I'd probably say astrology can potentially/rarely be approached as a science (and that fails). But the way it's typically approached is unscientific / not science. I don't know if I'd even call that "bad" science, because there seems to be little to no attempt to follow anything resembling the scientific method most of the time, and "science" without the scientific method is just people doing stuff.

I'd argue that astrology isn't a science, because there is no theory of why the stars affect your later life - there is no proposed causal mechanism (AFAIK), just an assertion of association. Science is a search for the best naturalistic explanation of what we observe, and astrology is not an explanation. There is also (generally) no attempt at falsification. While falsification is not an absolute demarcation of science/non-science, it is still relevant.

@DikranMarsupial I would argue that a "why" isn't strictly necessary. The science of chemistry got very far without discovering the quantum "whys" for why these atoms bind to those atoms. "Why" is certainly nice to have, and it's a wonderful goal for discovery, but not strictly necessary for any given science. In fact, I think scientifically speaking, asking "Does this happen?" must come first before asking "Why does this happen?"

@TKoL I would say that "why" is always a goal for science, but it often takes time to get there. The problem with astrology is that there seems to be little or no interest in "why". I'm not sure the "does this happen" always come first, some science (like Chemistry) starts from observations, and some starts with theory (relativity). If astrology were actively looking for a "why" I would be O.K. with regarding it as a very early stage of science.

@DikranMarsupial Astrology is not only not looking for a 'why', they're not even apparently looking for a 'does' -- new Astrology ideas are published with no concern at all for any type of confirmation about if their ideas actually happen or not. So it doesn't pass your why-based criteria for science, but it doesn't pass my weaker criteria either. Some guy last year told me that if pluto is in retrograde, that increases likelihood of mental development disabilities - I can gurantee you, they didn't base that on any statistics. They make up these rules based on symbolic meanings, not observatio

@TKoL wonder if Pluto were causing "mental development disabilities" prior to 1930? ;o)

@DikranMarsupial just for full clarity, i'm not entirely sure i'm remembering if it was "pluto in retrograde" or some other thing, like "pluto conjunct" or "pluto descending" or something. It could have been just about anything, I have no idea. Pluto was making people disabled, somehow. And the reason why has 0 to do with actual statistical observations of developmental disabilities, and 100% to do with the symbolic meaning of Pluto, combined with the symbolic meaning of Retrograde (or whatever else it was, if not retrograde)

That's what ISO 9002 is for.

@DikranMarsupial how co you even define causality? This answer fits best with the Popper view of science as falsifiable claims.

@qwr Not "Falsifiable claims." String theory maps directly to quantum field theory, but is not accepted as a "theory of everything" because the energies involved don't happen to be achievable by humans. That's horrendously shortsighted.

@qwr a dictionary is a good start. Most people intuitively understand causality and that there are reasons why causes have effects (e.g. collision between snooker balls) and it isn't just an arbitrary association. Falsification is not a good absolute demarcation between science and non-science because it excludes a lot of things that are obviously science. It is a good demarcation between mature science and immature science and non-science.

@Miss_Understands I don't understand what you're trying to say. String theory is precisely unscientific in the Popper view because it is not falsifiable.

@DikranMarsupial what things are obviously science that aren't falsifiable?

@qwr eternal inflation, quite a lot of string theory, continental drift (when it was first proposed when there was no mechanism). A lot of science starts off that way.

@qwr >" I don't understand what you're trying to say. String theory is precisely unscientific because it is not falsifiable" ===[ That's what I'm complaining about. They ignore truth because the mathematically elegant ads/cft stuff is too hot for their primate hands. Well, I'm sorry God inconvenienced them. Hey, I just work here.

@DikranMarsupial interesting you bring up string theory because a lot of physicists don't consider it scientific. Continental drift would be scientific when it was first proposed if there were empirical tests that could be done. And idk if I'd call eternal inflation scientific as it's currently an untestable model. The best you can do is assume the future will be like now and extrapolate very very far.

And just because it isn't scientific when it's first conceived, doesn't mean it can't become testable in the future with new ideas for experiments or new technologies.

@qwr "Continental drift would be scientific when it was first proposed if there were empirical tests that could be done. " it couldn't, which is why I mentioned it. Did it retrospectively become science when a mechansim was discovered or did it go from science to non-science? Was Wegener performing science? Only hardcore Popperians would consider string theory and eternal inflation to be non-science, so that is the "no true scotsman" fallacy.

ISO 9001: Gleichbleibend schlechte Qualität. (Sorry for non-German speakers, I don't think the joke translates well ;) ).

My German is iffy, but I think "Low Quality, Delivered Consistently" would put that concept in American corporate-speak quite nicely.