Talk:Astrology/Archive 35

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Final final wordsmithing

It's been 2 or 3 days and discussion has calmed down. User:Apaugasma / User:ජපස / anyone else involved: is it time for a RfC?

--MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 09:47, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, but we should agree amongst ourselves before composing the proposal for consideration by others. I think we were at something like this:

Astrology is a form of divination, rejected by modern science, where practitioners claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. To the extent that astrologers claim to have scientific evidence that astrology works, astrology has been identified by science educators and skeptics as a protoypical example of pseudoscience. Astrological practices have been documented as far back as the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications.

The only novel edit here is the sentence about pseudoscience which I tried to augment to accommodate the two senses of pseudoscience (unfalsifiable and falsified but still promoted) as per the discussion by Apaugasma. Perhaps there is a more artful way to do this. jps (talk) 11:28, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

I am not going to support any text that uses the words 'skeptics' to describe those supporting the scientific consensus regarding the divinatory efficacy of astrology. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:17, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that is a problem. And I'm not entirely sure about "prototypical". I think it would be better just to assert "To the extent that astrologers claim to have scientific evidence that astrology works, astrology is a textbook example of pseudoscience." This captures the sense it has been designated as such by scholars I think and is nicely WP:YESPOV. Alexbrn (talk) 12:23, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

That WP:ASSERT version of the sentence is fine with me. jps (talk) 12:24, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Fine with me as well, it's sufficiently nuanced and narrow. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 12:57, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

The scientific consensus (from astronomers, etc.) is not that astrology is a pseudoscience, but rather that astrology has no explanatory power. Those are two very specific claims. Caloric theory is empirically untenable, but it is not (or was not) pseudoscience. It is not up to the scientific community per se to demarcate science vs. non-science or in fact pseudoscience: that is indeed up to philosophers of science, science educators, and lately the skeptical movement. There is, of course, significant overlap.

Though I would argue that skeptics is very defensible in the article as it is the modern skeptical movement largely spearheading the criticism of astrology and similar practices, it is something of a loaded term, and philosophers of science would almost certainly be a better choice. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 13:08, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Andy's objection: the whole "by" (science educators/skeptics/philosophers of science) is problematic: all of our sources, no matter their background, agree on this, and mentioning any group explicitly makes it look like it would only be them saying this. I do think that replacing "empirical evidence" with "scientific evidence" was a nice move to include pseudoscience qua making empirically unfalsifiable claims.

I like Alexbrn's suggestion: straightforward and concise.

It's probably a good idea to also include the older proposal first mentioned in the 'Further/final wordsmithing' section as a third option in the RfC (next to this one and the current revision). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:59, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

okay

Astrology is a form of divination, rejected by modern science, where practitioners claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. To the extent that astrologers claim to have scientific evidence that astrology works, astrology is a textbook example of pseudoscience. Astrological practices have been documented as far back as the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications.

Note that there is an article scientific evidence, but I'm not sure wikilinking it is all that useful in this case.

Also there are about six or seven references we could use in the lede, but there is an argument to be made for putting references in the body of the text where, I notice, two excellent references currently being used in the lede are not included (and probably should be). I am all for excising dicdef references from articles (1 and 2).

jps (talk) 22:37, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Request for comments: Lead paragraph

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is a consensus for option B, which has majority support, as well as significant secondary support. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:38, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

---

How should the first sentences of the lead be worded?

• Option A – Keep the current revision:

Astrology is a pseudoscience that claims to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the movements and relative positions of celestial objects. Astrology has been practiced since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, and has its roots in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications.

• Option B – Change to:

Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications.

• Option C – Change to:

Astrology is a form of divination, rejected by modern science, where practitioners claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. To the extent that astrologers claim to have scientific evidence that astrology works, astrology is a textbook example of pseudoscience. Astrological practices have been documented as far back as the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications.

The new proposals were formulated as a result of the discussions above. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:16, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

This RfC has been advertised on the WikiProjects Skepticism, Philosophy, Occult, History of Science, and Classical Greece and Rome. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:22, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

• Change to option B (preferably) or C, strongly oppose A: sources are quasi unanimous in recognizing that in its modern form, astrology is a pseudoscience. Per WP:PSCI, it should be clearly described as such. However, historians and philosophers of science often warn that pseudoscience is a modern phenomenon, and that it should not be retroactively applied to historical forms. Examples are numerous:
  • Paul Thagard in his 1978 paper "Why Astrology is a Pseudoscience" (cited in our article since 2011) says that a theory can be scientific at one time but pseudoscientific at another, that astrology should be judged as not pseudoscientific in classical or Renaissance times, and that relativizing the science/pseudoscience distinction to historical periods is a desirable result (full quote below).
  • Tamsyn Barton in her 1994 Ancient Astrology writes that the old tendency to see astrology as a pseudo-science is an anachronistic diversion from the more fruitful enquiry into how astrology functioned in antiquity.
  • According to Roger Beck in his 2007 A Brief History of Ancient Astrology, "just a pseudo-science" is a wholly inadequate characterization of ancient astrology.
  • Wouter Hanegraaff in his 2012 monograph warns against an anachronistic use of basic concepts, citing Lynn Thorndike and David Pingree as examples of prominent historians of science who reacted to the standard post-eighteenth-century image of astrology as “pseudoscience,” (full quote below).
  • Francesca Rochberg in the 2018 Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World states that Astrology was not a pseudoscience until the modern era; it was part of science.

Examples of this could be multiplied; I don't even know whether there still is a historian of science today who seriously contests this.

Thagard 1978

Thagard 1978, "Why Astrology is a Pseudoscience", p. 229: “ One interesting consequence of the above criterion is that a theory can be scientific at one time but pseudoscientific at another. In the time of Ptolemy or even Kepler, astrology had few alternatives in the explanation of human personality and behavior. Existing alternatives were scarcely more sophisticated or corroborated than astrology. Hence astrology should be judged as not pseudoscientific in classical or Renaissance times, even though it is pseudoscientific today. Astrology was not simply a perverse sideline of Ptolemy and Kepler, but part of their scientific activity, even if a physicist involved with astrology today should be looked at askance. Only when the historical and social aspects of science are neglected does it become plausible that pseudoscience is an unchanging category. Rationality is not a property of ideas eternally: ideas, like actions, can be rational at time but irrational at others. Hence relativizing the science/pseudoscience distinction to historical periods is a desirable result. But there remains a challenging historical problem. According to my criterion, astrology only became pseudoscientific with the rise of modern psychology in the nineteenth century. But astrology was already virtually excised from scientific circles by the beginning of the eighteenth. How could this be? The simple answer is that a theory can take on the appearance of an unpromising project well before it deserves the label of pseudoscience. The Copernican revolution and the mechanism of Newton, Descartes and Hobbes undermined the plausibility of astrology. Lynn Thorndike has described how the Newtonian theory pushed aside what had been accepted as a universal natural law, that inferiors such as inhabitants of earth are ruled and governed by superiors such as the stars and the planets. William Stahlman has described how the immense growth of science in the seventeenth century contrasted with stagnation of astrology. These developments provided good reasons for discarding astrology as a promising pursuit, but they were not yet enough to brand it as pseudoscientific, or even to refute it. ”

Hanegraaff 2012

Hanegraaff, Wouter J. (2012). Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-19621-5. p. 171: “ Astrology and alchemy were central to this development of medieval science, and, as will be seen, these two traditional disciplines are the supreme examples of how thoroughly mainstream academic scholarship can be led astray by an anachronistic use of basic concepts. Reacting to the standard post-eighteenth-century image of astrology as “pseudoscience,” Lynn Thorndike pointed out as early as 1955 that modern historians of science have been “strangely blind” to the fact that classical astrology was grounded in a concept of universal, immutable natural law. As formulated more recently by the leading contemporary specialist David Pingree, the union of some aspects of advanced Babylonian celestial divination with aristotelian physics and Hellenistic astronomy had resulted, in Egypt by the second century BCE, in the supreme attempt made in antiquity to create in a rigorous form a causal model of the kosmos, one in which the eternally repeating rotations of the celestial bodies, together with their varying but periodically recurring interrelationships, produce all changes in the sublunar world of the four elements that, whether primary, secondary, or tertiary effects, constitute the generation and decay of material bodies and the modifications of the parts or functions of the rational and irrational souls of men, animals and plants. In other words, ancient Greek astrology in its strictest interpretation was the most comprehensive scientific theory of antiquity, providing through the application of the mathematical models appropriate to it predictions of all changes that take place in the world of cause and effect [...] ” For context on Thorndike's approach, see David C. Lindberg & Michael H. Shank 2013, The Cambridge History of Science, Volume 2: Medieval Science, p. 13 (introduction): “ Contemporaries like Sarton hated Thorndike’s focus on magic and astrology (pseudo-science!), which he loved to find lurking in the early-modern heroes of science, but Thorndike’s eclectic contextual vision won the day posthumously. ”

It's the explicitness and ubiquity of these warnings that should give us pause. Since historical forms of astrology are the main topic of our article, we should not start with a blanket statement that "astrology is a pseudoscience". Rather, the pseudoscientific nature of astrology should be historically (option B) or denotationally (option C) contextualized. This should also inform how we approach the subject in the article body. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:20, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

If sources are quasi unanimous in recognizing that in its modern form, astrology is a pseudoscience. Per WP:PSCI, it should be clearly described as such, then why the option which does this in the most ambiguous manner of those proposed? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:57, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Option B is precisely the least ambiguous one in describing astrology in its modern form as a pseudoscience. Option A is precisely ambiguous in the sense that although, per XOR'easter below, opening with "astrology is a pseudoscience that ..." is in principle consistent with its not having been a pseudoscience for most of its history (and in most of its forms actually treated in the article), it fails to make that fact clear from the very beginning. In option A, we begin with saying that astrology is a pseudoscience and then immediately go on with describing 2nd millennium BCE astrology, which sources are very outspoken was not pseudoscience.

Other than you (in your !vote below), I read the sources quoted above as strongly disagreeing with a straightforward statement that astrology is a pseudoscience, period. Rather, they insist on relativizing the science/pseudoscience distinction to historical periods. Some sources, though a minority, also focus on why astrology is pseudoscience, which per Andy below is only made explicit in option C. WP:PSCI, being a part of NPOV, is about making sure that we follow sources in how they treat pseudoscience-related topics, not about focusing on pseudoscience awareness regardless of, or even against what sources are saying. In my view, arguing that option B waters it down amounts to the same as arguing that we should not relativize to historical periods, contra Thagard 1978. That's a respectable POV, but as far as I can see it's also a purely editorial one, which as such carries little weight: where are the sources arguing that we should not relativize to historical periods? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:40, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

we should not relativize to historical periods seems to be a mischaracterisation. We should not give undue emphasis to "relativising to historical periods" when, in fact, a fair share of coverage does not do so, and when, in fact, astrology, despite this, remains practiced in some form or another to the modern day (and there is similarly a lot of coverage about this). Since it remains a matter of present concern, there is nothing that prevents us writing in the present tense that astrology is a pseudoscience, no matter what it was two or three millenia ago (and I'm sure a more in-depth look would reveal that modern and ancient astrology are even more distinct than apples and oranges, thus relativising one with the other would be, well, misleading). We don't write about people that are dead as though they were still alive. We don't write about scientific theories that have been refuted as though they were still valid (case in point). There is no reason for us to write about astrology and water down its present stance with a "recognised as since the 18th century". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:26, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, ancient astrology and newspaper horoscope columns are like apples and oranges, and in fact both the coverage in RS and our article are mainly about the former. What is wp:undue precisely is to tar the most notable aspect of the topic with the same brush as the less notable aspect. As an online, user-generated project we need to be more careful than other reference works to be clear about pseudoscience, but the scales have been tipped way too far in the other direction here. In my survey below, I found that 79% (23 out of 29) of the entries on astrology in other reference works do not even mention the term pseudoscience. Talking about undue... Of the 6 entries that did mention the term, only 2 included it in the lead. And what do you know, one of these 2 included it in the lead as follows: It is important to note that astrology, in many aspects at least, was recognized as a science—not as a pseudo-science—until the 18th century. Rings a bell, doesn't it? Seriously, when actually compared to the sources, the coverage of pseudoscience in our article here is absurdly undue. It's the result of a purely editorial policy, and the proposals above are already very much taking that editorial policy into account. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:22, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

• B - I don't like phrasing that speaks for science (e.g. "rejected by modern science"). Either is better than A. I also think it's important to avoid criticism in the first paragraph, even for astrology. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 15:27, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
• I prefer A, but I’d be ok with C if there is consensus for a change. I STRONGLY oppose B because it greatly waters down the fact that it is a pseudoscience. Cpotisch (talk) 17:27, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

  Pinging @RandomCanadian, since they were in the original discussion. Cpotisch (talk) 17:28, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

• B. Ifly6 (talk) 18:26, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
• B at the moment seems the best option. I like the reference to history. Mathsci (talk) 18:29, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
• C, or if not that, B. Option A attempts to project 'pseudoscience' as an analytic term into historical and cultural contexts where doing so simply makes no sense. B and C both avoid this, and C does a better job of explaining what the scientific consensus is rejecting, and why. As to broader questions regarding how the article attempts to define astrology, and whether such definitions are applicable over the scope of all that the article describes, this clearly needs looking into further, but we need to be constrained by what the sources we have available say. Sort the lede out first, since as it currently stands it is clearly unacceptable. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:52, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
• B or C, I think, with perhaps a preference for the latter. I don't see the problem with "speaking for science"; we're summarizing what the science says, and has said for a long time. I am also still content with A, because being a pseudoscience now is consistent with having been more respectable in the past. (I use this phrasing in deference to those scholars who refrain from labeling any ancient activity as "science".) The quotations above ("Astrology was not a pseudoscience until the modern era", "...it is pseudoscientific today") do nothing to undermine describing astrology as pseudoscientific in the present tense. As Alexbrn wrote above, we can call a person dead now even when reliable sources say they used to be alive. XOR'easter (talk) 19:06, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
• C. Option A feels too recentist, being focused on what astrology is now, as opposed to what it was in the days when there was no science as we understand it. The wording of Option B isn't as crisp as that of C, and bringing up the 18th century in the middle of the definition in the first sentence, before bringing up the time period in which astrology first appeared, feels weirdly digressive. A. Parrot (talk) 19:36, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
• B. I think the important point is that astrology-as-entertainment, while not a pseudoscience, isn't astrology either. C seems to leave a lot of wiggle room to new variants of astrology ("as long as you're willing to admit you have no evidence yet, we won't call it a pseudoscience"), and A sounds like the chain of events was that someone emulated scientific processes, which is not unambiguously true. I would prefer to say "recognized as a pseudoscience" rather than "recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century", though, because that's the name of the phenomenon (and shorter). IpseCustos (talk) 19:45, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
• C: I think this is the clearest of the proposals; the explicit reference to the fact that it is rejected by science alongside a sentence outlining what it means for it to be pseudoscientific is best for the general reader in my opinion. Even for the non-general reader, I feel that it is the most to-the-point wording. I do like the inclusion of a historical frame of reference in B ("recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century") which avoids anachronistic generalisations, but I feel that later parts of the lead adequately convey the same idea anyway (the second paragraph of the current version of the lead) so leaving it out isn't too much of a sacrifice. Alduin2000 (talk) 19:56, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
• B if fine. C's ...a form of divination, rejected by modern science... can be seen as sympathetic to Astrology practitioners who feel victimized by "modern science" that unfairly rejects this "form of divination" because of materialistic bias, groupthink, etc. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:48, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
• A, or faiiling that, C. There is ample sourcing (presented here and in the preceding discussion) describing astrology as a pseudoscience, even the "archetypical" one. Strong oppose B since this very much waters this down ("recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century" is not the same as "is a pseudoscience" or "astrology is a textbook example of pseudoscience"), needlessly, since there is no acceptable source disagreeing with this straightforward description of astrology. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:11, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

  Adding further note that any proposed wording which does not correctly identify this as a pseudoscience would be in breach of Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Generally_considered_pseudoscience and the other findings of that case (including how Wikipedia, a respectable encyclopedia, should be in line with respected scientific thought); thus would be unenforceable. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:42, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

  Irrelevant. All proposals here abundantly qualify these findings, and they would all be enforceable. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:51, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

• B or C, strongly oppose A. No further comments -- I feel I've made my case above. Pinging User:Nø who resurrected the discussion and User:Itsmejudith who had minor input about the page as a whole. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 05:46, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
• Option B Those opposing this option suggest that it waters down the fact that astrology is a pseudoscience, but I disagree. The fact that it gives a date where astrology was recognized as a pseudoscience only improves the article as a whole. Pickalittletalkalittle (talk) 19:21, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

  it waters down the fact that astrology is a pseudoscience, but I disagree - how does it not water down this fact? Both of the other options unambiguously state it, in line with what modern science and scientists say. Wikipedia is written in the present, not the past. Quoting Alexbrn and XOR'easter, we can call a person dead now even when reliable sources say they used to be alive. We can call astronomy a pseudoscience (and even the textbook example of a pseudoscience) now - in fact we most preferably should as that is the information which is pertinent to most readers now - even if it wasn't in the past. We don't go in-depth in the lead of the relevant article about how "Evolution was controversial in the 19th century" - only saying that In the early 20th century, other competing ideas of evolution such as mutationism and orthogenesis were refuted as the modern synthesis reconciled Darwinian evolution with classical genetics, which established adaptive evolution as being caused by natural selection acting on Mendelian genetic variation.; because that is the modern view which is relevant to modern readers. Similarly, we have no need nor good reason to go in-depth in the first paragraph of the lead about the historical status of astrology and how only (relatively) recently it has been "recognised as a pseudoscience". It is a pseudoscience; and we should state so. Note that the current or proposed wording C do not say "astrology was" but "astrology is". That not-at-all-subtle grammatical choice seems entirely deliberate and correct. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:54, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

  Evolution is not a 3000 year old theory. It's also not a pseudoscience that for 2700 years wasn't a pseudoscience. A. Parrot's critique above of "since the 18th century" being a bit clumsy is fair, but it also can't be denied that this one is a little bit harder to get right than Evolution. By the way, did you read the rest of the lead? It's mainly about pre-1700 stuff, and it actually mentions that astrology ceased to be a legitimate scientific pursuit during the Enlightenment. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:51, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

  It's mainly about pre-1700 stuff Not in the very first paragraph, is it? The proposal is about the very first paragraph. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:01, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

• A The fact that options B and C have as many votes as they do just further illustrate the terminal decline on Wikipedia. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. 5.151.22.148 (talk) 21:06, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
• Not option A, as I think the arguments against labelleing astrology as a pseudoscience, period!, are valid. I'd prefer B over C.--Nø (talk) 08:10, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
• A, it is not presentism to give the definition that has applied for the last 2 to 3 hundred years. I also think the lead should be rewritten to avoid the passive construction and use of the fog machine word "root" ie "trace its roots to..." Who is doing this tracing, and exactly what does root mean? As others have noted the definition should be tied to divination and supernatural heavenly forces intervening on earth. In other words, it is defined by its false claims. Cheers. DolyaIskrina (talk) 20:30, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

  It is exactly presentism to apply a modern definition to a historical subject. Re it is defined by its false claims: is there even one source to back this up? This !vote appears to fail WP:V. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:20, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

  Hmmm. Do you think the page should be renamed "The History of Astrology"? If not, then a 400-year-old definition should probably not be given WP:UNDUE. Here is the result of the slimmest of searches for a citation: "Astrology continued to be part of mainstream science until the late 1600s, when Isaac Newton demonstrated some of the physical processes by which celestial bodies affect each other....In contrast, astrology is now regarded as a pastime and a pseudoscience — though thousands of people around the world still invoke advice from astrologers and astrology publications in making important professional, medical, and personal experiences. (This, despite the fact that current horoscopes rely on outdated information!)" skyandtelescope So for 400 years now, the difference between Astronomy and Astrology has been that Astronomy is science and Astrology is pseudoscience. Would you like more sources? DolyaIskrina (talk) 19:46, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

  No, that source does not define astrology by its false claims. No RS does. The source you cite defines astrology as something that attempts to study how those positions, motions, and properties affect people and events on Earth. Yes, these attempts have been proven to be incompatible with accepted science a long time ago, but that has not changed the definition of the thing itself. The source you cite does it right, after mentioning what astrology is, and after mentioning Newton and the 17th century, it says that astrology is now regarded as a pastime and a pseudoscience (my bold). In any source trying to explain what astrology actually is, you will consistently find the label pseudoscience qualified by such words as 'now', 'today', 'in the modern world', etc. My challenge stands: find one recent source that defines astrology by its falsity. As for WP:UNDUE, below is a list of "Astrology" articles in 33 reference works, 26 of which do not even mention 'pseudoscience', and only 3 of which include it in the lead. Whenever they do use the term, they qualify it as explained. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 23:46, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

  All your problems would be solved if this were a page about the history of astrology. I'd be on your side in that case. But since you don't seem to be up to that, then I think we should go with policy, which is to start with the established scientific consensus, not the 1600's. WP:FRINGE, WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE "Any inclusion of pseudoscientific views should not give them undue weight. The pseudoscientific view should be clearly described as such." DolyaIskrina (talk) 01:46, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

  I'm glad you'd be on my side! But today's scientific consensus is that astrology became a pseudoscience in the 18th century, and that construing it as inherently pseudoscientific is inaccurate and misleading. I understand where the editorial resistance against clearly stating this consensus is coming from, and I'm sympathetic with that (I'm a skeptic myself), but as an encyclopedia we can't afford to let our approach be dictated by popular misconceptions. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 10:25, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

  Pseudoscience is not defined by its false claims. Pseudoscience makes a specific claim to be scientific (as per WP:FRINGE/PS). MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 07:34, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

• B I find this the most neutral. (Summoned here by post on WP:NPOVN) — Czello 13:37, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
• B makes all the key points succinctly without laboring any of them. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 14:14, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
• A is fine; B is obviously better than C if we get forced to choose one or the other. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:38, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
• B A and C sound the least encyclopedic to me. I also don't think the "modern" qualifier for psuedoscience does a disservice to the reader in any way. Readers are pretty smart and can figure out the meaning in what's being written. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 15:31, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
• B is better because it adds a historical context without unnecessarily complicating the sentence. Andrew Dalby 16:15, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
• A - Per op, sources are quasi unanimous in recognizing that in its modern form, astrology is a pseudoscience. Per WP:PSCI, it should be clearly described as such. That's a very good argument for maintaining the current status quo. The arguments that it was considered a valid technique in antiquity does not change the fact that it is, and always has been, pseudoscience. Many old techniques were considered scientific in their time, but are now recognized as wholly psuedoscientific. Thus there is no reason to change the current wording. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:35, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

  I agree. For most of its history, exorcism was considered medicine, yet it would be extremely odd to define it as "a recently discredited medical practice." Human Sacrifice as a military, agricultural and fertility technique, just now gone out of vogue. DolyaIskrina (talk) 20:02, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

  New Catholic Encyclopedia, "Astrology", 2nd sentence of the lead: It is important to note that astrology, in many aspects at least, was recognized as a science—not as a pseudo-science—until the 18th century. I stumbled upon this source in a random search a week after the proposed wording of B was formulated. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 23:46, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

  Neither exorcism nor human sacrifice were essential to the development of the natural sciences as a discipline. In fact, neither were science as any point in history. Astrology, on the other hand, was. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 07:37, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

  You are stuck in a logic trap of your own construction. If you want to be historically relativistic and claim that Astrology was science *at the time* then you must admit the same for exorcism and human sacrifice. Both were the standard of care *at the time* and both did, in fact, contribute to human understanding of psychology, anatomy, physics, anatomy... etc. The problem is that prior to the scientific method, everything was about as much science as everything else, and these *historians* of science are trying to encourage academics to understand these practices *in historical context*. However, we here at Wikipedia today are not operating in that context. We are writing for modern lay readers and owe those readers the modern scientific definition. If you want to contextualize the idea that a long time ago, Astrology was as good as it got, that's fine, but not in the lead. DolyaIskrina (talk) 18:31, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

  If you want to be historically relativistic and claim that Astrology was science *at the time* then you must admit the same for exorcism and human sacrifice. This is a false analogy. Astrology, exorcism, and human sacrifice are three very different disciplines. As for exorcism and astrology, they did indeed contribute to the development of medicine and astronomy respectively, and as such, should be described within that context. We are writing for modern lay readers and owe those readers the modern scientific definition. Here, you conflate the demarcation of astrology as pseudoscience with some nebulous "modern scientific definition" -- as I have reiterated many times here and elsewhere, it is not scientists (generally) who decide what is or isn't science. That is up to philosophers of science and to historians of science. Regardless of how you feel about astrology and its relation to science, you will need to provide reliable sources to back up these absolutist claims. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 00:19, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

  Nope, wrong. Here at wikipedia, we go with the scientific consensus, which is defined by scientists today, not be historians or by philosophers. You may want to shift the burden of proof, but that's not policy. Scientists say that Astrology is pseudoscience. Case closed for the lead. If you want to talk about the good old days in the "history" sub heading, go for it. You can't use an RfC to change policy. DolyaIskrina (talk) 02:31, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

  Simply saying "Nope, wrong" means practically nothing. Please re-read both WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE and the previous discussion -- the proposed changes fit clearly with the former as with WP:FRINGE. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 03:34, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

  Again, wrong. I have read WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE and there you will clearly see "Conversely, by its very nature, scientific consensus is the majority viewpoint of scientists towards a topic." This does not say, contra, Apaugasma "historians of science" or "philosophers of science" it says "scientists". So the proper burden of proof is on you to find RS that shows scientists who take astrology to be anything but pseudoscience. Until then, the lead should remain as is, no mater how many astrologers show up here to !Vote. You can't retcon policy. DolyaIskrina (talk) 03:54, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

  ntil then, the lead should remain as is, no mater how many astrologers show up here to !Vote. Interesting notion. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 06:00, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

  @HandThatFeeds: the claim that astrology "is, and always has been, pseudoscience" is directly contradicted by the sources quoted by op: should be judged as not pseudoscientific in classical or Renaissance times, was not a pseudoscience until the modern era, etc. More importantly, please cite a recent (say, post-1970) source backing up that claim in the first place. I understand that this is a popular conviction, but it is hardly every found in RS anymore. I am genuinely curious about which recent source claims this and what arguments they use. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 23:46, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

  Your source is making the mistake I pointed out in my !vote: claiming that it was considered valid in antiquity does not preclude it being considered pseudoscience now. Your objection is entirely rooted in the idea that we must respect the mistakes of the past, rather than calling them mistakes. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 12:31, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, it's rooted in that. Approaching historical theories as 'mistakes' is distorting, because it presupposes a teleological nature to the historical process that has no basis in reality, and because it fails to take the evidence available to historical actors into account (please see Whig history#In science). The grand ensemble of contemporary RS reject that approach when it comes to this topic. You may personally disagree with these RS, but if you're not interested in backing up your !vote with at least one source, I think it should carry no weight at all. Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 17:47, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

  You are claiming that historians establish scientific consensus. They do not. Scientists do. Future historians of science will look back at this period and determine what was and was not science, based on what scientists are doing today. And guess what, no scientists today are taking astrology seriously. You can prove me wrong with an RS, but you don't have that RS. The only RS you have is historians being scrupulous about how to judge the past. But, as I have said many times over, this page is not about the past. It is about now, and the readers of today. This historical relativism and burden of proof shifting does not belong in the lead. This is not open for RfC, it is policy. DolyaIskrina (talk) 02:36, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

  Future historians of science will look back at this period and determine what was and was not science, based on what scientists are doing today. So historians of science are the one to establish scientific consensus? You have said many times over, this page is not about the past. It is about now, and the readers of today. But as Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, it should by a comprehensive collection of information and analysis pertaining to a body of knowledge -- that includes astrology in the past. Regardless, if you are this concerned that the RfC here is inappropriate, you are free to request admin input. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 03:42, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

• A, with C as my second choice. I don't like B because it uses an adjective "pseudoscientific", which automatically comes across as a non-neutral subjective opinion to a casual reader (many other articles also have this problem). A is the most direct statement, and C provides good clarification while still using the noun "pseudoscience". ~Anachronist (talk) 00:43, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

  Hi Anachronist — is it OK if we move your comment up to the list above so that it doesn't get overlooked in this subsection? XOR'easter (talk) 00:51, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

  Oops. Thanks for catching that. I just moved it. ~Anachronist (talk) 00:55, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

  The use of "pseudoscientific" rather than "a pseudoscience" here is merely because the latter doesn't fit grammatically with "divinatory practices". But do you seriously believe that if we would state that these practices have been "recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century", someone will take this as an individual, subjective opinion? How can something for three centuries have been recognized, not universally, but subjectively? That seems far-fetched. Also keep in mind that 26 out of 33 tertiary sources do not even mention 'pseudoscience' or related terms, and only 3 care to mention it in the lead. Notwithstanding the fact that B is also making a very direct statement, solely focusing on that is a Wikipedia-only thing, and to all appearances, wildly undue. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 10:25, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

• B. Better to start with what astrology is and B reads better than C. Srnec (talk) 13:38, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
• A, then C as second choice, oppose B. I agree with others that B waters down the fact that astrology is a pseudoscience. T8612 (talk) 13:47, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
• oppose A. The 2nd sentence of C can be tightened significantly: what once was considered science is now pseudoscience. In consideration of A, I recommend this Village Pump discussion on the trend of moralization of WP leads. SamuelRiv (talk) 22:48, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
• B. The fact that it did not become recognized as pseudoscientific until the 18th century is too significant to be left out of the lede (like option A) or to be only vaguely alluded to (like option C). B is the best option of the three. ––FormalDude talk 23:07, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
• B is preferable to A and C, but in light of Apaugasma's arguments above and below, we should be considering a fourth option that excludes all reference to pseudoscience in the opening paragraph. Definitional statements like "astrology is pseudoscience", even if qualified by "since the 18th century", are incongruent with the rest of the paragraph which is seeking to give an indication of astrology's significance in human history and culture as a whole. When we say "different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications" there is already a clear implication that we are talking about something of much broader significance than the merely pseudoscientific. Option C at least tries to be honest by saying "To the extent that astrologers claim to have scientific evidence that astrology works..." but what is that extent? For astrology as a whole, very little. People(s) who practiced astrology were not concerned with "claiming" that astrology "works" in a modern scientific sense, although there were indeed practical senses akin to "using calendrical systems to predict seasonal shifts" in which they had to be quite certain that it "worked" since the survival and prosperity of the community depended on it. As other parts of the article make clear, astrological practices were culturally significant all over the ancient world, in an extraordinary variety of times and places. How many astrologers in all these times and places, over thousands of years of astrological practice, were concerned with satisfying textbook definitions of 'science' as opposed to 'pseudoscience'? Their activities and motivations had qualities corresponding to the functions and purposes of astrology in their own cultural context. An astrologer in ancient Egypt or China or Mexico who tried to justify himself in the eyes of modern science would find himself out of a job and on psychiatric medication. Harold the Sheep (talk) 04:46, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
• Option A No change is required, this RfC is pointless, the current lead complies well with P&G in all its aspects, Astrology is an archetypal pseudoscience. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 07:39, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
• Option A. I've changed my mind on this. After finding that Massimo Pigliucci calls astrology "an almost perfect example of pseudoscience"[1], I don't think Wikipedia should be shilly-shallying about. It's a shame this RfC jumped the gun because there could be work done to improve the lede, but what's proposed above ain't an improvement. Alexbrn (talk) 15:32, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
• Option B, as it is better written than C, and it also shows when the scientific community came to reject it. Strongly agree with OP that "should not be retroactively applied to historical forms" and the references given by OP certain demonstrate that. Saying that ancient astrology was a pseudoscience is a bit of an anachronism. Another reason for B, and not A, is that astrology happens to be a pseudoscience but that is not what its intended to be primarily. Would we write the first sentence of Feng Shui as "Feng Shui is a pseudoscience that...."? No we wouldn't. VR _talk 17:59, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
• C or B, with a slight preference for C. "Pseudoscientific" is accurate, but it is also insulting. "Rejected by modern science" makes essentially the same point in a less confrontational way. Palpable (talk) 22:03, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
• A - As per reliable sources, astrology is a pseudoscience, full stop. Any attempt to water down that very fundamental truth about the article's subject is a step backwards in the improvement of this article. Even viewing the comment chain below it, I agree with User:HandThatFeeds's rationale. It is a pseudoscience. The other two options are blatant attempts to tiptoe around the issue and dilute that fact, each option worse than the prior. Scientific consensus does not beat around the bush on this matter, and we should reflect that consensus, not weasel word our way around it because some people may find it objectionable. The non-scientific sources in comments above being offered to justify the minimizing of a scientific term is inappropriate, and the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view#Are the only significant views on pseudoscience topics those of scientists? reflects that. These are not good sources for this, and what a couple of philosophers say should not override the consensus of the scientific community on a scientific matter. - Aoidh (talk) 05:35, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

  If with "what a couple of philosophers say" you mean the RS cited above and below, they are not going against scientific consensus in the first place, so it's meaningless to argue that they don't override it. What they offer is a perspective from different fields, in fact the fields that make up 90% of the literature on astrology (history of science, religious studies, anthropology, philosophy of science). Astrology is not a scientific matter: it's a belief system that has been attested on a global scale and that embodies a huge amount of cultural history. To treat it as if the most relevant perspective on it is its stereotypical depiction as a mock science is extremely unencyclopedic. It's this thing with pseudoscience and Wikipedia, that subject seems to create some kind of fear of being too 'soft', while all that is needed is to be accurate and in accordance with the sources, just like with any other subject. On what other topic would you be so easily prepared to willfully ignore what the RS mostly dealing with it are telling us? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 01:56, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

  Wikipedia articles are based on the relevant reliable sources, and those sources are unambiguously clear that astrology is pseudoscience. Presenting these scant few non-scientific sources and saying "what they offer is a perspective from different fields" is something you could do with every pseudoscientific concept, and when that's the best case argument for this proposal, it falls far short of being a convincing argument. "Astrology is not a scientific matter" is a similarly flawed argument that stands in stark contrast to the reality of things. - Aoidh (talk) 03:02, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

  I think that behind what you say is simply a lack of trust that my intentions are good. What unambiguously clear sources are you talking about? You didn't cite even one. The sources you call scant are the large majority (see, e..g, Google Scholar: they are almost exclusively humanities sources, and first to show up are Barton, Pingree, Thagard, Thorndike, all of whom I've quoted above). I've brought up 30+ sources in this RfC, and it seems to me that the only good reason to dismiss them is that they were brought up in bad faith: when everyone knows that reality says otherwise, it almost must be the case that these sources are being misrepresented, right? Except that I am acting in good faith and that I am not misrepresenting the sources: I'm just having a very hard time at making other editors look at them. What irks me about your !vote is that it seems to be based on preconceptions. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:24, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

• Option A. With regards to the history issue, the point is not about whether it is true, but whether it is sufficiently central to the nature of astrology to be included in the definition sentence. It is the modern status that is most important. All definitions, descriptions, and characterizations are historically contingent in a certain sense, and information about this is not usually relevant to our readers except as trivia. Also, to quote myself from another article where a similar topic came up: I would emphasize that any statement about the status as pseudoscience being historically contingent, while trivially true, causes neutrality problems if presented without context, because that can be interpreted as being relevant to its validity. These are practices that cause significant real-world harm, and we need to be very careful to avoid incautious wording that could lend legitimacy to their claims.

The specific form of option B converts a statement of fact statement to an implied statement of opinion, which is a straightforward violation of neutrality. This is obscured by the use of weasel wording ("recognized as"), which leaves out information on who is doing the recognizing. As usual, if the answer is that recognition is sufficiently universal that specifying it is unnecessary, then neutrality requires the status as pseudoscience to be presented as fact. Alternatively, if the answer is that it's the relevant experts on the topic of pseudoscience, then neutrality also requires it to be presented as fact. Option C has the same issue to a lesser extent, as it provides implied support to people who may not see "modern science" as authoritative, and may also convey the implication that there are other approaches that do not reject it. And of course, the arguments above that astrology is not a pseudoscience at all or that its status should not be mentioned in the lead can be disregarded as that is inconsistent with prior consensus, and this RfC is not set up to change that. Sunrise (talk) 00:32, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

It's a bit of a conundrum: editors absolutely insist that the word pseudoscience appears in the first or second sentence (though that is by no means common in RS, see below), so if it is going to get anything of the context it is usually dealt with in RS, that context too will be made to fit in somewhat forceably. But the apparently common perception that having the very first sentence of the article include "divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century" is in some way weasel wording is utterly baffling to me. I do not in fact believe that it would raise much eyebrows from any of the A !voters here if they would read this in any other source but Wikipedia. An example of exactly such passive wording was paraded as a 'hard on pseudoscience' source above (astrology is now regarded as a pastime and a pseudoscience). Okay, some of you might ask 'only since the 18th century?', and read on to learn something new you didn't know yet (so, apparently historians of science do not regard premodern astrology as pseudoscience?). I think it's largely a failure to truly accept that fact from RS though which is creating the problems here. That, and the fear that some would like us to state that astrology is not a pseudoscience at all (where did you read that in this RfC?). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 01:56, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

This comment is mostly unrelated to what I've said, and I'm not seeing anything that directly addresses any of my arguments. The closest it gets is bare contradiction without providing any policy-based reasoning. With regards to the question in the last sentence, it looks like I misinterpreted one of the comments, but I was also referring to comments such as we should be considering a fourth option that excludes all reference to pseudoscience in the opening paragraph, for which my statement still applies. Sunrise (talk) 08:58, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

The policy-based argument against A is simply that it fails to acknowledge the POV of some of the most relevant sources out there (Barton, Pingree, Thagard, Thorndike, Hanegraaff, Rochberg, etc., all quoted in my !vote above) and that is places a totally wp:undue emphasis not found in almost any other tertiary source (we looked at c. 40 of them below; please click 'List of tertiary sources' and see the discussion beneath). You will find historical/chronological contextualization of the word 'pseudoscience' (to the extent that they even use the word) in the great majority of them, and passive wording is likewise standard. The argument that policy mandates prominent, non-contextualized and active wording is in blatant contradiction with standard application of NPOV: such wording is exceedingly rare in sources other than WP. But yes, my comment was mainly about the possible reasons why these policy-based arguments tend to be misunderstood or brushed aside here; I was especially perturbed by the suggestion that some would like us to state that astrology is not a pseudoscience at all: that suggestion has been made a few times in this RfC, and it shows how deep the misunderstanding goes. I'm just glad you retracted it. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:24, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

That approach is contrary to long-established consensus across many different articles, not just this one, and I think it has been adequately addressed. Also, while it thankfully sounds like you would oppose removal, there are many years of history on practically every major pseudoscience article of advocates arguing for exactly that. There is a well-justified suspicion of anything that looks like it could lead to a slippery slope. And it is not necessarily a misunderstanding, but rather a different perspective: it's easy to interpret proposals such as these as effectively being "removal" or similar, because the advocates themselves will use such interpretations (e.g. "the article used to say that X is pseudoscience, but now it says it's only believed to be pseudoscience by modern science, and we all know modern science is wrong"), regardless of how unreasonable they might be. Sunrise (talk) 15:23, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

• B is best, with A as second choice. I find B to be clear, accurate, informative, and the most interesting and engaging prose. B not only clearly identifies Astrology as pseudoscientific, it smoothly states that this has been known for hundreds of years. Furthermore it smoothly and engagingly sets historical context - that Astrology existed in pre-scientific eras and scientifically-primitive eras where divination was often taken as a serious pursuit. B is a welcome step up from Wikipedia's all-too-commonly awkward prose.
  Note that I support the intent of the people opposing B above, who express a concern to not undermine identification of this topic as pseduoscience. However I just don't see version B undermining that message. If I may speculate, when there has been a long running fight against unreasonable POV, there can grow a reflexive skepticism that any rephrasing is some kind of ploy to gain inches in that conflict.
  I rate C in last place - it has a large sentence egregiously stumbling over extraordinarily fringe individuals who might attempt to claim scientific evidence. The body of the article can address significant far-fringe views in laborious detail, but the lead needs to be a smooth and compact summary. To the extent that a lead needs to address such a far fringe position at all, it needs to do so in a much less clumsy manner. Alsee (talk) 22:00, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

I kinda wish you had waited a bit for more work above. In my opinion, there are still some more questions to answer vis-a-vis sourcing and having three options instead of two is going to make this RfC harder to close. Your argument also makes me a bit uncomfortable. I think that the "historical forms of astrology" are not very well defined in the literature and the "reject science" definition is the one that is most consistent. I still have yet to see a source which explains exactly what, for example, is "astrology" in the various contexts where it is claimed to exist. This is especially problematic when talking about traditions that had no contact with the antecedents of "Western astrology". jps (talk) 12:56, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

@jps: I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but we've worked on this for 2 weeks, and discussion has died down during the last few days. We can discuss some more here, but ultimately I think it's better to accept that you and I have two fundamentally different views: I believe that in scholarly discourse, astrology is most often historically determined as a specific cosmological frame of reference (Thagard 1978 citing Thorndike 1955: a universal natural law, that inferiors such as inhabitants of earth are ruled and governed by superiors such as the stars and the planets; more detailed in Pingree as quoted by Hanegraaff 2012), while you believe that astrology is primarily determined by its rejection by modern science. Option B fits the former view a little better, option C the latter, but both are thoroughly grounded in the sources cited in the article (+ Hanegraaff 2012).

It's true that scholars often do not dwell long on formulating a precise definition of astrology, which may indeed be most problematic in non-Western contexts where Thorndike's and Pingree's definitions may not fit. But what we can't do is supplant scholars' definitions by our own. We shouldn't be trying to pin it down too much in the lead anyway if we don't even have sources for such alternative definitions. Remember that most non-historians speaking of astrology are using astrology as an example in the debate on how to define pseudoscience, taking the nature of astrology itself for granted. I appreciate that you are uncomfortable with the historians' definitions (though I assure you that at least from a historical perspective Pingree's description is very accurate), but I fear that what you would be comfortable with wouldn't be what most of our sources are actually using. Anyway, as I said, we disagree. I believe there's still some time for you and others to come up with sources, but we will probably still disagree in the end. Better then to let the RfC play out and see what others think. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:02, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

No need to apologize, I might be wrong in my crumbumness. I am actually not at all clear what the "historian's definitions") actually are for astrology. I think they are making tacit reference to rejected by modern science, but I suspect that you have a different take on this? If so, what is it? jps (talk) 19:13, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

To wit, Pingree's definition is as follows: "astrology, type of divination that involves the forecasting of earthly and human events through the observation and interpretation of the fixed stars, the Sun, the Moon, and the planets. Devotees believe that an understanding of the influence of the planets and stars on earthly affairs allows them to both predict and affect the destinies of individuals, groups, and nations. Though often regarded as a science throughout its history, astrology is widely considered today to be diametrically opposed to the findings and theories of modern Western science." The idea he is proposing is that astrology was "often regarded as a science throughout its history", but we have plenty of sources that argue that "science" may not have been a thing prior to the scientific revolution. His last point that astrology is "widely considered today to be diametrically opposed to the findings and theories of modern Western science." is super problematic in terms of comparison to other sources for (a) making some sort of vaguewave towards "non-Western" science (whatever that is) which may not find astrology problematic(!) and/or (b) not providing an identifier which would allow us to distinguish between astrology and, for example, predictions of when the Nile flooded. Pingree, I suspect, would classify the Nile predictions as astrology, but this is entirely novel, as far as I can tell. Do other historians classify it as such? It seems to me that the answer is "no", and I'm not even clear whether Pingree would take his definition that far. jps (talk) 19:23, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

It does not matter whether one takes the position that Ptolemy's (c. 100–170 CE) Tetrabiblos can be called 'science' or not, the fact is that in this work he described a specific system for predicting the effects (Greek: Apotelesmatiká, another title for the work) of celestial movements on terrestrial phenomena, grounded in a physical model of the cosmos as described in his Planetary Hypotheses. As Barton 1994 writes, Ptolemy represented astrology as a stochastic techne, that is an art which had carefully developed rules for conjecture, and said that it was like medicine in this. Doctors might not always be correct in their diagnosis or prognosis, because of the number of variables they had to deal with, but if they knew their techne, they would have followed the procedure most likely to yield success.

Ptolemy described the effects of the planets in terms of their heating, cooling, moistening, and drying 'powers' (Greek: dynameis), which were the four elemental forces out of which everything ultimately consisted according to contemporary medicine and alchemy/chemistry. 'Science' or not, it was a coherent theory which historians today prefer to describe in its own terms rather than as contrasted with modern findings. Compare it with the humoral theory developed by Ptolemy's contemporary Galen (129 – c. 200 CE): surely it's rejected by modern science, and in its modern context it is downright pseudoscience (see Yunani medicine), but it isn't defined by that rejection: in its own time it was a specific theory fully coherent with the broader body of then-accepted knowledge.

Just like Galenic physicians, astrologers sometimes got it right when it came to their actual prognosis, even if the theory behind it was deeply flawed. They made very much about the empirically observable effects of the moon upon the tides, seeing it as proof for their broader conjectures. But it's not because at times they happened to be right in their prognosis that it stopped being astrology. The theory remained the same, and that theory –astrological theory– was fundamentally wrong: astrologers believed the moon to be predominantly cold and moist, i.e., of a similar nature as elemental water, and they believed that similar natures were affected (pathos) together (sym) –a concept called sympathy– by the cosmic pneuma, whence the concurrence of lunar phases and tidal movements. But that the prognosis was sometimes right only becomes a problem when you want astrology to be only that what is always and in all respects wrong. It's taking an after-the-fact finding ('it was wrong') to retroactively define it ('it was whatever turned out to be wrong').

Historians reject this approach, regardless of whether they take pre-modern astrology to have been in some sense a science or not: that it is rejected by modern science they take as a mere attribute, as it were an accident, of little or no relevance to understanding it properly in its own context. Of course its rejection by modern science is crucial for understanding what astrology is today, and since we are here by no means only dealing with historical astrology, it's important for us to mention that prominently. To continue practicing a conjectural art when the whole cosmological reference frame upon which it rests has long been refuted bears witness to an attitude which is completely foreign to pre-modern astrology, essentially constituting a rejection of modernity itself, and as such a very notable aspect of the topic. But it would be wrongheaded to take this as an invitation to erase the long history of the subject as an independent set of claims fitting within a wider natural philosophical framework, and instead define it simply as what we today know to have been wrong. It's perhaps a popular conception, useful in setting up a contrast with the proper scientific practices of e.g. astronomy, but that conception is simplistic, and not justifiable within an encyclopedic perspective: it runs counter to most RS in any case, and indeed a RS properly backing it up has yet to be cited here. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:40, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

What I still do not understand is what the definition of "historical astrology" is then. How do we know something is "historical astrology"? Is it literally everything that was ever done before the eighteenth century in tying observations of the heavens to terrestrial occurrences? If that is the definition, why can't I find that made explicit? Is there some way to decide when some historical practice was "divination" as opposed to just, y'know, pattern recognition? jps (talk) 16:17, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I am not clear as to what Option C is trying to say, with the way it explains how astrology is pseudoscientific. Why not say more simply, that because of what is explained in the criticism section of the article, astrology is considered a pseudoscience? Senorangel (talk) 23:46, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Is the issue that you don't understand that what makes astrology pseudoscience is that astrologers claim to have scientific evidence that it works? I'm not clear what you are unclear about, I guess. jps (talk) 02:12, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that seems to be a very specific reason and line of argument to make in the first few sentences. Senorangel (talk) 01:49, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

How other encyclopedias treat astrology & pseudoscience

I was curious about how other encyclopedias and reference works deal with the pseudoscientific nature of astrology. The following list is somewhat limited by the fact that it only includes what I personally have access to, which also means that not all sources are of the same quality, but it should be good enough to give a general impression. It includes everything I found and that satisfies WP:RS during a random search of the term "astrology" in my library's database and some other usual places to find encyclopedic entries. The aim was to look for general reference works, so I did not look specifically for 'skeptic' sources or other sources that especially deal with pseudoscience, nor for sources that would not be likely to deal with it (though some that came out are of that nature). The entry from The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy was not found by me, but was already present in the article (to support the characterization as pseudoscience).

List of tertiary sources

Closed access: Rod Blackhirst, "Astrology", Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion: mentions the misspelled "psuedo-science" in the last paragraph, as follows: Despite its popularity astrology is still regarded as a fringe or psuedo-science while psychology, especially in the last 30 years, has sought fuller legitimation as an empirical, mainstream science and has been eager to shed its associations with quackery. Astrologers have tried to legitimize astrology (as “astrotherapy”) by presenting it as akin to or as an adjunct to the psychological sciences, but it cannot be said the association has been endorsed in kind by most psychological professionals. Claudia Bader, "Astrology and Mandalas", Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. Claudia Bader, "Astrology and Alchemy", Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. Sharon L. Coggan, "Astrology", Encyclopedia of Religious and Spiritual Development: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), "Astrology", The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3 ed.): does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. Tom Devonshire Jones , Linda Murray , and Peter Murray (eds.), "Astrology", The Oxford Dictionary of Christian Art and Architecture (2 ed.): does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms; interestingly though, this does start out with calling astrology an irrational belief. Charles Burnett, "Astrology", Encyclopaedia of Islam, Three: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. Wolfgang Hübner and Hermann Hunger, "Astrology", Brill's New Pauly (Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft): does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. Daryn Lehoux, "Astrology", Oxford Classical Dictionary: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. John Steele, "Astronomy, Babylonia", Oxford Classical Dictionary: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. Alan J. Avery-Peck, "Magic, Magic Bowls, Astrology in Judaism", Encyclopaedia of Judaism: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. Meir Bar Ilan, "Astrology in Ancient Judaism", Encyclopaedia of Judaism: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. Dov Schwartz, "Astrology and Magic in Medieval Jewish Thought", Encyclopaedia of Judaism: mentions the word "pseudo-scientific" in the fourth subsection entitled "Maimonides' Opposition" as follows: Maimonides produced an uncompromising assault on the validity of astrology and the reality of magic. Maimonides describes different levels of magic and sorcery, distinguishing between “folk” magic and “learned,” that is, astral magic. While denying the reality of magical acts of any sort, he considers it a special challenge to divest “learned” magic of its pseudo-scientific cloak and demonstrate its falsehood. Richard Lemay, "Astrology in Islam", Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. Ho Peng Yoke, "Astrology in China", Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. Vijaya Narayan Tripathi, "Astrology in India", Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. Free access: "Astrology", Oxford Quick Reference (taken from The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable): does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. David Pingree and C. J. Brunner, "Astrology and Astronomy in Iran", Encyclopædia Iranica: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. David Pingree, "Astrology", Encyclopædia Britannica: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. K. Lee Lerner, "Astrology and Astronomy in the Ancient World", Science and Its Times: Understanding the Social Significance of Scientific Discovery: mentions the term "pseudo-scientific" in the lead as follows: The earliest evidence of the development of astronomy and astrology—in the modern world distinctive representatives of science and pseudo-science, respectively—establish that they share a common origin grounded in mankind's need and quest to understand the movements of the celestial sphere. Ioan Petru Culianu, "Astrology", Encyclopedia of Religion: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. Alexander Altmann, "Astrology", Encyclopaedia Judaica: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. Steven vanden Broecke, "Astrology", Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. H. S. Long, "Astrology" New Catholic Encyclopedia: mentions the term "pseudo-science" in the lead as follows: It is important to note that astrology, in many aspects at least, was recognized as a science—not as a pseudo-science—until the 18th century. They mention the term "pseudo-science" again in the very last sentence, as follows: The invention of the telescope damaged astrology seriously. The seven Pleiades, of which most people can see but six, were discovered to include scores. Two more planets, Uranus and Neptune, were presently discovered, as well as hundreds of planetoids between Mars and Jupiter, and thousands of stars whose very existence destroyed the apparent primacy of the traditional constellations. Astrology's neat system, which had never been really neat or systematic, broke down. As a pseudo-science astrology survives only among the uneducated and the credulous, while the influence of the heavenly bodies upon Earth and man has become the subject of various strictly scientific studies without occult implication. Edward I. Bleiberg, James Allan Evans, Kristen Mossler Figg, Philip M. Soergel and John Block Friedman (eds.), "Astrology", Arts and Humanities Through the Eras: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. Scott Tribble, "Astrology", St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture: mentions "pseudo-science" towards the end of the very last paragraph, as follows: Skeptics located the transcendent source of astrology's appeal in the tendency of men and women to accept imprecise and widely applicable statements as being specific to them. Barnum manipulated this tendency in the nineteenth century to make millions; scientists of the late twentieth century charged astrologers with doing the same to the masses of their time. American scientists also were vexed by, and perhaps a little jealous of, the popularity of the alleged pseudo-science. Phillip Charles Lucas, "Astrology", Contemporary American Religion: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. Graeme Tobyn, "Astrology", The Oxford Companion to the Body: does not mention "pseudoscience" or related terms. Nicholas Bunnin and Jiyuan Yu, "Astrology", The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy: mentions the word "pseudo-science" in the last sentence, as follows: It has been a target of criticism in the Western rationalist tradition and is now presented as a prime example of a pseudo-science.

When I started this search, I expected that at least 50% of the entries in general reference works would mention the subject, and that at least 10 to 20% would cover it in detail (as we do). However, what I found was appalling. Of the 29 entries listed, only 2 entries (7%) include 'pseudoscience' or related terms (pseudo-science, pseudoscientific, etc.) in the lead, while another 4 entries (14%) include it in the article body (two in the very last paragraph, one in the last sentence). The large majority, 23 entries (79%), do not mention it at all. There is only one entry which mentions it more than once, and none that devotes a whole section to it like we do in our article.

It very much looks like we are the only general reference work out there (excluding reference works especially geared to skepticism and related subjects) that treats the subject of astrology and pseudoscience in any detail. WP:TERTIARY says that tertiary sources "may help evaluate due weight". Now of course we're Wikipedia, a pop encyclopedia, and it's okay to be a little different. But the contrast here is truly alarming. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:17, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

I would be rather more surprised if a Dictionary of the Christian Church or one of Phrase and Fable had bothered to get into the business of designating things as "pseudoscience", a term which they would then have to turn around and define. The latter goes with "had lost intellectual credibility". Britannica opts for "diametrically opposed to the findings and theories of modern Western science", which is clearly related to "pseudoscience". XOR'easter (talk) 19:53, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Blackhirst's "Astrology" entry goes with the phrasing the entire premise of astrology as it is usually formulated – non-physical and subtle or spiritual causal forces – violates the most basic tenets of the scientific paradigm, which again, is like saying "pseudoscience" but with more syllables. He concludes, Despite its popularity astrology is still regarded as a fringe or psuedo-science while psychology, especially in the last 30 years, has sought fuller legitimation as an empirical, mainstream science and has been eager to shed its associations with quackery. Astrologers have tried to legitimize astrology (as “astrotherapy”) by presenting it as akin to or as an adjunct to the psychological sciences, but it cannot be said the association has been endorsed in kind by most psychological professionals (emphasis added). XOR'easter (talk) 20:01, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Clerical note: most of the "free access" links above all point to Steven vanden Broecke's entry in Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. XOR'easter (talk) 20:32, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

A misspelling! I hadn't counted on that. I adjusted it in my survey. Sure, some of the reference works are unlikely to deal with the subject of pseudoscience because of their specific focus, while others may treat it without using the exact word, but these are just the reference works I found in a random search of the term "astrology": it's supposed to render a general picture of what turns up when doing that. The entries from Culianu to Tobyn (including vanden Broecke) are all found on the same page (some of them are collapsed, find them by ctrl-f-ing the name of the reference work). I also clarified my opening statement a bit as a result of your comment (with regard to sources not likely to deal with pseudoscience). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 20:43, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. (Both that website and my university's library proxy have been giving me trouble today — dying halfway through loading, forgetting that I just logged in, etc.) It seems like what turns up in your random search is not what I'd call "general reference works", for the most part; specializing in ancient or medieval or early-modern history is just as much a specialization as a focus on, e.g., modern science education. I get a similar mishmash of mostly-historical emphasis when doing a library search for reference works, though one of the first that happened to turn up was George Barton's Religions of the World (1919), declaring In the late Assyrian and neo-Babylonian periods omens were drawn from the stars, and the pseudo-science of astrology was formed. I claim no understanding of how our library's search engine sorts its results. XOR'easter (talk) 21:03, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that's fair: most results are specialized rather than general reference works. I was also a little suspicious about my library's search engine perhaps skewing the result to my usual sources. Maybe the use of encyclopedia.com randomized a little. I also at least tried to avoid stuff from 1919 (I hope I succeeded). It is conspicuous though how the sources that turned up almost invariably take the historical approach.

I looked some more. The only recent (2012) and truly general reference work apart from Britannica I found was Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, which also doesn't mention the term "pseudoscience". Among other stuff turning up at encyclopedia.com, David W. Pankenier, "Astrology: China", New Dictionary of the History of Ideas does not mention the term, while William E. Burns, "Astrology: Overview", New Dictionary of the History of Ideas mentions it only in the 'see also' section (look, they have this too!)

But interestingly (also from querying encyclopedia.com), Anna Marie Eleanor Roos, "Astronomy and Space Science: Astronomy Emerges from Astrology", Scientific Thought: In Context does mention it quite profusely. The second sentence of her lead is Today astrology is considered a pseudoscience (false science); in the 'Astrology in the Seventeenth Century' subsection, she writes For a variety of scientific and socio-cultural factors, astrology became a pseudoscience, and further she mentions that Others, such as British evolutionary biologist and science writer Richard Dawkins (1942–), assert that modern astrological pseudoscience is an enemy of science because popular astrology preys upon and promotes ignorance of scientific principles, and that Although astrology is clearly a pseudoscience, it still exerts influence—and has followers—in the modern world. We could learn something from that: the lead says that today it is considered a pseudoscience (compare Lee Lerner above saying that in the modern world astronomy and astronomy are distinctive representatives of science and pseudo-science), in the 17th century it became a pseudoscience, and finally is clearly a pseudoscience is reserved for the last section of the article dealing with contemporary stuff. This is how RS do it. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:39, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

I have always been wary of relying upon how other encyclopedias organize their articles as guides for ours. This project is far more generalist than most reference works, while simultaneously being willing and able to drill to arbitrary depth on particular topics by using specialist resources. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia entry is a case in point: it is so painfully brief that we'd call it no more than Start-class. What could we possibly learn from an article that is comparable to what this project would have offered 20 years ago? XOR'easter (talk) 04:33, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Wikipedia is different, and that is a good thing. As a rule we offer much, much more information, both in generalist and specialist directions, which is great and often a reasonable compensation for being less reliable. It's just that in an argument to do something completely unprecedented in other reference works, bringing up WP:DUE and NPOV generally (as some do above) is the worst kind of support one can think of. Rather, we have to be aware of why we are partially setting aside NPOV here (to have our own editorial identity we must by definition be non-neutral vis-à-vis other reference works), and to make sure we don't go too far in that. This article as a whole, and the current opening of the lead (option A), is taking it too far: it's simply too different from all other sources to still be defensible. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 11:35, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

But it's not "too different from all other sources", because the set of all other sources includes more than generalist compendiums and writings by historians. It includes "Pseudohistory and Pseudoscience", "What Makes Some People Think Astrology Is Scientific?", "Using Astrology to Confront & Discuss Pseudoscience in the Classroom" and plenty more in that vein. It's our remit to cover all of this, then to write a lede that summarizes our coverage, with an appropriate opening line. XOR'easter (talk) 15:06, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

I of course meant 'too different from all other tertiary sources'. We can and should sometimes lay a different focus than other mainstream reference works, but there are limits to that. When secondary sources say different things, tertiary sources are a good basis for establishing due weight. Moreover, all of the secondary sources you cite use astrology as an example (the third one even quite literally in its title) to discuss other things. They are not properly about astrology. It's one of the big problems here, that our astrology article is used as a WP:COATRACK to discuss pseudoscience. There's not even one tertiary source that has a separate section on pseudoscience, and some of these articles are much longer than ours. A little more attention to that subject than any other tertiary source, sure, a whole section explaining some of the ways in which astrology is regarded as a pseudoscience, why not, but framing the subject from the very first sentence to the last as something which is primarily notable for being objected to, well that's just not serious if the claim is to be a mainstream, generalist encyclopedia. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 23:46, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Sources that discuss astrology at length as an example of a pseudoscience are about astrology. One might as well dismiss the sources that discuss ancient Babylonian astrology as not being "properly about astrology" because they're really about Babylonian history, or dismiss the news stories about astrology apps as irrelevant because they're really about capitalism.

Tertiary sources may help evaluate due weight — emphasis on the may and help. Nothing in policy mandates taking them as the model to follow when drawing a line and saying, "This belongs in an article with this name, that must go elsewhere." Shouldn't a "mainstream, generalist encyclopedia" put first and foremost the status of a topic in the modern world, rather than what might be inferred from cuneiform tablets? (I mean, I find the latter more interesting, but I'm weird.) XOR'easter (talk) 00:26, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

They don't discuss astrology at length. Read them. They are wholly irrelevant for someone who wants to know something about astrology. It would be interesting from a modern reader's perspective to put more info in our article on 20th-century astrology, but there are hardly any RS about this (about 20th-century astrology I mean, not about 20th-century debates on pseudoscience using astrology as a favorite example). The same problem exists for 20th-century alchemy, Hermeticism, etc.: they're marginal, and marginalized in the sources, which overwhelmingly deal with the pre-modern forms. We cannot but follow scholars, whose interests will partly determine what we write. And of course 33 tertiary sources should be of some significance in establishing due weight: using the letter of the policy against its spirit like that is not a good look at all. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 10:25, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

I read them; they and many more in the same vein do inform a reader who wants to know about how astrology is practiced in the modern age: what traits are associated with which signs, how much variability there is across different astrological websites regarding such associations, the tone employed in writing horoscopes (encouraging, vague, yet complicated-sounding), etc. This is all part of what scholars have found interesting.

I do not see how the spirit of a policy, insofar as that can even be agreed upon, obligates us to follow tertiary sources that are themselves specialized when organizing a generalist article. If this were one of the narrower articles about astrology in a particular culture and time period, then encyclopedias of Judaica, medieval Catholicism, etc., would be much more relevant. In this, the broadest-scope article on the topic, they provide little guidance, and if we do look to them, we have to stack them up against, e.g., Regal's Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia (which calls astrology a pseudoscience in the second sentence). Even among the tertiary references that focus on history, literature, and religious culture, there is dissension: the Encyclopedia of Islamic Civilization and Religion (Taylor & Francis, 2013) opens its article by saying, In the Middle East, the pseudo-science of astrology dates back at least as far as the second millennium BC. The Encyclopedia of Women in American History (T&F, 2015) says that magic often involves astrology, a pseudoscience that utilizes the placement of the stars and planets. The article in the Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece (T&F, 2013) begins, Astrology is a pseudoscience that uses astronomical phenomena to make mundane predictions, and goes on to elaborate on how early omen-telling involving planets, stars, and weather was not yet astrology proper. Science Fiction and Science Fact: An Encyclopedia (Routledge, 2016) calls astrology a pseudoscience offering character analyses and issuing predictions; its discussion of the history begins with The historical relationship between astrology and astronomy is similar to that between alchemy and chemistry. The Encyclopedia of Homosexuality (T&F, 2016) opens its article with, The history of astrology, the pseudoscience which claims to divine events from the positions of the heavenly bodies, has attracted considerable recent scholarship, but the sexual aspects have been neglected.

Overall, it appears that there is (a) agreement that astrology is a pseudoscience in the modern age, (b) a willingness to call it pseudoscience even in sources that cover its former respectability, and (c) disagreement to an extent over when omen-telling became astrology and whether any ancient intellectual activities can meaningfully be called "science". XOR'easter (talk) 16:31, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Did you do a search for 'astrology pseudoscience'? I could also go look for tertiary sources and only report those who do not use the term, but obviously that would say nothing about the general picture. I fully agree with your conclusions (a) (b) and (c) though. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 17:47, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Sorry for the late (and uninformative) reply; I must not have seen your question before leaving for the weekend. That pile of sources came from closing a bunch of browser tabs with different search queries. I tried plugging "astrology" and "encyclopedia" into the university library and got a lot that wasn't useful, like "encyclopedias" by astrologers themselves; those are what I could winnow out, I think. As I recall, Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia came up when combining "astrology", "encyclopedia" and "science". Trying with the university library again just now, I noticed that the entry in the Astronomy Encyclopedia (Philip's, 2002) goes with a pseudoscience that claims to be able to assess personality traits and predict future events. Looking for "astrology" and "encyclopedia" and "history" gives me History of Astronomy: An Encyclopedia (T&F, 2013), which uses the phrasing A method of divination [...] in particular the pseudoscientific methods of Babylonian origins. Querying for reference works on "astrology" and "philosophy" gives Scientific Thought: In Context (Gale, 2009), whose relevant entry says Today astrology is considered a pseudoscience in the second sentence. On the whole, though, I don't see how the convenience sample obtained by not varying search queries can be trusted to give a general picture.

The 15th edition of Britannica has an entry on astrology in volume 1 of the Micropaedia, pp. 654–655. It begins, astrology, type of divination that consists in interpreting the influence of planets and stars on earthly affairs in order to predict or affect the destinies of individuals, groups, or nations. At times regarded as a science, astrology has exerted an extensive or a peripheral influence in many civilizations, both ancient and modern. Astrology has also been defined as a pseudoscience and considered to be diametrically opposed to the theories and findings of modern science. Perhaps this is a sentimental streak on my part, but I'd say the solidity of a print Britannica defines the respectability we aim for; and that introduction seems broadly compatible with any of the options presented in the RfC. XOR'easter (talk) 22:13, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, trying to make the sample bigger and representative of specific fields by adding search queries, like you did, is a much better approach. The result will probably be much closer to my initial expectations, with some sources mentioning pseudoscience, others not, and only a small part of them elaborating on the subject. But still I think that our own lead should represent these different approaches. For example, that Britannica lead you cite is gold. It's almost exactly what I'd wish we had come up with. The "groups, or nations" bit hints at political astrology, historically one of its most conspicuous forms, and "predict or affect" likewise supplements the contemporary stereotype of 'predicting a person's fate' with the far more important concept that physical influences from the stars may be used to affect the course of life, for example by taking advantage of astral effects on bodily parts for medical purposes. It catches all the nuances with only "at times regarded as a science" (depending on whether one allows or not that pre-modern conjectural theories be called 'science'), and it even mentions definitional approaches equating astrology with pseudoscience, but only after having explained what astrology is supposed to be and with the appropriate passives "has been defined" and "considered to be". When does the copyright of that 15th edition expire? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 23:39, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Long after we're all dead, no doubt. XOR'easter (talk) 16:51, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

I fail to see how the general point that "pseudoscience" is a new and fairly unusual term relates to an RfC which is specifically about three options which include the term "pseudoscience" or "pseudoscientific". Maybe this belongs into a separate section, or a separate RfC? IpseCustos (talk) 20:00, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

I wasn't sure on whether to put it here or in another section, but the reason I ended up putting it here is that it also deals with the place where the word 'pseudoscience' appears in other reference works (in the lead or not, first sentence or not, etc.) and how they frame the subject, both of which are relevant to this RfC. I wouldn't mind if someone would move it to a separate section though. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 20:43, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Leprechauns have only recently not existed

A quick survey of free access encyclopedias show that actually -0- of them define "Leprechaun" as being non-existent. You can read an entire encyclopedia of folklore without once encountering anything about Leprechauns being not real. You will find all sorts of details of their characteristics and habits. So isn't that RS for Leprechauns at least at some point in history, being real? Here are some of the results of my research.

• "Leprechaun", Oxford Quick Reference (taken from The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable): does not mention "aren't real" or "don't exist" "In Irish folklore, a small mischievous sprite. The word is Irish, and comes ultimately from Old Irish lu ‘small’ + corp ‘body’."
• Kathleen Kuiper "Leprechaun", Encyclopædia Britannica: does not give the slightest hint that they aren't real, and even explains that "He possesses a hidden crock of gold; if captured and threatened with bodily violence, he might, if his captor keeps his eyes on him, reveal its hiding place. But usually the captor is tricked into glancing away, and the fairy vanishes."
• Encyclopedia.com Leprechauns "Leprechauns are just one example of the many races of ancient creatures that lived in Ireland, according to Celtic belief. For the Celts, leprechauns are a connection to the land's ancient roots. The leprechaun's hidden pot of gold may reflect Celtic views of the land itself as a treasure to be appreciated." DolyaIskrina (talk) 02:03, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

No one is arguing that leprechauns are real, nor that astrology works. This is completely irrelevant. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 04:31, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Indeed. Numerous RS explicitly say astrology should be judged as not pseudoscientific in classical or Renaissance times and that it was not a pseudoscience until the modern era. They say that it is important to note that astrology, in many aspects at least, was recognized as a science—not as a pseudo-science—until the 18th century. What RS explicitly says that Leprechauns, at some point in history, were real?

Furthermore, the survey above showed that most sources do not prominently mention that astrology is pseudoscience, though some do. The inference was not that therefore astrology is not pseudoscience, but simply that perhaps we should not mention it in the very most prominent way possible either. Does our Leprechaun article start with Leprechauns are non-existent, made-up beings that ...? That's the kind of pompous undue I and many other editors here feel our article is in.

The underlying difference, I think, is that whereas some editors assume that readers come here with questions such as 'is it real?', 'does it work?', 'where can I find an astrologer to predict my future?', other editors assume that readers are coming here with questions like 'what exactly is astrology?', 'how is it supposed to work?', 'where does it come from?', 'what is it that made so many people believe in such a thing?', etc. The first vision of WP is as a kind of on-web warning & education service, the second is much more like an encyclopedia.

Anyway, listen DolyaIskrina, I find this incongruous ridicule very nearly bordering on a personal attack. The suggestion that other editors are crackpots who believe in leprechauns can be seriously damaging. Please don't do something like this again. Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 10:05, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

The fundamental problem seems to be that a few contributors here are under the misapprehension that 'pseudoscientific' is a synonym for 'wrong'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:24, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that too is a major problem. 'Was not always a pseudoscience' ≠ 'was not always wrong'. Many editors can't seem to get their heads around that. Though I do maintain that the sheer focus on pointing out both its wrongness and its deceptive nature (claiming to adhere to scientific standards when it doesn't) as prominently as possible is more fitting for a watchdog website than for an encyclopedia. I have said this before, I actually sympathize very much with the watchdog mission, I just feel it's out of place on WP. Other editors believe this is an important thing to do for us, and that's okay, but it would sometimes be good if everyone was more aware of these underlying positions. In particular, believing that pseudoscience-related topics are not treated as encyclopedically as they could be on this website is not the same as believing in pseudoscience or other crazy ideas. I would like it very much if nasty suggestions of that kind were to stop. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 11:48, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

I guess I have a higher regard for Leprechauns and those who believe in them than you do. I use Leprechauns not as an insult, but as an illuminating metaphor for how excessive contextualization (backed up by RS!) confuses rather than helps the reader. "Leprechauns are just one example of the many races of ancient creatures that lived in Ireland, according to Celtic belief." This is solid RS from an Encyclopedia that clearly says "creatures" that "lived." Folklore is very important and meaningful and motivating. Just like Astrology was.

Whether or not we are a "watchdog site" we have policy that is established to deal with pseudoscience. You say:

"Was not always a pseudoscience' ≠ 'was not always wrong"

This is a very subtle claim. If editors don't get this, how can we expect the readers to get this? "Science" obviously confers legitimacy and "pseudoscience" does not. But, if your above non-equivalence is so self-evident, then why are you working so hard to make sure we draw the distinction in the lead? It goes without saying that once upon a prescientific time, astrology couldn't have been defined in contrast to a thing (science) that didn't yet exist. Just as it goes without saying that Leprechauns are creatures that lived in Ireland in a folkloric sense of the word "lived." DolyaIskrina (talk) 16:40, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

If editors don't get this, how can we expect the readers to get this? A sensible objection. This has come up before, for example when one editor above !voted for historical contextualizing with the rationale that Readers are pretty smart and can figure out the meaning in what's being written. I think it also speaks to what I wrote just above, that whereas I am writing here with the idea in mind of a high-quality encyclopedia that makes such subtle distinctions, other Wikipedians who are primarily concerned with warning average Jane or Joe that astrology is not legitimate may object to such distinctions as potentially confusing. Can't we just agree to disagree on our general approach here, without bringing up belief in leprechauns? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:09, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

If you do not understand what the argument is, you should ask what the argument is instead of just inventing some stupid argument such as suggestion that other editors are crackpots who believe in leprechauns and put it in people's mouths. Please don't do something like this again. No thanks from me for not doing it because it should go without saying that one should not misrepresent others. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:09, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

I see a lot of outrage here based on the claim that believing in Leprechauns is execrable. It is not. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed in the Cottingley Fairies, and he wasn't a crackpot. I can provide a ton of RS talking about how important it is in Irish culture. I can provide RS explaining how prior to the 1800's it doesn't even make sense to call it "unscientific" to believe in Leprechauns. They were as real as real got in those days. If there is an obvious difference between Astrology and Good Folk, let me know. Instead of crying "strawman" or just asserting by fiat that there is a big difference, provide the difference! Astrology is different from other pre-scientific cultural practices in the following ways.... DolyaIskrina (talk) 15:10, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

This is becoming a classic – use ridicule instead of an argument, then present the outrage over the ridicule as an attempt at deflection. Let me instead attempt to clarify, with apologies for repeating what I wrote above.

RS on leprechauns do not mention non-existence prominently. So isn't that RS for Leprechauns at least at some point in history, being real? No it isn't, what's your point? That RS on astrology not mentioning pseudoscience prominently is not proof of astrology at some point in history not being pseudoscience either? No, it isn't. RS literally saying that astrology at some point in history was not pseudoscience is proof of it though. More importantly, RS not mentioning pseudoscience prominently is an argument (my argument, above) not to mention it prominently on WP too, like RS on leprechauns not mentioning non-existence prominently would be an argument not to mention that prominently on WP. Again, does our Leprechaun article start with Leprechauns are non-existent, made-up beings that ...? Do you finally understand the nature of my argument above, and how you misrepresented it?

Moreover, your leprechauns parody is about whether they are real, while my argument was about being pseudoscientific. This strongly suggests that you equate 'not being pseudoscientific' with 'being real', an unfortunate misapprehension as Andy pointed out above. I do not personally believe that astrology is real and I am in no way trying to prove this. But astrology did historically go from being not pseudoscientific (not claiming to adhere to scientific standards it doesn't adhere to) to being pseudoscientific (claiming to adhere to scientific standards it doesn't adhere to), whereas leprechauns never went from being real to not being real. The fact that people once believed both astrology and leprechauns to be real is a red herring: being pseudoscientific or not has nothing to do with what people believe, and my argument was never about whether any of it is real or not. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:21, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

use ridicule instead of an argument You still invent your own argument instead and put it into people's mouths. When skeptics cite Santa Claus or leprechauns, they usually do it to show that the reasoning they heard does not work - by applying the same reasoning to something the reasoner rejects. The logic is, "if your reasoning were sound, then the case for [..] would be strengthened too. Therefore, your reasoning is not sound." The reasoning here is that we should look at what other encyclopedias do not say to determine what this encyclopedia should not say either.

Of course the pseudoscientific-ness of astrology and the non-existence of leprechauns are different subjects! Of course some aspects apply to one case but not the other! If they were exactly the same, there would be no point in using one to refute reasoning about the other!

So, most of your contribution misses the point. You actually did address the real point in the second paragraph, and it may well be that the leprechaun analogy does not hold water in other aspects. I still repeat my suggestion that if you do not understand something, you should ask instead of making shit up. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:04, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Apaugasma says Astrology once was "not pseudoscientific" fairies were also once "not pseudoscientific". This is the crux of the problem. The existence of RS doesn't fix this problem. The difference between the words "scientific" and "real" do not fix this problem. Once you engage in this degree of historical relativism in an article that is not about the *history* of the subject, you are at best confusing the reader, at worst, you are taking one of the most widely agreed upon examples of pseudoscience and, *in the lead*, creating a false equivalency in violation of WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE. " While pseudoscience may in some cases be significant to an article, it should not obfuscate the description of the mainstream views of the scientific community" OR even more worse, you are allowing astrologers to use this page as a marketing tool, so they can claim that they are engaging in ancient wisdom traditions. This proposed changes are not good for Wikipedia or readers. DolyaIskrina (talk) 23:29, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Fairies are still not pseudoscientific. They were never scientific to begin with, even if some people believed in them, and people do not claim (at least, that I've heard) that the existence of fairies is scientifically verifiable.

This is an encyclopedia and an encyclopedic article on astrology should be, at least in part, about the *history* of the subject.

Also, like it or not, plenty of astrologers are engaging in ancient wisdom traditions, at least in some sense. That doesn't make it true. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 12:53, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Plenty of history on the page now. It doesn't belong in the lead where it is UNDUE. And yes plenty of people have claimed that there is scientific proof of spirits. Cottingley Fairies are just one example. But wait, Cottingley Fairies were a hoax, you say. Yup, you think there hasn't been any hoax astrology? Ghosts, cryptids, etc. all make the claim of being science. There is a real conceptual problem and a strange sliding scale in trying to create an astrology exceptionalism. You can't really justify saying "everyone knows astrology is bunk, but it's not like all that other bunk." You also can't say, "in historical context, astrology was science, but in historical context, fairies were not science." If you are rehabilitating traditions and giving cultures their due, you can't cherry pick the ones you like. Either everybody gets to be former science or nobody does. DolyaIskrina (talk) 20:46, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Everything you talk about here gets to be decided by RS, not by Wikipedia editors. When RS say astrology is a former science but they don't say that about fairies, we better follow them. All else is anti-Wikipedia at its core. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 01:56, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Nope. It's not decided by any RS. It is decided by WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE, which is clear that the RS we listen to on fringe topics are the scientists. You are trying to change policy by allowing non science RS. Once you open that door, then we can also use historical and folkloric RS to define Leprechauns as existing. If you wouldn't do it for Leprechauns then you also shouldn't do it for Astrology. DolyaIskrina (talk) 21:17, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

You are merely admitting here that WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE as currently written is the perfect tool to push certain editorial points of view above and against what RS are saying. But however much you try to abuse it in this way, that myopically drafted paragraph simply does not erase the core meaning of NPOV, which is to proportionately represent the views of the most relevant and prominent RS on the topic, whatever they may be. To suggest that it does is pure wiki-lawyering. I for my part invite any and all RS dealing specifically with Leprechauns to be cited in the Leprechauns article for what they are actually saying about them, as I do for the astrology article. Your rejection of the most prominent RS on astrology just because they do not fit your POV, on the other hand, is –I repeat– anti-Wikipedia at its core. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 21:49, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

You are free to continue to try to change how the policy is written as you are doing here, but the lead of this article is not the place for that. And until the policy changes please refrain from calling me anti-Wikipedia for following policy. DolyaIskrina (talk) 17:24, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

"does not give the slightest hint that they aren't real" Except for the usage of the word "folklore", which the same source defines as "ideas or stories that are not true but that many people have heard or read". In other words, any source that calls leprechauns "folklore" doesn't need to explicitly state that they aren't real. The word already carries that meaning. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:30, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Of course, the leprechaun is actually a caricature of folklore. It's the weakest possible strawman. But maybe convincing people is not the goal. - Palpable (talk) 18:26, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Aftermath

Well, this discussion happened about as (un)fruitfully as I expected. My judgement is that status quo might need to be kept here because we just aren't going to make decent progress beyond this. The problem, as I see it, is that astrology as a subject is poorly defined! Sure there are academics who ostensibly study "astrology" within the confines of various disciplines, but even those who do so do not define it consistently. For example, I still have yet to see a definition which identifies what exactly is "astrological" and what is "astronomical" when it comes to any given claim about predicting events based on celestial considerations from, let's say, prior to the eighteenth century (it may be that such a distinction is meaningless -- in which case -- what allows us to write this article at all?). "Astrology" like "astronomy", "pseudoscience", "divination", "superstition", and, hell, "science" is a term that was refined in the context of the ongoing scientific revolution and, as pointed out by some of the better criticism pieces, in the context of conflicts over religion and science, the borders of that are still not well demarcated. Nevertheless, the most common use of the term "astrology" is the one that deals with the subject as it is practiced today (like it or not) and it relates to a particular set of claims that may harken back to other more broad and expansive definitions, but are ultimately pseudoscientific par excellence. You can't fight the status quo, in my mind, unless you've got a good way to make it clear how the new wording is an improvement. So far, we have so many different interpretations of each of the proposals, that I don't think we've got anything worth pursuing. It's a shame when discussions end in stalemate and uncomfortable inadequacies of the present moment, but WP:RGW is here. I think the participants in this discussion would be well advised to go forth and write sources. I've learned a lot from our discussions here, but I don't think my new understanding is easily reflected in the sources except, perhaps, as one that looks at the entire compendium in a more expansive way. That more sources might approach the subject like this could allow for a better framing. But we don't have that ability to fix it here yet.

jps (talk) 12:31, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. There is no consensus to make a change. Options A and B were supported by almost exactly the same number of people, and the justifications given by each participant varied wildly, so there's nothing we can act on here, especially when you consider that ArbCom already has a longstanding consensus essentially in favor of the current wording. Cpotisch (talk) 02:38, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Of course Jps still has the same questions about how to define astrology, and most of us still have the same opinions as before the RfC. I do too. But I read 15 !votes for B, 12 for A, 5 for C, and 2 for 'B or C but not A', which I think can be safely added to either B or C. Combined with 3 C !votes being clearly against A and only 1 of them against B, I'd say B has an advantage of about 16 (15+2-1) to 9 (12-3). Some !votes on both the B and A sides are almost worthless, but most of them do make a decent argument. Of course while you may believe B !votes carry less weight because you perceive them to be against longstanding consensus, I believe A !votes carry less weight because I perceive them to willfully ignore what reliable sources are saying. That kind of weighing is probably extremely difficult for a discussion closer to carry out.

But I did not expect the arguments to be very important. As I explained somewhere above, I think there is an underlying difference in what editors believe Wikipedia should fundamentally be, which from my perspective looks like the difference between a popular website giving clear guidance to ignorant web surfers, or a high-quality encyclopedia that is written for intelligent people who appreciate subtle distinctions. There are no source- or policy-based arguments for or against this, it goes beyond that. What I was curious about was the number of people who would !vote for the given options, and I think the closer of the RfC should mainly look to that.

As for how to go forward if the status quo should be maintained (some more !A votes and we may have a 'no consensus'), I think it's okay if nothing happens for a while. The article is a mess, and it was a major mistake to start with trying to change the lead. One day someone knowledgeable about astrology will come around and rewrite this whole thing, and I'm pretty sure that it will be much easier to agree when, say, we have a whole impeccably sourced section on the historical process by which astrology came to be regarded as a pseudoscience. I'm sorry to say so, but as is often the case in discussions about Wikipedia articles, it's the ignorance of editors who lack any kind of subject expertise that is holding back progress, and in my experience such ignorance will rule supreme until it is ultimately defeated by ... a rewritten article. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 01:56, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

RFCs aren’t decided on a simple majority vote. By my count, the “tally” is 12 A, 15 B, 5 C, and there’s like three different ways to divvy up the Cs (i.e. ranked choice), two of which give B a final majority and one of which gives A the final majority. That is far too murky to constitute any sort of consensus for a change, so the existing consensus at ArbCom stands. So yeah, we’ll have to wait around for a while until someone offers new evidence and a new argument. Until that point, no one has any grounds to make substantive changes to its characterization as a pseudoscience. Cpotisch (talk) 18:56, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Arab World or Islamic World?

The lede states:

Western astrology, one of the oldest astrological systems still in use, can trace its roots to 19th–17th century BCE Mesopotamia, from where it spread to Ancient Greece, Rome, the Arab world and eventually Central and Western Europe.

Yet the body of the article speaks of the Islamic world rather than the more narrowly defined Arab world? - LouisAragon (talk) 16:34, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

@Apaugasma: thoughts? - LouisAragon (talk) 16:34, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

This is a known conundrum. Not all of the relevant texts were written in Arabic or by ethnic Arabs, but not all of the texts were written by Muslims either, so "Arabic", "Arab", and "Islamic" are all to an extent incorrect. Sometimes "Arabic-Islamic" or "Arabo-Islamic" (see Google Scholar [2] [3]) are used to cover as much terrain as possible, though when speaking of Arabic textual traditions "Arabic" is used more often (as in "Arabic astrology", compare again Google Scholar [4] [5] [6] [7]).

An alternative that has gained much currency the last ten years and that I like a lot is "Islamicate" (see the very high-quality sources that use it [8]), meaning everything produced in the time and place when Islam was politically and culturally dominant. It solves the problem by including all linguistic traditions and all religions, while still singling out what they had in common (i.e., being part of the Dar al-islam). I think "Islamicate world" is common enough ([9]) to use it here. I would also recommend piping the link to Science in the medieval Islamic world, a GA. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 17:17, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

@Apaugasma: Thank you for the sound arguments and WP:RS evidence. I will adjust the link accordingly (Islamicate world). - LouisAragon (talk) 15:18, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Merge Astrology, Western Astrology, Zodiac, History of Astrology?

Check out all these pages: Western astrology, Zodiac, History of astrology. I am open to suggestions, but it seems to me that Western astrology and Zodiac should be merged, and this page we are on now Astrology should merge with History of astrology. Thoughts? DolyaIskrina (talk) 23:44, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't see how you could merge Western astrology and Zodiac because Western astrology is pseudoscience while Zodiac is a region in the sky, as well as a celestial coordinate system. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:10, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

The Zodiac article is primarily about the constellations, although it does discuss astrology, and the Western astrology article is primarily about the pseudoscience, although it does discuss the zodiac. Perhaps the Zodiac article has too much material about astrology and vice versa, but I don't think the solution is to merge the two articles, which are, or should be, about two completely different topics. CodeTalker (talk) 00:15, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Ah good point. I like your idea of moving the Astrology specific material to "western astrology". Is Zodiac used much outside of astrology anymore? DolyaIskrina (talk) 00:29, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

I think it's used much less frequently in astronomical writing that it used to be, but it's still sometimes used to refer to the 12 constellations along the ecliptic, as well as that area of the sky. For example, a search for "zodiac" in the web site for Astronomy magazine returns 931 results. A quick scan indicates to me that a few of them are actually references to astrology, but more are about the constellations, and even more are about the zodiacal light. A similar search in the web site for Sky and Telescope magazine returns 3620 results with a similar distribution. CodeTalker (talk) 00:39, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks for info. Part of my reason for proposing these mergers is that there is some fuzziness about whether or not each of these pages is about the history of their topic or about how the topic is being used today. Once I have enough clarity, I'll take it to the talk pages of the specific pages. DolyaIskrina (talk) 04:14, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Astrology covers far more than just history, but it properly contains a history section with "main" link to History of astrology. As the article at the root of its tree, it also contains sections on Western astrology, Hindu astrology, and Chinese astrology: these are large enough (and easily notable enough) topics for substantial subsidiary articles. There is always scope for discussion on the amount of coverage of subsidiary topics in the top-level article (I happen to think the balance pretty reasonable at the moment) but that's a matter for adjustment not merger. Zodiac is both a substantial subsidiary article, and partly astronomical not astrological, so as stated above, a merger would not make sense. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:00, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Gotcha. This page is meant to be the main page with all the other pages being more detailed. DolyaIskrina (talk) 15:53, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

These are distinct topics and the articles are pretty long, I don't agree with a merge.PrisonerB (talk) 10:26, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

I now realize I should have added Horoscope to the candidate merge. Of all these pages, that one needs the most work. DolyaIskrina (talk) 15:54, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Glad we agree on most of this! Horoscope is a substantial topic and certainly notable; I think it makes very good sense as a separate article. I will hazard a well-informed guess that the problem with sources is that any of the numerous guides to how to cast a horoscope have been disallowed as pseudoscience and primary, which does make writing an article about it rather difficult. Historical sources would presumably escape that trap but they'd be beyond the capabilities of most editors (since a) they have to find them, b) read them and c) have enough understanding of trines and houses to make sense of them). None of that reduces either the large size of the subject (certainly hundreds of books over the centuries), nor its notability. The text as it stands is actually not too bad, though the "scientific criticism" section is about astrology rather than horoscopes specifically. Anyway, there's good reason not to merge. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:25, 3 August 2022 (UTC)