What is the difference between Buzzfeed quizzes and horoscopes? Buzzfeed's quizzes are more accurate.



In this modern era, where our daily life is scientifically- and technologically-driven, there is something particular that I found really interesting: astrology still plays a huge role in our life, especially and ironically on the young generation. I found a lot of people around my age that still believe that astrology is true, with the first rank is horoscopes and the second one is chinese zodiac.

Of course, the caption I wrote above is not totally true, they are both inaccurate. However, it may could explain why young generations still believe in such superstitions. Without wanting to offend a certain cultural history, let us see how astrology first comes into our life.

How Astrology Came Alive

Future-telling is not new at all. We are always curious to know what will happen in the future; it is wired to our brain. Lately I have discussed a lot of about the two common ways to predict our future: theologically or scientifically. Maybe I should not say that theology is a way to predict our future, but every single religion always write about what will happen in the future, so that counts right?

Science is an obvious answer, especially physics. Classical mechanics always said that if you know the condition of an object in the past, you could always figure out its condition in the future. This is largely true for our daily usages, but realistically this has been broken by quantum mechanics. I have written a whole article about this concept, so please read if you like to: "The Higher Entity That Defies Quantum Physics"

Okay back to the topic. Between science and religion, there is actually another method to tell your future, and this is astrology. Astrology somehow combined both aspects into a weird and confusing thing. For example, horoscope is based on star movement, which is totally scientific. Then, they use it to describe our love life. Isn't that ridiculous? If so, why a lot of people fell in love with this?

The Barnum-Forer Effect

I remember when I was a kid, when magazine is still a thing, every single one of them always contains at least one page dedicated to astrology. Almost all of them contain similar topics: career, love, and health. My mom subscribed to multiple magazines at that time, so as a curious young boy I read all of them and compared, and I found that every magazine has a different predicition. However, the readers always could relate to all of them. How come? Is there a scientific or psychologic explanation to this phenomena?

I am not at all a psychologist or a psychology major, but I found this interesting psychology phenomenon called the Barnum-Forer Effect. It says, "is a common psychological phenomenon whereby individuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically to them, yet which are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. This effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some paranormal beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, aura reading, and some types of personality tests." (Wikipedia). The whole wikipedia article tells the 101 of this effect, just take a look if you are curious.

From this we could learn that astrology is a mind trick. It is just another pseudo-science. If the prediction matches the reality, then it is coincidental. If it doesn't, than that is the way it should be. However, it has not explained why it gained its popularity. Everyone said that the millenials and the Z-generation are the most scientific literate generation in the history of the humankind. If it's the case, why astrology still have a role in our modern society?

Internet is Actually Responsible 

People always like to be "labelled." Saying things such as "I'm a pisces" or "I am an ENTP" gives such satisfaction and they feel like they are a part of a larger group. If you read the definition of the Barnum effect, it also applies to personality tests. Personality tests are indeed more accurate than horoscopes; they are based on an actual study. The difference between them only located in one thing: the background study. Personality tests are based on model created by humans to describe our behavioural tendency. In the other hand, horoscope is just purely nonsense.

The re-emergence of horoscopes actually went through the same way as the personality tests: socially. How? Have you ever received a whatsapp message from your family/friends group (you know, you always have that one uncle or one annoying friend who can't stop spamming in your group) about a link to a quiz? Maybe one about IQ, or love-life, or anything? This is exactly how they spread.

It all started by one person who took the reading, then this person feel "yea this is so true, I need to share this to my friends" (basically he/she is the victim of the Barnum effect). Everyone who received it will do the same, and more victims of this effect are falling.

Why I Found it Irritating

I actually don't mind if you believe such things as astrology, it is a "belief" afterall, and as I have said many times, as long as you keep it personal it's okay. The problem starts when this became so hard-wired to our brain that we could not separate what are facts and what are superstitions. The fact that people started to lean more and more to those superstitions means they could not separate scientific facts and the opposites.

One strong example is about the Mercury's retrogade. It became a hot news and a lot of people became panic, even I know some people who use it for their own personal reasons such as "ah that's why I'm in a bad moon" or "that's why I fail my tests", hey don't blame your laziness to the smallest planet who never does wrong. 

Mercury retrogade is not something uncommon, even it is nothing that specially occurs to Mercury. It happen to any celestial bodies who are orbiting a common thing, such as the earth and Mercury are orbiting the sun. There are a lot of good videos out there to explain, and I am sure if you use your 5 minutes to look at it rather reading your stupid horoscopes, you will understand it perfectly.

What I am afraid of this has a lot more complication to our literacy condition, especially at the time where we need it the most. Maybe I'm overreacting, but this is just one of my concern among others. The reason I put this episode in a season where I mostly discuss about God and religion is because they have similarities: believing in a thing that defies scientific truth. 

Which one is more dangerous, religion or astrology? Definitely the latter one. Religion is about believing most things that could not and will not be proven, but astrology is believing something that is a total fallacy. I will not discuss more the implication on our literacy, because I keep it for the next season. 

We Are Coming To The End

We have discussed a lot in this season, starting from the creation of the universe until astrology, and next post will be my last before we are jumping to the next topic. In the end, if you still believe in those astrology and superstitions, who am I to forbid you. I understand that a lot of them are tightly connected to our history and society, makes it impossible to remove.

However, if there is one thing I could add, they are just memes. They have nothing to do with our reality, and believing that such thing is true does not give you a better preparation for the future. Keep looking up at those stars and remember, they will not stop moving and their movement has nothing to do with your future.

Title image credit: dribbble.com

If you want more reading, I found this beautifully-written article about astrology: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/01/the-new-age-of-astrology/550034/