may become increasingly ineffectual at innovating.

However, the implications for science go well beyond impacts on AI science systems themselves.

There are already bad actors in science, including “paper mills” churning out fake papers . This problem will only get worse when a scientific paper can be produced with US$15 and a vague initial prompt.

The need to check for errors in a mountain of automatically generated research could rapidly overwhelm the capacity of actual scientists. The peer review system is arguably already broken , and dumping more research of questionable quality into the system won't fix it.

Science is fundamentally based on trust. Scientists emphasise the integrity of the scientific process so we can be confident our understanding of the world (and now, the world's machines) is valid and improving.

( Author: Karin Verspoor , Dean, School of Computing Technologies, RMIT University, RMIT University )

( Disclosure Statement: Karin Verspoor receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Medical Research Future Fund, the National Health and Medical Research Council, and Elsevier BV. She is affiliated with BioGrid Australia and is a co-founder of the Australian Alliance for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare)

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Research: How to Build Consensus Around a New Idea

Devon Proudfoot
Wayne Johnson

Strategies for overcoming the disagreements that can stymie innovation.

Previous research has found that new ideas are seen as risky and are often rejected. New research suggests that this rejection can be due to people’s lack of shared criteria or reference points when evaluating a potential innovation’s value. In a new paper, the authors find that the more novel the idea, the more people differ on their perception of its value. They also found that disagreement itself can make people view ideas as risky and make them less likely to support them, regardless of how novel the idea is. To help teams get on the same page when it comes to new ideas, they suggest gathering information about evaluator’s reference points and developing criteria that can lead to more focused discussions.

Picture yourself in a meeting where a new idea has just been pitched, representing a major departure from your company’s standard practices. The presenter is confident about moving forward, but their voice is quickly overtaken by a cacophony of opinions from firm opposition to enthusiastic support. How can you make sense of the noise? What weight do you give each of these opinions? And what does this disagreement say about the idea?

DP Devon Proudfoot is an Associate Professor of Human Resource Studies at Cornell’s ILR School. She studies topics related to diversity and creativity at work.
Wayne Johnson is a researcher at the Utah Eccles School of Business. He focuses on evaluations and decisions about new information, including persuasion regarding creative ideas and belief change.

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08-20-2024 TECH

How AI tools help students—and their professors—in academic research

New systems can help surface relevant research papers and quickly understand what they have to say.

[Photo: Nikish Hiraman/peopleimages.com/Adobe Stock]

BY Steven Melendez 7 minute read

For students and professional scholars alike, starting a new research project typically means digging through academic literature to understand what others have already written.

That can take a considerable amount of time, with researchers tracking down and combing through journal articles to begin their research and contextualize their own findings. But a growing collection of AI-powered tools aims to make that process easier. These new tools can help researchers more quickly find relevant papers, pull out relevant information from them, or both.

“It can be a really helpful way to get started with research, especially for students who aren’t familiar with the research process,” says Breanne Kirsch, director of the library at Illinois College. “As long as they’re taught how to use it in an ethical way, and that they can then expand beyond what it does.”

A tool called Elicit can help researchers conduct what are called systematic reviews , which involve going through copious amounts of published research to find an answer to a question, like how a particular drug affects a medical condition. “It’s all very, very manual,” says James Brady, head of engineering at Elicit. “It takes teams of people many months, and you know, costs hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to do these things.”

Elicit can make that process much faster, and also help researchers by quickly finding and summarizing published papers related to a particular question. It can also generate tables describing a whole set of relevant papers, with columns for data points like algorithms and statistical techniques used, variables examined, and the number of participants in experiments.

The company recommends researchers still look at the original papers, and Brady emphasizes that the tool doesn’t replace the human judgment and analysis necessary to scientific research. “It’s not like you take the final step of Elicit and hit the publish button and then it ends up in Nature or something,” he says, but it can still greatly speed the process of sifting through and understanding prior work.

Understanding how AI can help academic research is part of a larger industry question of how and when the technology can replace or supplement traditional web search tools. And since the 1990s , computer scientists have realized that the academic publishing landscape—where scholars cite each other’s papers and publish in journals with a particular reputation in a particular field—isn’t that different from the internet ecosystem . That means techniques for finding relevant materials, minimizing AI errors and hallucinations, and presenting useful and verifiable results to the user may transfer from academia to the broader web.

Indeed, not everyone searching for scientific answers is a professional scientist. And the organizations behind these tools say they can be especially helpful for people looking to understand new fields of interest, whether they’re students, professionals doing interdisciplinary work, or interested members of the public.

Eric Olson, cofounder and CEO at AI research search engine Consensus , says about 50% of the tool’s research is at academic institutions, where it’s often used by graduate students. “We typically do quite well with folks who need that easy, quick access to research but maybe aren’t a full-blown expert yet,” he says.

Consensus lets users type in natural language queries to get answers summarized from across published work. It surfaces summaries of particular papers, metadata like publication year and citation count, and an indication of how much scientific consensus there is about a particular question. Another popular audience for the tool is healthcare workers, including doctors, who use the tool to get insights more quickly than traditional scholarly search engines or Google can provide. Everyday users also use Consensus to research health topics, parenting practices, and policy issues in the news, Olson says.

Like other companies in the field, Consensus doesn’t simply rely on a single GPT-style large language model to generate answers to user questions. The company deploys a custom search engine to find papers addressing a query, and a variety of expert-trained language models to extract relevant information and—equally important—verify the paper is actually on topic, cutting the chance that an overzealous AI model will try to point out facts that aren’t actually there.

“I’m only gonna let this go to the model if we think that it actually has a relevant insight in it,” Olson says. “It’s a really great trick to reduce the risk of misinterpreting the paper.”

Academic publishing giant Elsevier has similarly developed a tool called Scopus AI to search through research collected in its Scopus database , which includes article abstracts and metadata from tens of thousands of journals (including those published by rival publishers). Scopus AI can generate summary responses based on particular queries, suggest additional questions to help users expand their knowledge of the field, and highlight “foundational papers” and “topic expert” authors who have especial influence in an area of expertise.

“We’ve actually found this is quite a shared need across a number of different people who are at this precipice of trying to understand another domain,” says Maxim Khan, SVP of analytics products and data platform at Elsevier.

Khan says users have confirmed it helps them understand new fields faster and come across papers they might not otherwise have discovered. Thanks in part to licensing terms, the tool doesn’t include full text, meaning users can’t directly query about material in articles beyond the abstracts and citations.

Other software can help users dive deep into specific research. An AI tool from JStor , still in limited beta, lets users see article summaries customized to their particular queries and can answer questions based on document contents, pointing to particular passages that contain the answer. That can help users figure out which papers are relevant enough for a close read, and the tool can also point to other topics or particular papers for a user to investigate based on particular passages.

“The user actually is now having a conversation with the article, and so they’re engaging with the article in a completely different way,” says Kevin Guthrie, president of JStor’s nonprofit parent, Ithaka. “Obviously, there’s a very big difference from just downloading an article or downloading the PDF and reading it.”

The organization, with its focus on helping students with research, deliberately doesn’t generate aggregate answers to particular questions from multiple articles. Beth LaPensee, senior product manager at Ithaka, says the software can help students learning research skills and specialized vocabulary understand material they might otherwise struggle with. In a June blog post, Guthrie and LaPensee compared the process to learning the basic plot of a Shakespeare play before diving into the antiquated text, and say it can be especially helpful with humanities and social science papers that customarily don’t include abstracts.

The software has also proven helpful to professors. “One faculty member we were talking to said that they could do in one day what used to take them four or five days,” LaPensee says.

And the organization has found participants in the AI beta, which is slated to expand in the fall, spend “significantly more time on JStor” than other users.

Measuring results—and even knowing what to measure—is naturally an important part of testing new AI resources. Since 2015, a project called Semantic Scholar has focused on using AI to analyze scientific papers. It’s part of Ai2 , the AI research institute founded by late Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, and today it includes features to help users understand papers, like surfacing definitions of technical terms from within a paper or other research it cites, answering general questions about specific papers, and generating “tl; dr” summaries of papers based on the types of descriptions authors post on social media.

How to test whether those summaries were helpful wasn’t immediately obvious, recalls Dan Weld, chief scientist and general manager of Semantic Scholar. If users were benefiting from them, they might either click more articles from search results—if the summaries indicated they were interesting—or fewer, if the summaries helped them weed out extraneous results. But when the summaries were later added to email alerts, the results seemed positive—users clicked fewer emailed articles overall, but were more likely to save articles they clicked, suggesting the summaries steered them to interesting work.

Evaluating a feature Semantic Scholar is currently testing to answer questions from across multiple papers is even more challenging, according to Weld, who says, “It’s really quite difficult to compare different systems. There are some other systems out there that do question answering—we think ours is better than theirs, but we can’t prove it yet.”

And since different AI research tools have access to different sets of papers as well as different features, researchers may still find they need to use multiple AI platforms—often along with traditional database tools—to find everything they need. It’s important to note, Illinois College’s Kirsch says, that reading AI summaries can’t substitute for working through actual papers and verifying that they say what the tools claim, tempting though it can be.

“While the generative AI tools may help as a starting point, just like Wikipedia would, you still want to go to some of those actual sources,” she says. “You can’t just rely solely on the GenAI tools. You also need to look at the sources themselves and make sure it really does make sense for what you’re trying to do and what you’re trying to research.”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steven Melendez is an independent journalist living in New Orleans. More

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