A correction... If we could "turn the sun off" during your birthday, we would not see the stars of your birth constellation according to the modern system. It is based off of the times of year established thousands of years ago. Due to the earths axis changing orientation the sun actually points almost an entire sign away from the sign you are told you are. (clockwise when looking down from north to south) So if you are a cancer (according to the common system) you were really born when the sun and earth were in line with gemini ect...
I never pay attention to Astrology but I would have to put my hand up and admit to being a typical Torus . You may need to convince us , but if you do we concede happily.
Thank you SO much for this video! I've been trying to talk to my sister about her beliefs in astrology and this puts it in such a clear and simple and beautiful way. I'm sure it won't change her mind and she probably won't even watch it. But it makes me happy knowing I'm not alone in knowing how much bs (as beautifully illustrated by the graphic) astrology is. Thanks! Great vid!
Dr. Gray slightly misspoke at 4:00. She said: "If you actually want to see that constellation (Gemini) at night you have to wait six months." Gemini is visible from around August in the Eastern mornings to May in the Western evenings, It's only obscured by the Sun during most of June and July.
If the Allstate insurance statistics are about Frequency of accidents, why should there be any skew? I expect the data was not frequency of accidents (accidents per time per person) but instead absolute number of accidents (total accidents, full stop).
I would have liked you to talk more about axial precession with time and how it makes astrology look even more bunkers if possible! It's so much fun! For example I am a gemini but the sun was actually in the constellation Taurus on the day of my birth!
@3:45 incorrect that the sun would be in the astronomical constellation of Gemini. Precession has moved the First Point of Aries, where the Sun crosses the ecliptic moving northward, into Gemini. Astrological constellations start there at Aires and proceed in 30° sectors.
Nice video, but I think I have to take issue with the claim that the Earth's precession (or wobble) has caused the Sun to enter Ophiuchus only recently. The ecliptic - the apparent path of the Sun over the course of a year - is defined by the Earth's orbit. In the last couple of thousand years, Earth's orbit has hardly changed much. Precession itself won't change the path of the ecliptic, only what time of year that the Sun is passing through a constellation. For example, a couple of thousand years ago, the (northern hemisphere) Summer Solstice occured in the constellation of Cancer, and winter solstice in the constellation Capricorn(us) - hence why the Earth has a Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn. Due to precession, these points now occur in Taurus and Sagittarius respectively. I think the real reason why Ophiuchus is now included when it wasn't in the past is likely to be due to the International Astronomical Union fixing the constellation boundaries such that the ecliptic was included within it.
In Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" series, he showed how the Egyptians believed the constellation "the plough" actually depicted a man with his head up a bull's arse. What a perfect and poetic illustration for what Astrology is.
firegoggles What's "wrong"? That Carl Sagan didn't show how the ancient Egyptians thought that the constellation "the plough" actually depicted a man with his head up a bull's arse? I can assure you he did - and you can even find the video of it on RUclips. Or that this isn't a perfect and poetic illustration for what Astrology is? In which case, are you seriously trying to claim that there is something to astrology? If so, wow.
I just don't have the time to educate you. Here is a tidbit.. The sun has different phases as it rotates and tilts.. those particles that are released at incredible rates of speed at our planet govern things like the female menstrual cycle for instance. That's one off the top of of my head that is more in the facts realm and less in the "woo-woo" that you think it is..There is more... the same phases in fact do seem to effect much much more and that's just the sun all the other celestial bodies have an effect on our planet and ultimately life on the planet. it's just really just hidden science and the people have placed the "woo-woo" factor on it..
I believe there are also more people born around this time of year, thanks to new years parties etc. so even if the constellations were of equal size, the number of people in born each would not be.
+Petros Adamopoulos But the fact that they used Ophiuchus implied that this insurance company actually looked at the real constellations instead of the traditional ones
By the illustrations, I think we can presume that the range of Scorpio + Ophiuchus (present) is = Scorpio (past). So, the insurance data may be converted to: 26,833 + 83,234 = 110,067 Which means that what we think Scorpio is should be around Libra stats (110,592). Still very distant from Virgo (211,650).
The anecdote starting at 4:40 is nonsense. Astrological star signs do not follow astronomical constellation boundaries. They are twelve evenly spaced sections along the ecliptic.
Yes. The original thing from Allstate was a joke. This video didn't seem to realize that and also maybe didn't realize that astrologers don't use the astronomical constellation boundaries.
I think it's funny how Dr. Gray, who is Canadian, has been slowly slipping into a British accent. You can hear a huge difference between her earlier appearances and videos like this one.
9 лет назад+4
Hero of the Beach She's been in Nottingham for 11 years.
5:50 This explanation is wrong. It doesn't matter which direction the Earth's spin axis points, the ecliptic still goes along the same path in the sky. It would take a shift in the inclination of the orbit to move the ecliptic.
Light pollution in cities prevents first-hand experience of identifying and observing stars in a practical manner. I've lived in a city all of my life and can only see around 12 stars at night.
i would imagine it's because they have more important things to do than memorising arbitrary groups of little dots and the historical names associated with them.
Because they don't use constellations to find their way around the night sky. They use the celestial coordinate system of Right Ascenscion and Declination. Think of it as a projection of Longitude and Latitude onto the night sky. This allows a very precise way to find objects, and has no need, or relationship to the constellations other than a point of origin, as does Longitude have a point of origin as the prime meridian.
I imagine because most professional astronomers spend most of their time studying one small section of the night sky. Unless they have a hobby for night viewing then they are unlikely to know where everything is.
Many do. Not to the same degree as amateur astronomers, for whom skygazing is usually the centre of their hobby (with sometimes incredibly 'professional' setups). But most do have a firm grasp of the basics. But their professional time is usually spen reading articles, writing articles, teaching, writing computer programs or scripts of various sorts, mining through data, etc. A lot of the work (both in teaching and research) isn't really related to looking at the sky (some of it still is).
How can precession (that only changes the attitude of the earth) change the ecliptic? Isn't the ecliptic defined by earth orbit? Does precession also affect orbit?
Only one fact is required here. MANY virgos were conceived in the week of christmas to new years. Also more babies are born in the summer, conceived in the winter. I was conceived on New Years Eve (so says the baby doc at the time.)
6:15 Pfft Scorpios with their low accident occurrences. I think that insurance companies will find that people named Jizanthapus have the lowest accident occurrences (people named "Homer" are a close second), so should be charged less for car insurance accordingly.
They also could have mentioned that the astrological zodiac system doesn't even match the real positions of the sun and the constellations. My astrological birth sign is cancer, but in reality the sun moved through gemini when i was born. It all has shifted over the past thousands of years or so and was never adjusted. Hilarious
I thought that it wasn't exactly the planetary plane, but the sun's equatorial plane that defined north and south in the solar system, before I watched this video and north would be the axis (of the sun's rotation) that points rather to Sirius, the polar star. So... is the sun's equatorial plane and the planetary plane exactly identical?
The precession of the equinoxes does not alter the path of the ecliptic, so the sun has "passed through Ophiuchus" indefinitely far forwards and backwards in time. Precession of the equinoxes alters the time of year at which this happens, but not the path itself. Hence, while Ophiuchus is presently a "summer constellation" for the northern hemisphere (visible just after sunset during the summer months), it will be a "spring constellation" 6000 years from now, as the equinoctial points shift eastward. The ecliptic actually cuts across a tiny corner of Cetus, so there are actually 14 constellations through which the sun passes. The auto insurance story is bizarre, since they were apparently applying astronomical constellation boundaries to the astrological signs. Why? Who knows.
The explanation of precession was not correct. Precession does not change which constellations the sun moves through. Rather, it causes the position of the equinoxes to move along the ecliptic and thus changes the constellation the sun is located in on the equinox. Or to put it another way - it changes what time of the year the sun moves through each of the constellations but not which constellations it moves through. A full cycle takes 26000 years.
So these insurance companies will use any lame reasons to jack up for rates behind the scenes without understanding that Virgo sign is of a longer duration.
No wonder my insurance rates are so high! I have Allstate and they probably think I'm a higher risk because of when I was born even though I haven't had any traffic infraction in 11 years. Wouldn't doubt it!
While I understand that the stars have no effect on our personalities, I posit this question. Since the astrological signs are an ancient form of calendar could any apparent (real or imagined) difference between people of different star signs be attributed to being born under different climate conditions or seasonal events? ie Does a person who grows up celebrating their birthday on the cusp of spring have a different outlook than one that was born in the coldest depths of winter? In ancient cultures would a child born at the time of seasonal flooding be treated different than one born at the time of harvest? Given that the zodiac is a calendar could the grain of truth at the core of the myth be based on differences we experience through out the year?
Great video, thanks. I hadn't thought about the sun spending more time in some constellations than others. But I'm assuming the chart you showed is of 'corrected signs', since my understanding is that normal astrological signs are almost 30 deg off due to the amount of precession that has happened since astrology was invented.
Astrologers have standardized the star signs so they all last 30 days. In reality, because the constellations the sun passes through are different sizes, if you go exactly by which star sign the Sun is in during the year, they will all have different lengths --- i.e. it takes the sun longer to pass through some constellations than others. This is just more proof that astrology is bunk, since the star signs astrologers use don't match up with the sun's position in the constellations.
I thought it could have been something about the season too - and that they were talking about the "standard" western astrology signs, not the "real" astronomical ones.
You would think an insurance company (an industry that is almost entirely reliant on statistics and probability) would know better than to publish a study like that with raw numbers and not sample proportions. I would like to know what company did that so I can avoid them... Being a Virgo with a history of zero car accidents, I don't want to be charged more based on something so asinine.
It's more that the modern definitions of constellation boundaries have little to do with how people thought of constellations when astrology was cutting-edge "science". Ophiuchus cutting the ecliptic is the celestial-geography equivalent of Minnesota's Northwest Angle.
2:00-2:20 - I can't imagine that anyone has actually proven that. "heavens" includes the sun. I'm about as unscientific as it gets, but I'd be surprised if someone can't find a correlation between the season people are born in and some development process. After raising a child, I can say there's a world of difference between a 2 yr old and a 2.5yr old. I can only imagine that the season a person is born in has some effect on development....look at that book Outliers - didn't they argue that kids born in specific date range have a better chance at being a hockey success? That's driven by hockey season, which is driven by the sun (or some such), yes??
There was a momentary thrill of smugness on seeing Scorpios at the bottom of that bad drivers list. Then the crushing disappointment when reason dashed the fantasy. Darn you, Science!
Could astrology have some kind of small bearing because of what times said "signs" are born, e.g. the time of year and the first experiences associated with such things having a later influence in life as in other areas of science its been said that familiarity leads to fondness (not that i believe in astrology, just a thought)
Even if the time of year you are born affects your life in a small way (like being born on Christmas Day or Feb 29th) it still has nothing to do with astrology.
Honestly it doesn't make sense. How is the sun 8 times longer in Virgo then in Scorpio? Virgo has 30 days and Scorpio 29, but Pisces also has 29 days, but yet they have 6.5 times more accidents. How do you explain that?
The research on car-accidents was based on the constellations people were born under, not the generic assignment of constellations to roughly 30 day periods like usual.
*face palm* i have wrongly assumed there would be some sort of natural filtering of stupidity on this channel...considering the content. its like they don't even watch the video....it was so clearly articulated and explained.
I may have misunderstood the video but shouldn't the title be "The real reason more car crashes can be attributed to Virgos than any other zodiac sign"? It's not that, on average, a Virgo will have more car crashes than others, but that the Virgo group has the most car crashes (because it also has the most people).
You said 'in June, the sun would get aopear to be in gemini', but I dont think even that is true because of the precession that has happened since the invention if astrology.
Hey, There are 88 constellations, there use to be less. Well less classified I believe previously there was 48 official constellations. Any how with Relativity I would not be so quick as to write off the influence of our birth signs. Whether placebo or not! They do have an effect/influence on all of us.
I am intrigued by your argument.... Please explain to me how relativity has a role in making astrology into a legitimate science? Any handy links you have to legitimate scientific papers on this would also be helpfull.
Relativity makes zero difference in this context, nor quantum physics, or any scientific theory you want to claim (without evidence) can explain astrology. Astrology is still bunk. Period.
I have the trouble understanding the sun travels in the Constellations. It is more like because the sun blocks the Constellations while the earth goes around the sun.
You're not a taurus, dr. Gray. Because of the precession of the equinoxes, the dates assigned to the zodiac constellations are outdated. You were actually born under the sign of Aries, near the IC279 galaxy.
Dr. Grey reminds me of my hs class valedictorian, Lilou. I'd always group with her in labs 'cause she had excellent lab technique and she never wanted to copy off me. She was also happy to do dissections when I wasn't even though she was three years younger than me. I can still remember her hair falling into the sheep's aqueous humor. I bet Dr. Grey was an epic lab partner, too.
Can you prove that our zodiaks doesn't affect us? If you can, I would also like you to explain how our self-awareness works. Can a bunch of atoms really build a conciusness or is there something more that we aren't aware about?
You can prove the first one through an extensive study. The second one, there currently is no answer for, and is completely unrelated. It's one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in neuroscience. Doesn't mean we won't find the answer someday :)
Well the problem with disproving things is that you normally need some evidence to disprove first. You try; my teapot causes oaks to shed their leaves in the autumn. Disprove this. Also ask yourself if a bunch of atoms can make my thoughts appear before your eyes. This would have been beyond an act of God 500 years ago, but since then we have learned many things. The brain is much more complex then just a 'bunch of atoms' and we don't yet fully understand it, let's at least finish understanding it before we consider whether the position of the sky affects who we are.
Now those are extremely unrelated questions. And yes, it is proven that astrology is bullshit. There have been many studies on twins, both born on the same time, and seeing if their star sign affects them. And they never do.
Huh, from the title I was expecting something like "Virgos have their birthday in the summer, and therefore tend to have their driving lessons in the summer. When winter then comes, they're less prepared then those who had driving lessons in the winter and make more crashes as a result." not "They didn't normalize the data".
Talking about the time the sun spends in constellations, doesn't get to the heart of the matter because in popular astrology, the signs are of (approx) equal duration
Isn't that funny, that once you believe in your sign , then you read astrological prediction, and act accordingly. So do they really have no influence on population? Maybe not physical, but psychological?
I get that there are 8 times more people born when the sun is in the constellation Virgo, however that does not mean that there are 8 times more Virgos than Scorpios. This is because the definition of being a Virgo is to be born between August 23 and September 22, and of being a Scorpio between October 23 and November 21. Those are two periods that differ by only 3%, not a factor of 8. So if people's births are uniformly distributed around the year, there should be about as much Virgos than Scorpios.
Allstate's definition of a Virgo was different than the traditional definition of Virgo. As shown in the video, Allstate's list included the constellation Ophiuchus, which is NOT a traditional constellation used in astrology. This clearly indicates that Allstate was using a more modern version of the zodiac, where the sun spends 8 times more time in Virgo than Scorpio. When the zodiac was first conceived, Ophiuchus was NOT a constellation the sun went through, but due to the wobbling of the Earth, it now is. It also was not a constellation the sun went through because astronomy uses different definitions of a constellation from astrology, where astronomy uses borders, and astrology uses the rough position of constellations.
arhh but births are not evenly distributed around the year, I believe there is a general peak in spring and autumn which varies from country to country and also from culture to culture ...
Stars themselves have no impact on our personalities. However, the positions of constellations correlate with seasons, seasons correlate with behaviours, and the behaviours a child is exposed to at key points in their development will naturally affect the child's personality. So it makes sense that people born under the same sign (and in the same regional climate) would be more likely to share personality traits than people born under different signs. To a lesser degree, the lunar cycle might have had some effect on development in an age without convenient artificial illumination. In trying to make sense of the perceived patterns, people attached significance to the stars themselves. From there, it isn't much of a leap to fold planets into the story. That part is probably less about actual personality differences and more an artifact of humanity's tendency to find meaning and resemblance everywhere we look for them, which is everywhere. When modern astronomers nickname an astronomical feature based on what it resembles, they don't look for a story about the significance of a horse's head or a butterfly or a bullet. But we still sometimes develop reverence for places like the Pillars of Creation. Our understanding has come a long way, but we are no less human than the people who developed astrology.
I don't disagree, but I would like clarification. Are you referring to my latching on to my own perceived patterns to ascribe the same behavior to others? Sorry to be dense; that's really my best guess right now, and it sounds more like projection than dissonance.
Brian Schiefen If you happen to be an astrologer than it's something called doublethink rather than dissonance. It's ability to lie and tell the truth at the same time. Like when you said that astrology is nonsense but really it's not because of the seasons and whatnot. An astrologer has to be comfortable with that. If you are not an astrologer then you don't have to be comfortable with believing and not believing in astrology at the same time. On the intellectual level you might be perfectly aware that astrology is rubbish, but for example a strong parental figure that influenced you greatly when you were growing up, might had been a firm believer in astrology and now you don't want to 'offend' them in your mind. Religious and political preferences operate on the same level to a large degree. So in a nutshell, believing and not believing in astrology creates a dissonance, and one option gets pushed to the back of the head when it needs to be.
I can hardly believe you're this dense to conflate actual sociology with a defense of astrology @Kavetrol. Well maybe considering your name I should take your comments with a grain of salt? Please read brian's actual comment and actual claims because he's spot on: People do differ according to patterns in their environment, including when they're born. Astrology is B.S., but mild variation due to environment is to be expected ... you troll.
There seems to be something that many of you are not getting. Astrology is rral, but not in the way that everybody thinks. Stars and planrt don't have any effect on the human behavior but they do have something that relates to it, and that is ciclic patterns. Humans follow a patter of behavior (which ir more likely to be molded by the season they are born in which molds how societies behave. The stars are the most inmediate way we have to measure time and patterns. So it is save to asume that all we did was to correlate the stars cycles to the way our behavior develops. That's why astrology works on so many people and why it doesn't matter which zodiac are you, wether it be greek, chineese or nordic, following it will always more than likely be correct on your personal life.
"That's why astrology works on so many people and why it doesn't matter which zodiac are you, wether it be greek, chineese or nordic, following it will always more than likely be correct on your personal life." ROFL. No. It's usually "correct" because it's so general it applies to everyone. Try it. Take the bullshit section of the newspaper and cut out each section of the zodiac and remove the star sign it pertains to. Have a bunch of people read them all and tell you which one is the most accurate for them. I guarantee that only about 1/12 of the time people will pick the horoscope that applies to them. Astrology is pure, unadulterated bullshit. People that believe it are either ignorant, stupid, or both. People that provide readings are either ignorant, stupid, or scammers.
Out of curiosity, why does the symbol for Taurus in this video look like the bull is pooping? My son pointed this out to me. Cannot unsee. Also, awesome debunking of pseudo-scientific and supernatural hokum. Too bad people will continue to believe only what they want to believe.
Astrology is more complicated than that. First off, there are two types of zodiac systems in astrology: tropical and sidereal. 4:32 This "study" isn't based on any existing zodiac system, there's a clear misconception here regarding "star signs". Both the tropical and sidereal zodiacs divide the year in 12 parts (signs/star signs), and each of those lasts for roughly a month... So it doesn't matter that the Sun actually takes 44 days to "pass through" Virgo, both zodiac systems will still call it a month. If you take this into account, there's no reason why there should be more virgo drivers, other than, perhaps, the tendency of people to increase their sexual activity 9 months before august/september (around christmas, that is)... which isn't really the case, if you ask me. It seems like this study took the date of birth from all those drivers, and assigned them a "scientific zodiac sign", based on actual scientific data. The problem with this is that neither zodiac system (tropical or sidereal) actually does that. So this video is mixing concepts that don't belong together. The tropical zodiac (used in Western astrology) doesn't take the ecliptic into account as described in the video. Instead, it uses the vernal equinox in order to determine the starting point of the zodiacal cycle each year, that's the only occasion in which the tropical system actually cares about the constellations (that's also how the zodiacal ages are determined, btw). Each zodiac sign in the tropical system represents a celestial division of 30º (12 x 30 = 360º), they DON'T represent the constellations themselves. There's no connection between the tropical zodiac sings and the actual constellations, other than the names. Personally, I think that both zodiac systems (sidereal and tropical) are rubbish, but if you want to make a serious case against them, at least do it right, do proper research on how they actually work before passing judgement. That's the kind of attitude that gives the scientific community a bad reputation. Too many scientists adopt dismissive attitudes without actually knowing much about the things they are dismissing. This is dangerous, since two of the things that separate science from all the rest are rigor and knowledge... those should always be present, specially when dealing with stuff that science doesn't agree with.
+Goreuncle i don't blame scientists for not knowing the details of BS. no matter how much BS you stack onto BS, it is still BS. Scientists have enough details to learnm know and test etc. no need to waste time on non scientific nonsense.
At first I thought it would have something to do with drivers education cutoff dates or something like that. It also could have something to do with virgo being nine months after the coldest months of the year. You know, the months when we all spend alot of time indoors close to one another with not much to do >wink wink
MrTURBOJOHN Very true. In fact, in the modern era, astronomy and astrology are just about one month off, so that Pisces' month is actually when the sun is crossing Aries.
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A correction... If we could "turn the sun off" during your birthday, we would not see the stars of your birth constellation according to the modern system. It is based off of the times of year established thousands of years ago. Due to the earths axis changing orientation the sun actually points almost an entire sign away from the sign you are told you are. (clockwise when looking down from north to south) So if you are a cancer (according to the common system) you were really born when the sun and earth were in line with gemini ect...
I'm a Capricorn, we are too logical to believe in astrology.
what a self contradictory statement!
@@lifeisironic7496 what a complete missing of his sarcasm.
I never pay attention to Astrology but I would have to put my hand up and admit to being a typical Torus . You may need to convince us , but if you do we concede happily.
Thank you SO much for this video! I've been trying to talk to my sister about her beliefs in astrology and this puts it in such a clear and simple and beautiful way. I'm sure it won't change her mind and she probably won't even watch it. But it makes me happy knowing I'm not alone in knowing how much bs (as beautifully illustrated by the graphic) astrology is. Thanks! Great vid!
Question: What's the difference between astronomy and astrology?
Answer: About 50 IQ points ...
+carver3419
I'm stealing this quote. Just letting you know.
+giovanni9107 It's not original with me ....
+carver3419 Are you sure it's only 50?
+Michael Nowak well, I wrote "about". Maybe that's the median on the curve.
+carver3419 ur smart.
1:50 The Taurus "constellation" is great!
It's taking a great one, to be sure.
The only star that affects our lives is the Sun.
DeepSkyVideos isn't nearly active enough anymore. Keep them coming!
Dr. Gray slightly misspoke at 4:00. She said: "If you actually want to see that constellation (Gemini) at night you have to wait six months." Gemini is visible from around August in the Eastern mornings to May in the Western evenings, It's only obscured by the Sun during most of June and July.
If the Allstate insurance statistics are about Frequency of accidents, why should there be any skew?
I expect the data was not frequency of accidents (accidents per time per person) but instead absolute number of accidents (total accidents, full stop).
Great video, I love the way Dr. Gray explains everything :-)
Great video! I missed DeepSkyVideos :-). Thank you!
I would have liked you to talk more about axial precession with time and how it makes astrology look even more bunkers if possible! It's so much fun! For example I am a gemini but the sun was actually in the constellation Taurus on the day of my birth!
@3:45 incorrect that the sun would be in the astronomical constellation of Gemini. Precession has moved the First Point of Aries, where the Sun crosses the ecliptic moving northward, into Gemini. Astrological constellations start there at Aires and proceed in 30° sectors.
I think that portrayal of the constellation taurus might just be a commentary on astrology. I get that feeling somehow.
Nice video, but I think I have to take issue with the claim that the Earth's precession (or wobble) has caused the Sun to enter Ophiuchus only recently. The ecliptic - the apparent path of the Sun over the course of a year - is defined by the Earth's orbit. In the last couple of thousand years, Earth's orbit has hardly changed much. Precession itself won't change the path of the ecliptic, only what time of year that the Sun is passing through a constellation. For example, a couple of thousand years ago, the (northern hemisphere) Summer Solstice occured in the constellation of Cancer, and winter solstice in the constellation Capricorn(us) - hence why the Earth has a Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn. Due to precession, these points now occur in Taurus and Sagittarius respectively.
I think the real reason why Ophiuchus is now included when it wasn't in the past is likely to be due to the International Astronomical Union fixing the constellation boundaries such that the ecliptic was included within it.
Real reason is that the Babylonian system of astrology has been later overlayed (by the ancient Greeks) onto the Greek constellations.
You look awesome
But would have shifted the constellations from being directly overhead by some degrees.
In Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" series, he showed how the Egyptians believed the constellation "the plough" actually depicted a man with his head up a bull's arse.
What a perfect and poetic illustration for what Astrology is.
wrong.
firegoggles
What's "wrong"?
That Carl Sagan didn't show how the ancient Egyptians thought that the constellation "the plough" actually depicted a man with his head up a bull's arse?
I can assure you he did - and you can even find the video of it on RUclips.
Or that this isn't a perfect and poetic illustration for what Astrology is?
In which case, are you seriously trying to claim that there is something to astrology?
If so, wow.
I just don't have the time to educate you. Here is a tidbit.. The sun has different phases as it rotates and tilts.. those particles that are released at incredible rates of speed at our planet govern things like the female menstrual cycle for instance. That's one off the top of of my head that is more in the facts realm and less in the "woo-woo" that you think it is..There is more... the same phases in fact do seem to effect much much more and that's just the sun all the other celestial bodies have an effect on our planet and ultimately life on the planet. it's just really just hidden science and the people have placed the "woo-woo" factor on it..
You're not a nice person.
I believe there are also more people born around this time of year, thanks to new years parties etc. so even if the constellations were of equal size, the number of people in born each would not be.
Actually you are right and this video is the bs. To astrology all signs last about a month. Nobody cares how large the constellations are.
It is actually because it is cold and couple are often stuck inside bored during the winter.
+Petros Adamopoulos But the fact that they used Ophiuchus implied that this insurance company actually looked at the real constellations instead of the traditional ones
The people who did the study cared.
By the illustrations, I think we can presume that the range of Scorpio + Ophiuchus (present) is = Scorpio (past).
So, the insurance data may be converted to:
26,833 + 83,234 = 110,067
Which means that what we think Scorpio is should be around Libra stats (110,592). Still very distant from Virgo (211,650).
Just knowing she is Taurus an earth sign, and all about earthly possessions tells some of why she has these attitudes...
The anecdote starting at 4:40 is nonsense. Astrological star signs do not follow astronomical constellation boundaries. They are twelve evenly spaced sections along the ecliptic.
Yes. The original thing from Allstate was a joke. This video didn't seem to realize that and also maybe didn't realize that astrologers don't use the astronomical constellation boundaries.
I think it's funny how Dr. Gray, who is Canadian, has been slowly slipping into a British accent. You can hear a huge difference between her earlier appearances and videos like this one.
Hero of the Beach She's been in Nottingham for 11 years.
What a fantastic job you have Brady ;)
5:50 This explanation is wrong. It doesn't matter which direction the Earth's spin axis points, the ecliptic still goes along the same path in the sky. It would take a shift in the inclination of the orbit to move the ecliptic.
How many astronomers using Allstate switched to Geico after that press release? That...is the question.
Why is it that professional astronomers don't usually know their way around the night sky?
Light pollution in cities prevents first-hand experience of identifying and observing stars in a practical manner. I've lived in a city all of my life and can only see around 12 stars at night.
i would imagine it's because they have more important things to do than memorising arbitrary groups of little dots and the historical names associated with them.
Because they don't use constellations to find their way around the night sky. They use the celestial coordinate system of Right Ascenscion and Declination. Think of it as a projection of Longitude and Latitude onto the night sky. This allows a very precise way to find objects, and has no need, or relationship to the constellations other than a point of origin, as does Longitude have a point of origin as the prime meridian.
I imagine because most professional astronomers spend most of their time studying one small section of the night sky. Unless they have a hobby for night viewing then they are unlikely to know where everything is.
Many do.
Not to the same degree as amateur astronomers, for whom skygazing is usually the centre of their hobby (with sometimes incredibly 'professional' setups). But most do have a firm grasp of the basics.
But their professional time is usually spen reading articles, writing articles, teaching, writing computer programs or scripts of various sorts, mining through data, etc. A lot of the work (both in teaching and research) isn't really related to looking at the sky (some of it still is).
I wonder if this is related to the constellation story Brady told on the podcast :o
How can precession (that only changes the attitude of the earth) change the ecliptic? Isn't the ecliptic defined by earth orbit? Does precession also affect orbit?
Only one fact is required here. MANY virgos were conceived in the week of christmas to new years. Also more babies are born in the summer, conceived in the winter. I was conceived on New Years Eve (so says the baby doc at the time.)
6:15 Pfft Scorpios with their low accident occurrences. I think that insurance companies will find that people named Jizanthapus have the lowest accident occurrences (people named "Homer" are a close second), so should be charged less for car insurance accordingly.
Can't wait to see the video about the Messiest objects!
They also could have mentioned that the astrological zodiac system doesn't even match the real positions of the sun and the constellations. My astrological birth sign is cancer, but in reality the sun moved through gemini when i was born. It all has shifted over the past thousands of years or so and was never adjusted. Hilarious
I thought that it wasn't exactly the planetary plane, but the sun's equatorial plane that defined north and south in the solar system, before I watched this video and north would be the axis (of the sun's rotation) that points rather to Sirius, the polar star. So... is the sun's equatorial plane and the planetary plane exactly identical?
Do all globular clusters have a black hole in the middle?
Where can I get the map they are using?
U WOT M9?
It's a shame they haven't actually done M8 yet. lol
I’m a Virgo and someone crashed into my car whilst my car was parked ....
The precession of the equinoxes does not alter the path of the ecliptic, so the sun has "passed through Ophiuchus" indefinitely far forwards and backwards in time. Precession of the equinoxes alters the time of year at which this happens, but not the path itself. Hence, while Ophiuchus is presently a "summer constellation" for the northern hemisphere (visible just after sunset during the summer months), it will be a "spring constellation" 6000 years from now, as the equinoctial points shift eastward.
The ecliptic actually cuts across a tiny corner of Cetus, so there are actually 14 constellations through which the sun passes.
The auto insurance story is bizarre, since they were apparently applying astronomical constellation boundaries to the astrological signs. Why? Who knows.
1:48 - All you need to know.
The explanation of precession was not correct. Precession does not change which constellations the sun moves through. Rather, it causes the position of the equinoxes to move along the ecliptic and thus changes the constellation the sun is located in on the equinox. Or to put it another way - it changes what time of the year the sun moves through each of the constellations but not which constellations it moves through. A full cycle takes 26000 years.
I clicked on this thinking there was going to be some astrology shit about my driving skills but was very pleasantly surprised, nice video 👏👏
So these insurance companies will use any lame reasons to jack up for rates behind the scenes without understanding that Virgo sign is of a longer duration.
No wonder my insurance rates are so high! I have Allstate and they probably think I'm a higher risk because of when I was born even though I haven't had any traffic infraction in 11 years. Wouldn't doubt it!
Yesssss, more deep sky videos!
While I understand that the stars have no effect on our personalities, I posit this question. Since the astrological signs are an ancient form of calendar could any apparent (real or imagined) difference between people of different star signs be attributed to being born under different climate conditions or seasonal events? ie Does a person who grows up celebrating their birthday on the cusp of spring have a different outlook than one that was born in the coldest depths of winter? In ancient cultures would a child born at the time of seasonal flooding be treated different than one born at the time of harvest? Given that the zodiac is a calendar could the grain of truth at the core of the myth be based on differences we experience through out the year?
Great video, thanks. I hadn't thought about the sun spending more time in some constellations than others. But I'm assuming the chart you showed is of 'corrected signs', since my understanding is that normal astrological signs are almost 30 deg off due to the amount of precession that has happened since astrology was invented.
This is only the 2nd video I'm watching of yours and I'm already subbed. And I just wanted to thank you for this video. Astrology is a silly thing.
I might be wrong, but that explanation doesn't make sense as almost all star signs last the same which is about 30 days.
Astrologers have standardized the star signs so they all last 30 days. In reality, because the constellations the sun passes through are different sizes, if you go exactly by which star sign the Sun is in during the year, they will all have different lengths --- i.e. it takes the sun longer to pass through some constellations than others. This is just more proof that astrology is bunk, since the star signs astrologers use don't match up with the sun's position in the constellations.
"The sun spends more time in Virgo " I thought the sun spent approx 30 days in each constalation, Please explain ?
it's not exact, also the constellations are truly defined as boxes
The astrological definitions are indeed spread evenly but not the astronomical ones. Its kinda apples and oranges
I already knew about Ophiucus from the fourth book in the Virals series. It's really good if anyone wants to check it out!
*Ophiuchus sorry
Great video, thanks!
"*Most astronomers can't recognise major constellations*?" That's a ridiculous statement !
I was thinking the reason Virgos have more accidents is because they are 15.5 years old when it's in the middle of winter.
I thought it could have been something about the season too - and that they were talking about the "standard" western astrology signs, not the "real" astronomical ones.
nefaristo I Suppose the point of the video is that the published data is completely misleading
Chris Grime Yeah.. We know that.
Great teaching thank you.regards
she’s a fantastic educator!
You would think an insurance company (an industry that is almost entirely reliant on statistics and probability) would know better than to publish a study like that with raw numbers and not sample proportions. I would like to know what company did that so I can avoid them... Being a Virgo with a history of zero car accidents, I don't want to be charged more based on something so asinine.
It's more that the modern definitions of constellation boundaries have little to do with how people thought of constellations when astrology was cutting-edge "science". Ophiuchus cutting the ecliptic is the celestial-geography equivalent of Minnesota's Northwest Angle.
Don’t understand why some people dislike
I'm a virgo... a crane crashed into my car once while i was parked
2:00-2:20 - I can't imagine that anyone has actually proven that. "heavens" includes the sun. I'm about as unscientific as it gets, but I'd be surprised if someone can't find a correlation between the season people are born in and some development process. After raising a child, I can say there's a world of difference between a 2 yr old and a 2.5yr old. I can only imagine that the season a person is born in has some effect on development....look at that book Outliers - didn't they argue that kids born in specific date range have a better chance at being a hockey success? That's driven by hockey season, which is driven by the sun (or some such), yes??
So enlightening.
There was a momentary thrill of smugness on seeing Scorpios at the bottom of that bad drivers list. Then the crushing disappointment when reason dashed the fantasy. Darn you, Science!
Could astrology have some kind of small bearing because of what times said "signs" are born, e.g. the time of year and the first experiences associated with such things having a later influence in life as in other areas of science its been said that familiarity leads to fondness (not that i believe in astrology, just a thought)
Even if the time of year you are born affects your life in a small way (like being born on Christmas Day or Feb 29th) it still has nothing to do with astrology.
Honestly it doesn't make sense. How is the sun 8 times longer in Virgo then in Scorpio? Virgo has 30 days and Scorpio 29, but Pisces also has 29 days, but yet they have 6.5 times more accidents. How do you explain that?
The research on car-accidents was based on the constellations people were born under, not the generic assignment of constellations to roughly 30 day periods like usual.
Watch the video
*face palm* i have wrongly assumed there would be some sort of natural filtering of stupidity on this channel...considering the content. its like they don't even watch the video....it was so clearly articulated and explained.
ktx49 face palm lol!
Thanks for asking this question. And thanks to Lock Ray for answering it. (I suggest ktx49 and acolyte/s do not consider education as a career.)
I may have misunderstood the video but shouldn't the title be "The real reason more car crashes can be attributed to Virgos than any other zodiac sign"? It's not that, on average, a Virgo will have more car crashes than others, but that the Virgo group has the most car crashes (because it also has the most people).
You said 'in June, the sun would get aopear to be in gemini', but I dont think even that is true because of the precession that has happened since the invention if astrology.
Wow, impressive teaching skills.
Hey, There are 88 constellations, there use to be less. Well less classified I believe previously there was 48 official constellations. Any how with Relativity I would not be so quick as to write off the influence of our birth signs. Whether placebo or not! They do have an effect/influence on all of us.
not on me
k
I am intrigued by your argument.... Please explain to me how relativity has a role in making astrology into a legitimate science? Any handy links you have to legitimate scientific papers on this would also be helpfull.
Relativity makes zero difference in this context, nor quantum physics, or any scientific theory you want to claim (without evidence) can explain astrology. Astrology is still bunk. Period.
I have the trouble understanding the sun travels in the Constellations. It is more like because the sun blocks the Constellations while the earth goes around the sun.
Clear explanation 👌
This lady is so clear in her explanation.
You're not a taurus, dr. Gray. Because of the precession of the equinoxes, the dates assigned to the zodiac constellations are outdated. You were actually born under the sign of Aries, near the IC279 galaxy.
3:90 I never actually knew that's what that meant.
I'm an Asparagus and I dont get in any car crashes at all
Just like a Taurus to say the universe doesn't affect their lives in any way.
This ! ! !
Dr. Grey reminds me of my hs class valedictorian, Lilou. I'd always group with her in labs 'cause she had excellent lab technique and she never wanted to copy off me. She was also happy to do dissections when I wasn't even though she was three years younger than me. I can still remember her hair falling into the sheep's aqueous humor. I bet Dr. Grey was an epic lab partner, too.
I'm a Scorpio, never thought that signified much.
Not only that but (slightly) more peaple are born in the winter months assosieted with virgos.
Can you prove that our zodiaks doesn't affect us? If you can, I would also like you to explain how our self-awareness works. Can a bunch of atoms really build a conciusness or is there something more that we aren't aware about?
You can prove the first one through an extensive study. The second one, there currently is no answer for, and is completely unrelated. It's one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in neuroscience. Doesn't mean we won't find the answer someday :)
Well the problem with disproving things is that you normally need some evidence to disprove first. You try; my teapot causes oaks to shed their leaves in the autumn. Disprove this.
Also ask yourself if a bunch of atoms can make my thoughts appear before your eyes. This would have been beyond an act of God 500 years ago, but since then we have learned many things. The brain is much more complex then just a 'bunch of atoms' and we don't yet fully understand it, let's at least finish understanding it before we consider whether the position of the sky affects who we are.
Now those are extremely unrelated questions. And yes, it is proven that astrology is bullshit. There have been many studies on twins, both born on the same time, and seeing if their star sign affects them. And they never do.
Can you prove that you aren't influenced by an invisible pink unicorn?
superdau I am. :)
Her name is Steve.
Tell us how you really feel, Dr Gray!
Sheffield? First time I'm noticing that, has she moved? ;)
Dr Gray is still very much at the University opt Nottingham - we just sometimes feature Sheffield astronomers too (e.g.: Paul Crowther)
Huh, from the title I was expecting something like "Virgos have their birthday in the summer, and therefore tend to have their driving lessons in the summer. When winter then comes, they're less prepared then those who had driving lessons in the winter and make more crashes as a result." not "They didn't normalize the data".
Talking about the time the sun spends in constellations, doesn't get to the heart of the matter because in popular astrology, the signs are of (approx) equal duration
right, but in the statistics released, they were in regards to actual transit time
I love a good debunking
Isn't that funny, that once you believe in your sign , then you read astrological prediction, and act accordingly. So do they really have no influence on population? Maybe not physical, but psychological?
1:47
Brilliant
Yes. At 1:50 I clicked the 'like' button.
How do people born in the Southern Hemisphere get assigned an astrological sign?
I get that there are 8 times more people born when the sun is in the constellation Virgo, however that does not mean that there are 8 times more Virgos than Scorpios.
This is because the definition of being a Virgo is to be born between August 23 and September 22, and of being a Scorpio between October 23 and November 21. Those are two periods that differ by only 3%, not a factor of 8.
So if people's births are uniformly distributed around the year, there should be about as much Virgos than Scorpios.
You forgot that your times there don't include ohpi.
The study wasn't based on this definition of being a Virgo, but on the Sun's apparent position in the sky.
Allstate's definition of a Virgo was different than the traditional definition of Virgo. As shown in the video, Allstate's list included the constellation Ophiuchus, which is NOT a traditional constellation used in astrology. This clearly indicates that Allstate was using a more modern version of the zodiac, where the sun spends 8 times more time in Virgo than Scorpio. When the zodiac was first conceived, Ophiuchus was NOT a constellation the sun went through, but due to the wobbling of the Earth, it now is.
It also was not a constellation the sun went through because astronomy uses different definitions of a constellation from astrology, where astronomy uses borders, and astrology uses the rough position of constellations.
arhh but births are not evenly distributed around the year, I believe there is a general peak in spring and autumn which varies from country to country and also from culture to culture ...
Why can't people watch the video?
My pre-roll ad for this was for an astrology website. Yeah.
I lol'ed
Stars themselves have no impact on our personalities. However, the positions of constellations correlate with seasons, seasons correlate with behaviours, and the behaviours a child is exposed to at key points in their development will naturally affect the child's personality. So it makes sense that people born under the same sign (and in the same regional climate) would be more likely to share personality traits than people born under different signs. To a lesser degree, the lunar cycle might have had some effect on development in an age without convenient artificial illumination.
In trying to make sense of the perceived patterns, people attached significance to the stars themselves. From there, it isn't much of a leap to fold planets into the story. That part is probably less about actual personality differences and more an artifact of humanity's tendency to find meaning and resemblance everywhere we look for them, which is everywhere.
When modern astronomers nickname an astronomical feature based on what it resembles, they don't look for a story about the significance of a horse's head or a butterfly or a bullet. But we still sometimes develop reverence for places like the Pillars of Creation. Our understanding has come a long way, but we are no less human than the people who developed astrology.
+Brian Schiefen
I will copy your comment and use it to explain term ' Cognitive dissonance' if you don't mind.
I don't disagree, but I would like clarification.
Are you referring to my latching on to my own perceived patterns to ascribe the same behavior to others? Sorry to be dense; that's really my best guess right now, and it sounds more like projection than dissonance.
Brian Schiefen
If you happen to be an astrologer than it's something called doublethink rather than dissonance. It's ability to lie and tell the truth at the same time. Like when you said that astrology is nonsense but really it's not because of the seasons and whatnot. An astrologer has to be comfortable with that.
If you are not an astrologer then you don't have to be comfortable with believing and not believing in astrology at the same time.
On the intellectual level you might be perfectly aware that astrology is rubbish, but for example a strong parental figure that influenced you greatly when you were growing up, might had been a firm believer in astrology and now you don't want to 'offend' them in your mind. Religious and political preferences operate on the same level to a large degree.
So in a nutshell, believing and not believing in astrology creates a dissonance, and one option gets pushed to the back of the head when it needs to be.
I can hardly believe you're this dense to conflate actual sociology with a defense of astrology @Kavetrol. Well maybe considering your name I should take your comments with a grain of salt? Please read brian's actual comment and actual claims because he's spot on: People do differ according to patterns in their environment, including when they're born. Astrology is B.S., but mild variation due to environment is to be expected ... you troll.
I'd spend all day looking at those trees out the window
There seems to be something that many of you are not getting. Astrology is rral, but not in the way that everybody thinks. Stars and planrt don't have any effect on the human behavior but they do have something that relates to it, and that is ciclic patterns. Humans follow a patter of behavior (which ir more likely to be molded by the season they are born in which molds how societies behave. The stars are the most inmediate way we have to measure time and patterns. So it is save to asume that all we did was to correlate the stars cycles to the way our behavior develops. That's why astrology works on so many people and why it doesn't matter which zodiac are you, wether it be greek, chineese or nordic, following it will always more than likely be correct on your personal life.
Except that seasons hardly impact the entire earth equally, with the same amplitude, or at the same time.
"That's why astrology works on so many people and why it doesn't matter which zodiac are you, wether it be greek, chineese or nordic, following it will always more than likely be correct on your personal life."
ROFL. No. It's usually "correct" because it's so general it applies to everyone. Try it. Take the bullshit section of the newspaper and cut out each section of the zodiac and remove the star sign it pertains to. Have a bunch of people read them all and tell you which one is the most accurate for them. I guarantee that only about 1/12 of the time people will pick the horoscope that applies to them.
Astrology is pure, unadulterated bullshit. People that believe it are either ignorant, stupid, or both. People that provide readings are either ignorant, stupid, or scammers.
So that's why the alpha systems in Star Control 2 had bigger stars! Now I can sleep peacefully once more :)
32 astrologers disliked this video
I quite astonished that only ten more people have disliked this in over four years. 42 as of March 2021.
Out of curiosity, why does the symbol for Taurus in this video look like the bull is pooping? My son pointed this out to me. Cannot unsee.
Also, awesome debunking of pseudo-scientific and supernatural hokum. Too bad people will continue to believe only what they want to believe.
Astrology is more complicated than that. First off, there are two types of zodiac systems in astrology: tropical and sidereal.
4:32 This "study" isn't based on any existing zodiac system, there's a clear misconception here regarding "star signs".
Both the tropical and sidereal zodiacs divide the year in 12 parts (signs/star signs), and each of those lasts for roughly a month... So it doesn't matter that the Sun actually takes 44 days to "pass through" Virgo, both zodiac systems will still call it a month. If you take this into account, there's no reason why there should be more virgo drivers, other than, perhaps, the tendency of people to increase their sexual activity 9 months before august/september (around christmas, that is)... which isn't really the case, if you ask me.
It seems like this study took the date of birth from all those drivers, and assigned them a "scientific zodiac sign", based on actual scientific data. The problem with this is that neither zodiac system (tropical or sidereal) actually does that.
So this video is mixing concepts that don't belong together.
The tropical zodiac (used in Western astrology) doesn't take the ecliptic into account as described in the video.
Instead, it uses the vernal equinox in order to determine the starting point of the zodiacal cycle each year, that's the only occasion in which the tropical system actually cares about the constellations (that's also how the zodiacal ages are determined, btw).
Each zodiac sign in the tropical system represents a celestial division of 30º (12 x 30 = 360º), they DON'T represent the constellations themselves. There's no connection between the tropical zodiac sings and the actual constellations, other than the names.
Personally, I think that both zodiac systems (sidereal and tropical) are rubbish, but if you want to make a serious case against them, at least do it right, do proper research on how they actually work before passing judgement.
That's the kind of attitude that gives the scientific community a bad reputation. Too many scientists adopt dismissive attitudes without actually knowing much about the things they are dismissing.
This is dangerous, since two of the things that separate science from all the rest are rigor and knowledge... those should always be present, specially when dealing with stuff that science doesn't agree with.
+Goreuncle some nice info here, but you can't really blame them for being dismissive or ignorant of the intricacies of an old superstition
+Goreuncle i don't blame scientists for not knowing the details of BS. no matter how much BS you stack onto BS, it is still BS. Scientists have enough details to learnm know and test etc. no need to waste time on non scientific nonsense.
At first I thought it would have something to do with drivers education cutoff dates or something like that. It also could have something to do with virgo being nine months after the coldest months of the year. You know, the months when we all spend alot of time indoors close to one another with not much to do >wink wink
constellatively the sun does not "travel." the earth does. i mean. according to Coppernicus?
Very interesting video. Ive never heared that someone was born under Ophiuchus.
pretty much all scorpios except those born in October I think. Your sign is not a direct translation of what constellation is in transit with the Sun
MrTURBOJOHN
Very true. In fact, in the modern era, astronomy and astrology are just about one month off, so that Pisces' month is actually when the sun is crossing Aries.
Scorpio with amazing driving skills reporting in.