Differences and similarities between Astronomy and Astrology

Did you know that Astrology is now considered as a pseudo-science or a subfield of Astronomy? Over time, astronomy and astrology have been confused by people.  Astrology is a set of beliefs that attempt to relate the characteristics of a person with their zodiac. On the other hand, it is the astronomy that is the science that studies the universe including planets and satellites.  Astrology is different to astronomy but there are similarities between both. 

The popularity of astrology and astronomy has been conflicted because on one hand there are the people´s beliefs and on the other hand there are the scientific studies.  This is one of the reasons why astrology has become popular. Poll (2009), revealed that one of four of Americans expresses a belief in the power of astrology.  Also astronomy is popular in the scientific community thanks to all the studies and researching made to this science. In addition, astronomy and astrology will not disappear for a long time. There will be people who believe in astrology as well as people based on scientific stuff, specifically astronomy. 

Astronomy is a reality because it is a science and astrology could be a fact or fiction. Astrology is now considered as a pseudo-science or a subfield of astronomy.  Crow (2006), considers astrology within occultism such as theosophy, anthroposophy, alchemy, spiritualism, rhabdomancy, prophecy, and lycanthropy. It is not sure to know if astrology is a fact or fiction. Contrary to that, astronomy is one of the oldest sciences and also it has theories that have been proved by famous historic scientific such as Aristoteles, Galileo, etc.  Astronomy is a reliable science because it is focused on acquiring data from observations of astronomical objects.  

Society has different opinions about astronomy and astrology.  The relation between society and astrology is that society has been studying the relation of historical social events with astrology but it is not a great support to the present society.  It would be a disadvantage of astrology because it is just a pseudo-science that has not theories but unlikely hypotheses.  Meanwhile, there are advancements in astronomy like energy, medicine, international collaboration among others.  That is why astronomy has the economic support from the government and society.  

As a conclusion we can say that although astrology and astronomy are different by far.  These will be always related because they focus on similar characteristics.  Since the contributions made by each one and the society's point of view.  Every single person can decide which is better to themselves, or even to be an eclectic person who accepts both, astronomy and astrology.  People can not deny that both have good features and convincing studies that can show us its veracity.  

 

References 

 

Kaplan, AO. (2014). Research on the pseudo-scientific beliefs of preservice science teachers:A sample from astronomy-astrology. Journal of Baltic Science Education,13(3), 381-393. 

Mozzafari, S. (2004). The effect of astrological opinions of ds of society: A preliminary view. A Journal of the Humanities & Social Sciences,16(4), 359-368. 

Bakich, M. (2004) Astrology: fact or fiction? Astronomy,32(12), 50-56. 

 

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