The Perils of Astrological Prediction
by Steven Forrest
At the big International Society for Astrological Research (ISAR) conference in California this past October, a panel of astrologers predicted who would win the U.S. presidential election. None picked Donald Trump. Their calculations suggested a Clinton victory, just as the majority of pollsters had predicted.
As they say, “the rest is history.” The astrologers on the panel, along with the majority of pollsters, got it wrong.
This was not a glorious day for our craft. One vitriolic internet article trumpeted, “Astrologers Were Wrong About the 2016 Election, Casting Serious Doubt on Their Predictive Abilities.” The piece opened with the lines, “Astrology is bullshit. But for some reason, many Americans still believe that astrologists have the ability to predict the future.”