Astrology trap: Stargazing to promote pseudo-science

It was the first class of the astrophysics course that I was teaching. As an introduction to the history of astronomy, I mentioned the fact that till a few centuries ago, astrology was indistinguishable from astronomy.

- Shobhit Mahajan

It was the first class of the astrophysics course that I was teaching. As an introduction to the history of astronomy, I mentioned the fact that till a few centuries ago, astrology was indistinguishable from astronomy. But now, we treat astronomy as a science while astrology is not a science. One of the students immediately took issue with this arguing that astrology was also a science. What was more disheartening was that there were many others in the class who agreed with him. This was a class of students who had spent five years studying science and some of them would go on to have careers as teachers and scientific researchers.

But then, they are not alone. According to a recent report, the business of using astrology for advice and peeking into what the future holds is booming. Technology helps, of course. No longer do you need to go to an astrologer to cast your horoscope and tell you whether your current romantic interest is the one? A few clicks on your favourite astrology app will do it all for you. And these are hugely popular. One Indian app has more than 80 million users who use it to connect with 40,000 astrologers. Though there are about 700 million smartphone users in our country, a majority of the users of these apps are Gen Z -- just like the students in my class. Some of these apps have also incorporated AI to give personalized answers.