Astronomy Blog

Bad Astrologers II

It is that time of year again; the start of a new one. The newspapers will be full of horoscopes for the coming year. Many people will believe these predictions despite the (western) zodiac signs being based on an out-of-date version of the sky. Oh, that and having no basis in reality but I digress.

Earlier in the year I reviewed the attempts of a bunch of astrologers, and assorted others, at predicting the results of the UK General Election. They didn't do very well. In fact they were rubbish. When it comes down to making actual predictions they don't perform any better than guesswork. Despite that, they do make a killing from all those premium rate phone lines. Why do I mention it now? Well, looking back through my website logs, I notice that that post has had a lot of visits from people looking for the astrologers mentioned. I hope that these visitors saw my poor review and stopped to get some astronomy while they were here. I can hope at least. On a related point, one visitor came here looking for the phrase "Phil Plait is trouble". I guess he is, but in a nice way ;-)

Have a great 2006 everyone!