On 27 May 2024, personality and cross-cultural psychologist Mohsen Joshanloo published his research on Sun-sign astrology, titled: The sun’s position at birth is unrelated to subjective well-being: Debunking astrological claims (full study available here). His synopsis, posted on Twitter, reads thus:
My new research: No link between zodiac sign & subjective well-being and quality of life (distress, job satisfaction, happiness, etc.). Zodiac sign did not outperform random numbers. Challenging astrological myths and stereotypes.
I commend and thank Dr. Joshanloo for his willingness to discuss astrology at all, because a lot has changed over the centuries in terms of public and academic respectability of the subject.
Science and astrology: some historical context
Pre-Enlightenment, subjective reality and the role of perception held greater appreciation in both science and the humanities. Ancient authors held that the Earth was at the center of the cosmos – if not literally, at least practically. The Ptolemaic model, introduced by Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD, was so robust that it would remain the chief model in use by astronomers and scientists until the 17th century.
The longstanding preference for Ptolemy’s model wasn’t for lack of choice. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos proposed a heliocentric model in the 3rd century BC, nearly two thousand years before Copernicus. Heliocentric tables of planetary positions had been kept ever since, in libraries and observatories around the ancient and pre-modern world. The low adoption was largely because a) our visual experience doesn’t align with heliocentricity, but more importantly, b) a heliocentric model was no better than the Ptolemaic model in terms of accurately recording planetary positions and phenomena. The reason for (b) is that both geocentric and heliocentric models expected orbital paths to be perfectly circular, when they are in fact elliptical with varying degrees of eccentricity.
Johannes Kepler, in the 17th century, introduced elliptical orbits as the first in his three laws of planetary motion. His innovation was the first to meaningfully improve the models used to predict the positions of the planets and astral phenomena. Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, Galileo – building on one another, these names ushered in an age of intellectual discovery, and a shift toward a heliocentric model aligned with broader cultural shifts toward a more rational, objective view of reality.
Ptolemy’s geometrical model, laid out in his Almagest circa 150 AD, was so robust that it remained the gold standard through nearly fifteen centuries of human advancement. Even the developments of the Copernican revolution – which placed the Sun in the centre of the universe, unseating the Earth – improved little upon Ptolemy’s model.
Copernican’s model, introduced in the mid-1500s, was just as cumbersome: it used as many epicycles as Ptolemy’s model required, though their sizes were reduced. Importantly, Copernicus’s heliocentric system still relied on perfect circles.
Throughout history, a desire to improve the reliability of astrological judgments for various needs (agricultural, matters of statecraft, etc.) was the primary driver for improving astronomical capability: the more accurate our astronomical measurements, the more consistency one could expect from astrological pronouncements. Astronomy has astrology to thank for spurring the science on pre-Enlightment. Post-Enlightenment, I’d argue that new capacity for objective measurements displaced the ability to appreciate truths that can only be found in subjective realities. Eventually, astronomy (the science of measurement) was decoupled from astrology (the art of judgment).
Sensing an emerging need to justify astrology’s tenets, astrologers began merging old world apologetics with science-y buzzwords like vibration, biomagnetism, gravitational forces: old ideas with new veneers. The aim was to make astrology fit under the new scientism paradigm. Some of these tracts make for interesting reading, but in my opinion, many essays didn’t age well, and a good many besides read like shoehorning one of the humanities into the languages of hard science.
Solar Biology by Hiram E. Butler (1887), one example of the wave of post-industrialization texts seeking to rationalize or scientize astrology.
Today, astrology is largely dismissed out of hand, principally from those who don’t understand its claims and have made no attempt to educate themselves on its premise. Surveys and studies demonstrate a widespread misunderstanding of astrology’s scope beyond personality analysis, and perhaps hint at an entitled arrogance (“I don’t need to educate myself about this pseudoscience to debunk it”) so pervasive among already-biased researchers. They see astrology as antiquated superstition; wouldn’t the world be off without it? What’s to respect?
One of the surefire ways to identify someone who is speaking from an uninformed position on astrology is that they only talk about astrology as it corresponds to personality analysis. They are largely unaware that personality analysis was a later development in astrology, and not its most prolific application by far. For most of human history, having a confirmed birth time – even a birth date – was out of the question. (And even for those who had known birth data, personality analysis is a decidedly modern, post-20th century concept. Astrologers of ancient eras were more concerned with dispelling myths of fatalism, giving rise to the old adage that “the stars incline, but they do not compel.”)
Astrology has been used for a wide range of purposes beyond personality. Babylonians used astrology to predict agricultural and fertility cycles. Chinese emperors relied on court astrologers for political decision-making. In the Islamic Golden Age, Persian and Arabic astrologers revived the techniques of bygone eras to build Baghdad and position the caliphate for growth and prosperity. Tremendous research by recent and modern academics indexes the tens of thousands of pages penned by Renaissance-era astrologers, whose primary focus was not in birth chart analysis, but rather in how the positions of the planets at key intervals signal the changing tides of war, commerce, and justice.
Example texts treating political use of astrology in the 17th century, and an example of a 17th century almanac, England’s Prophetical Merlin, written by English astrologer William Lilly (1644).
In the hands of master practitioners, planetary phenomena forecasted economies, crop yields, weather (astrology was the original form of weather forecasting, a dwindling tradition maintained by a select few around the globe). It informed strategies in war and peace, guided the reigns of kings, queens and emperors, indicated the general health and wellbeing of regional populations, etc. This branch of astrology is called mundane astrology, borrowing from the Latin mundus meaning world, and was considered the noblest application of the art by master practitioners.
Astrology has also been used for much more immediate needs, and to resolve dilemmas of varying complexity: determining whether some transaction will be completed profitably, locating a missing person or pet or thing (like stolen fabric or lost commercial goods), counseling as to whether a relationship will lead to marriage, predicting whether a querent would have victory in war or court proceedings, estimating when someone or a ship might return home. The applications are, quite literally, endless. Case studies of the success of this branch – called horary or interrogational astrology – abound in written and digital repositories.
To engage in a balanced discourse on the topic, critics first need to be sufficiently informed on the historical context and varied applications of astrology. A more informed understanding of astrology’s role in human history, and claims made in its name, can lead to a more fruitful and respectful discussion of its merits and limitations.
Dr. Joshanloo’s research suggests that he has not yet taken these necessary first steps to understand the subject matter, and his misunderstanding (or misrepresentation) of astrological claims resulted in critical methodological errors. When an argument begins with a false premise, even if sound logic is employed, the conclusion will also be false. If the idea is to debunk astrology, this study can’t do it. Dr. Joshanloo’s conclusion, while perhaps logically derived from his faulty premises, is regrettably moot and fails to address the nature and scope of astrology in any meaningful way.
What this study can do, however, is provide evidence that public ideas about astrology aren’t reliable – and that is precisely what this study demonstrates. No more, no less.
Assessing the study's premises
Here, I will draw direct quotes from the Dr. Joshanloo’s published piece, and respond to erroneous premises in-line.
Signs ≠ astrology
Beliefs linking zodiac signs to personality traits, life outcomes, and well-being remain widespread across various cultures.
If this read, “Beliefs linking astrological configurations to personality traits, …”, then I could take no issue. There is an expectation that planets in angular positions to the horizon, close planetary alignments or configurations, and repeated themes in a birth chart should align with a base temperament, and will even help time points in one’s life where those themes become more pronounced.
Instead, Dr. Joshanloo incorrectly equates zodiac signs with astrology itself. The signs of the zodiac are one component of astrology, certainly, but they are not the principal indicators in the subject.
Strip away modern conveniences – no computers, no telephones, no calculators. Cast your mind back to the dawn of civilization, to humanity’s agrarian past. The astronomical insights of our earliest ancestors would’ve been simple and immediate: a bright, warm light rises in the east each day, destined to culminate in the south and set in the west. Sometimes, a second light is visible. This second light changes shape, follows the same path as the first light, and moves considerably faster.
Human consciousness would alight upon things already sensed by animal instinct – that temperature and humidity change with the Sun’s risings, warming the surface of the earth as it climbs the southern skies; that the Sun’s power seems to climax at its highest altitude before yielding to a descent marked not only by heat, but also by the recession of moisture; that as the Sun sets in the west, the atmosphere gradually cools, and with the source of heat withdrawing, moisture returns. Those living near water would notice the tides change in company with the Moon, and that living things experience growth and decrease by its light and movement.
The takeaway: nature responds to the positions of these two luminaries. And humanity, sensing itself to be a part of nature, expected to be subject to the same rhythms. The east, where the Sun rises anew each day, came to be associated with beginnings, new life, vitality, and growth. The Sun’s culmination point, due south, corresponds to mid-life and the pinnacle of achievement where one finds honor, esteem, and glory. The setting place in the west casts the Sun into the underworld, opposes the dawning point of life, and took on an adversarial meaning. The Sun’s anti-culmination in the north, beneath our horizon, came to signify old age, lineage, the grave and what rests in the bowels of the earth, and the final ends of all things.
The Sun, the Moon, the five visible planets, and the local sky – these are the primary components of astrology. The signs, which host the planets on their orbital journeys, act as modifiers of planetary behavior. If we could liken this to a stage production, the luminaries and planets are akin to the actors, their motion provides the main themes in the script, and where they are positioned against the local horizon is like the environment or set design. The signs, then, are analogous to the wardrobe department: the actors sometimes wear this, sometimes that, but their wardrobe is only an additive feature. The wardrobe department cannot be more important than the cast; but without the wardrobing department, the cast would never been seen. There is a dependency here, but also hierarchy.
Dr. Joshanloo’s expectation that astrology and the zodiac signs are interchangeable conceptually is not unique to him. The signs became synonymous with astrology after the subject fell into general disrepute (post-Enlightenment). Like so often happens to subjects when they fall out of favor publicly, fewer bright minds enter the subject, and a technical and philosophical attrition begins. This is how Europe fell into a dark age in the 5th century. Most Western knowledge (medicine, philosophy, politics, mathematics, astronomy) was recorded in Greek. When the Greek Empire collapsed, learning Greek became less prestigious, less productive, less attractive. Fewer and fewer translators learn how to bring Greek knowledge into Latin. A few centuries of that and you have yourself an intellectual dark age.
Over two to three centuries, astrology was whittled down to its most democratic and digestible component: the zodiacal circle, composed of twelve signs (Aries, Taurus, Gemini, etc.) or images (the Ram, the Bull, the Twins, etc.). The signs came back into popular imagination with the proliferation of horoscope columns in magazines. In terms of rigor, this form of astrology is greatly reduced from its former stature. We are, in many respects, still recovering from this sundering from the pre-Enlightenment tradition, and I’d argue that it is responsible for the most hotly debated items within the professional astrological industry.
All this to day: the signs matter, but they are not at the top of astrological hierarchy. In order of importance: (1) the luminaries and their condition, (2) the five visible planets and their conditions, (3) the angles of the horizon, and, (4) the signs of the zodiac.
Dr. Joshanloo’s research considers the Sun, but not its condition, and the only other factor considered is (4) the zodiacal signs, the lowest priority item. He ignores the Moon and its condition; he discounts entirely points (2) and (3); and in his use of the Sun through the zodiacal signs, he has had to rely on pop culture renditions of what the signs signify.
Acknowledged limits of astrological prediction
Astrology is based on the premise that the positions and movements of celestial bodies at the time of birth shape personality, behavior, and life outcomes (Das et al., 2022).
It is unfortunate that Dr. Joshanloo decided to reference someone else’s study to numerate astrology’s claims, a secondary source, when so many primary sources exist.
Setting that aside, it is important to recognize that astrologers are divided on themes of causation. Most Western astrologers follow a humanist, rather than fatalistic, model of astrology. The positions of the planets make certain options more or less likely, but we cannot be certain which of the options will manifest because there are other forces operative in this world beyond a person’s own birth chart. From Ptolemy’s influential astrological treatise, Tetrabiblos:
We should not believe that separate events attend mankind as the result of the heavenly cause as if they had been originally ordained for each person by some irrevocable divine command and destined to take place by necessity without the possibility of any other cause whatever interfering. […] [S]ome things happen to mankind through more general circumstances and not as the result of an individual's own natural propensities – for example, when men perish in multitudes by conflagration or pestilence or cataclysms, through monstrous and inescapable changes in the ambient, for the lesser cause always yields to the greater and stronger; other occurrences, however, accord with the individual's own natural temperament through miner and fortuitous antipathies of the ambient.
He builds further on this idea the second book of the Tetrabiblos, reminding practitioners that global or far-reaching realities permeate individual realities:
Since, then, prognostication by astronomical means is divided into two great and principal parts, and since the first and more universal is that which relates to whole races, countries, and cities, which is called general, and the second and more specific is that which relates to individual men, which is called genethlialogical, we believe it fitting to treat first of the general division, because such matters are naturally swayed by greater and more powerful causes than are particular events. And since weaker natures always yield to the stronger, and the particular always falls under the general, it would by all means be necessary for those who purpose an inquiry about a single individual long before to have comprehended the more general considerations.
Constellations ≠ zodiac signs
In Western astrology, the zodiac is divided into 12 signs that correspond to difference constellations along the Sun’s path from Earth’s perspective.
Factually inaccurate: the zodiac signs and the constellations are not one and the same, even though they may share names. The stars precess (move) at a very slow rate, about 1° forward in ecliptical longitude each seventy-two years. The constellation Aries once was nestled within zodiacal Aries, but today it is entirely contained with zodiacal Taurus.
Every few years, some news organization runs with a headline like, “Your zodiac sign has shifted!” The article will then suggest that because the constellations have shifted slowly over the years, your birth date now corresponds to a different astrological sign.
This is deeply misinformed, not only in terms of astrological practice, but also in terms of the history of science. Precession, or the slow shifting of the stars, does happen, but astrologers have known about this since the 3rd century BC. Hipparchus was the first credited with its discovery, and it was fully acknowledged in Ptolemy’s work from the 2nd century AD. It is quite telling how uninformed a reporter is when they regurgitate this misinformation.
The signs are based on seasons (i.e., where the Sun crosses the equator at the vernal equinox marks the start of spring and the zodiacal sign of Aries; the opposing point, the beginning of Libra, etc.), not the stars themselves.
Sun-signs cannot speak to life outcomes
According to astrological belief, each sign is associated with certain personality traits and life outcomes. Astrology posits that zodiac signs influence one’s personality traits and life path (LaBrot et al., 2022).
It would be inappropriate for an astrologer to summarize the scientific consensus on something by quoting a source inimical to the subject matter. No less inappropriate is quoting uninformed researchers’ summarizations about a subject when rich, historically accurate primary accounts of astrology and its practice are found on the shelves of every research library.
Signs are associated with certain traits, yes, which Dr. Joshanloo has only considered as it impacts personality. The corpus of western astrological texts is very clear on this point, however: the signs alone do not point to life outcomes, nor do Sun-signs. Astrologers must mix planetary meaning with its position in the sky, the configurations it makes with other planets, and the signs these planets occupy, to even begin to talk about life possibilities (much less life outcomes) – a reputable primary source is needed from Joshanloo on this claim.
Drawing on studies with the same blind spots and uninformed biases
For instance, Helgertz and Scott (2020) analyzed a large Swedish dataset and found no evidence to support the idea that astrologically compatible couples are more likely to marry or less likely to divorce.
I’ve read that study and would like to provide a quote from it to give the reader a sense of its quality:
Using information on date of birth, we determine the zodiac signs of both the index individual and their spouse, yielding 144 zodiac-sign combinations. A potential source of criticism of this method is that more detailed information containing the precise place of birth (latitude and longitude) as well as the precise time of day that the individual was born, is required in order for a more exact horoscope to be read. The majority of horoscopes consumed by the general public in magazines, online, and in newspapers is, however, based solely on the date of birth. Consequently, it would follow that our ability to assess zodiac signs only based on the date of birth does not represent an insurmountable disadvantage, but rather reflects the way these signs are constructed in daily use… The relationship compatibility classifications were obtained through accessing alexa.com’s top 500 astrology websites as well as through Google searches. Among sources whose primary subject matter is astrology, we selected those that offered information on relationship compatibility based on partners’ zodiac signs free of charge.
It should be categorically obvious to anyone who’s educated themselves on the subject and methods of astrology that Sun-sign compatibility is not going to be a reliable indicator of marital health. Helgertz and Scott were misinformed about what goes into compatibility analysis, and when combined with the reliability of their sources, their work falls short of minimum viability standards for many of the same reasons presented here in response to Dr. Joshanloo’s work.
Click-bait used as reputable source
Pertinent to the present study, astrology systems claim astrological signs are linked to well-being. For example, the article titled “Astrological Signs Skilled in Maintaining Happiness” argues that “certain zodiac signs… are really good at keeping away negative feelings. These signs have special qualities that help them stay positive and create a happy atmosphere.” Similarly, an article titled “5 Zodiac Signs Who Find It Easy To Be Happy” suggests that certain zodiac signs are more prone to feeling happy.
I am confused by the choice to reference headlines meant to drive ad revenue. Dr. Joshanloo’s decision to use these as sources changes the scope of what’s possible: his study cannot debunk astrology, but it can debunk what’s written about astrology. (Fair enough, Dr. Joshanloo – astrologers have been trying to do this for ages, we just don’t have the resources.) The referenced articles, both from the Times of India, are available here:
"Unexplained supernatural forces"
Popular belief suggests that certain zodiac signs are associated with superior or inferior well-being outcomes through unexplained supernatural forces.
Dr. Joshanloo’s careful wording here protects him from criticism from me, because I cannot say what is and isn’t “popular belief.” I can say, however, that well-being outcomes were not determined by Sun-sign for the reasons already outlined, in addition to reasons that are too technically involved to recount here.
His closing comment about “unexplained supernatural forces” seems a bad faith way to characterize how this subject has been discussed by practitioners. In Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos, he explains that the planets in their courses impact rhythms in the natural world:
Even a very few considerations would make it apparent to all that a certain power emanating from the eternal ethereal substance is dispersed through and permeates the whole region about the earth, which throughout is subject to change, since, of the primary sublunary elements, fire and air are encompassed and changed by the motions in the ether, and in turn encompass and change all else, earth and water and the plants and animals therein. For the Sun, together with the ambient, is always in same way affecting everything on the earth, not only by the changes that accompany the seasons of the year to bring about the generation of animals, the productiveness of plants, the flowing of waters, and the changes of bodies, but also by its daily revolutions furnishing heat, moisture, dryness, and cold in regular order and in correspondence with its positions relative to the zenith. The Moon, too, as the heavenly body nearest the earth, bestows her effluence most abundantly upon mundane things, for most of them, animate or inanimate, are sympathetic to her and change in company with her; the rivers increase and diminish their streams with her light, the seas turn their own tides with her rising and setting, and plants and animals in whole or in same part wax and wane with her. Moreover, the passages of the fixed stars and the planets through the sky often signify hot, windy, and snowy conditions of the air, and mundane things are affected accordingly. Then, too, their aspects to one another, by the meeting and mingling of their dispensations, bring about many complicated changes. For though the Sun's power prevails in the general ordering of quality, the other heavenly bodies aid or oppose it in particular details, the Moon more obviously and continuously, as for example when it is new, at quarter, or full, and the stars at greater intervals and more obscurely, as in their appearances, occultations, and approaches. If these matters be so regarded, all would judge it to follow that not only must things already compounded be affected in same way by the motion of these heavenly bodies, but likewise the germination and fruition of the seed must be molded and conformed to the quality proper to the heavens at the time. The more observant farmers and herdsmen, indeed, conjecture, from the winds prevailing at the time of impregnation and of the sowing of the seed, the quality of what will result; and in general we see that the more important consequences signified by the more obvious configurations of Sun, Moon, and stars are usually known beforehand, even by those who inquire, not by scientific means, but only by observation.
Throw a glass of water into the ocean, and watch it assimilate to the current. The current isn’t its own cause, that is somewhere deeper and further away, but it can still have descriptive value and be a secondary cause informing the movement patterns of things within and around it.
I can’t argue that there is some subtle influence operating in nature that astrology was designed to map; but to suggest that this influence remaining unnamed is a weak link in astrology’s mail is akin to faulting science for its inability to describe something in its essence, being only capable of measuring it (size, mass, color, density, etc.). Mathematics and astrology are descriptive tools – they cannot tell you what a thing is in itself, they can only describe. Their limitations are a function of their design, but these limitations do not detract from the beauty found in these fields of study.
An earnest invitation before debunking astrology
While I appreciate Dr. Joshanloo’s effort to investigate the relationship between astrology and subjective well-being, it is evident that his research is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of astrological principles and practices. By focusing solely on Sun signs and their supposed influence on personality traits and life outcomes, Dr. Joshanloo has inadvertently created a study that fails to meaningfully engage with the subject. He has, however, argued that popular ideas about Sun-sign astrology aren’t reliable. For that contribution, even astrologers might give their thanks. (I do, at least.)
The problem is that his published study claims to “debunk astrological claims” – this he did not do. As demonstrated throughout this article, astrology is a multifaceted discipline that considers far more than just the Sun’s position at birth. The Moon, the five visible planets, and their configurations within the context of the local sky are all essential components of astrological analysis. Moreover, any attempt to debunk astrology will fail if attempted by someone who doesn’t understand how astrology was used to predict feast or famine, war or peace, or the weather.
Given these significant discrepancies between Dr. Joshanloo’s premises and the actual claims and methods of astrology, I have chosen not to delve into the specifics of his study’s methods or results. To do so would be to lend credence to a line of inquiry that is, regrettably, misguided from the outset. Instead, I invite Dr. Joshanloo and other researchers interested in exploring the relationship between astrology and human experience to first familiarize themselves with the rich history and diverse applications of this ancient discipline. Or, if they choose to focus only on popular opinions of astrology, say so in the title of the published study. Misinformation headlines help no one.
Only by approaching astrology neutrally, with an open mind and a genuine understanding of its principles, can we hope to conduct research that meaningfully contributes to the ongoing dialogue between science and the humanities. Until then, studies like Dr. Joshanloo’s, while well-intentioned, will continue to fall wide of a useful mark, offering little of substance to our collective understanding of astrology’s place in the modern world – and worse, giving false confidence to a group of researchers who assume being less than half-informed and projecting otherwise is an acceptable academic decision.
