An Astrology Discussion

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So I was reading about astrology and the zodiac signs and was surprised at how accurately each sign described the personalities of my family and friend that I knew the birthday's of.

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That's almost certainly confirmation bias at work.When I ask people who know me who also believe in Astrology to guess my sign, they are never, ever correct. Not even close.The trick to avoid bias is to read the descriptions without knowing what sign they are for, and THEN try to match them up with people without knowing the people's birth months.

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It seems to me that the time of year that you are born in has some affect on how you turn out. What do you think?..any affect at all?

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Highly unlikely.

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Now, I do not think this necessitates that something paranormal is going on. Astrology attributes it to extraterrestrial activity, you know, planets n’stuff. That seems paranormal to me. How could something extraterrestrial affect your personality? Because of its gravity?

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No idea.

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I think it is caused by something terrestrial. Maybe how your age cycle lines up with the seasonal cycle, or something like that. If the beginning of each of your new age years fall in the winter, you might turn out different than if they fell in the summer. To me, it seems like that could affect someone’s personality.

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How?

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Assuming that the time of year that you are born in has some affect on how you turn out, what do you think causes it? Is there any scientific explanation we could come up with that could explain the phenomenon? Or is the scientific view that there is no affect at all?

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Here's a good science-based essay on astrology

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There are at least 10 components to a personality, as represented by the ten planets

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So what happens now that Pluto isn't a planet anymore?

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So what would you say if I could predict people's signs by matching descriptions of the signs to the person's personality?

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Well, if it was just you able to do it, it doesn't mean anything.If 200 people could do it more accurately than chance would predict, then that would be interesting.And, let's not forget that you said that the descriptions weren't 100% accurate.Well, how inaccurate were they? I mean, I think that almost everybody can exhibit many, many personality traits.And we'd have to get quite specific and quantifiable with the descriptions for them to mean much, as well.And, what about people in different stages of life, before or after therapy, or even brain injury?I mean, I have a much different personality in many ways now than when I was 18.

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It wouldn't be me, it would be the descriptions I was reading from.

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But it's people who have to decide how the descriptions of the personality traits manifest in the people they supposedly know, and also decide if they are accurate or not.