The Emperor's New Zodiac (cntd.)

The Ophiuchus Story

Let's look at the other claims of the article, namely that there's this 13th zodiac sign called Ophiuchus and that the Babylonians "discarded" it from their zodiac.

A Brief History of the Constellation Idea

The first thing to remember about constellations, in either the picture or territory version of this concept, is that they are inventions of human imagination, not objective realities in the sky. Hard as it is for some people to accept, constellations are not real. Since they were created, much like a story or a piece of art, they have a history. Each constellation is a reflection of the human mind at a certain time in a given culture, a story that connects us with our ancestors.

Except for certain outstanding groupings of stars in the sky (the Big Dipper, Orion and the Pleiades come to mind), there is little hard evidence for most of the constellations we now recognize before roughly 1300 to 1000 BCE. The Babylonian Mul-Apin text of this period lists about 30 constellations, mostly in the equatorial regions between the tropics. Many of these constellations are near the ecliptic, eventually settling into the first semblance of a zodiac by about 700 BCE. There was little consensus as to how many zodiacal constellations there were at first, with anywhere from 10 to 18 of them in common use. Later in this formative period, they settled on 12 constellations, possibly for reasons of their mathematics more than anything else.

(Scholars call these texts Mul-Apin from the name of the first constellation on the list, corresponding roughly to the modern Aries the Ram. However, this name probably translates something like "The Hired Worker" or "The Farmhand". No ram.)

Around 500 to 300 BCE, the Greeks started borrowing heavily from Babylonian astronomy. They imported all the Babylonian constellations and started inventing many of their own, based on Greek mythology, bringing the new total to 48. One of these new constellations was Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer, drawn as a male figure holding an outstretched snake in front of him, and most commonly said to represent the healer Aesclepius. Granted, no two stick figure pictures of this star pattern (or any other) are exactly the same, but generally speaking, this figure is imagined as standing above the ecliptic.

The territory of Ophiuchus was defined by the IAU and includes plenty of real estate surrounding the original picture -- oh, except for the snake. The head and the tail of the snake were separated from Ophiuchus and made their own constellations called Serpens Caput and Serpens Cauda (meaning the head and tail of the snake), which the IAU mysteriously seems to count as one constellation in two pieces. The ecliptic crosses the southern part of this territory for a ways. On the basis of this crossing, Ophiuchus is often nominated for the 13th sign.

You Can't Discard What You Don't Have

This history is relevant to the claim that the Babylonians "discarded" Ophiuchus from the zodiac they created. The dates just don't add up. They didn't have a constellation such as Ophiuchus in their sky, so they couldn't include it in their zodiac. (There's some evidence of a "Sitting Gods" picture in this general area instead, unrelated to Ophiuchus.) In fact, the Babylonian empire fell to the Persians before Ophiuchus made his appearance. It's hard to see how they could "discard" this constellation from the zodiac if it didn't exist for them.

Pictures vs. Territory

There's another issue about constellations that's important: ancient astronomy was visual astronomy. An ancient observer would have paid much attention to the picture in the sky, but would have had no concept of those territorial boundary lines, such as the IAU imposed. To a person looking at the night sky millennia ago, he would see in his mind's eye a collection of separate pictures, not the interlocking jigsaw puzzle pieces of a modern sky map.

Arguing from the pictures of a constellation is fraught with troubles, especially the stick figure versions. In many such pictures, Ophiuchus isn't even touching the ecliptic, but hovers above it. In other depictions, there might be a few faint stars below the ecliptic that represent his feet standing on top of the Scorpion. In my opinion, the case is pretty weak for saying the ecliptic passes through the picture of Ophiuchus. Perhaps this is one reason why the Greeks never seemed to elevate the Serpent Bearer to the level of a zodiacal constellation.

Sign vs. Constellation

Even if Ophiuchus has his shins in the ecliptic, there are compelling reasons unique to astrology for not making him into a zodiac sign. Astrology is based on solid mathematical and numeric principles and 13 is simply not as useful a number as 12. Dividing the 360 degrees of a circle into 12 parts gives signs of 30 degrees each -- nice round numbers. 360 divided by 13 is a mess (27° 41' 32.31..."). All the internal symmetries of the zodiac (such as the 4 elements and 3 modalities) fall apart with a 13th sign. Given the Pythagorean spirit of Greek thought at the time ("numbers are divine"), I see little motivation for them to include a new sign in their zodiac. This is reinforced by the trend that signs are an abstraction of the corresponding constellations, but aren't necessarily describing the same parts of the sky. Signs are not constellations. As astrology became less observational and more computational, mathematical simplicity would trump arbitrary patterns of stars. By Ptolemy's time (c. 130 AD), this split would be complete.

The Verdict

Certainly for the Babylonians, there can be no question that Ophiuchus was not a zodiacal constellation. The situation for the Greeks is more nuanced and ambiguous, based as it is on the picture definition, but there's little or no evidence they considered this picture zodiacal, let alone a zodiac sign. The case is weak at best. As for any claim Ophiuchus was "discarded" from the zodiac by the Babylonians or anyone else, that's quite historically inaccurate.


My Sextans Confession

In my original essay, I included one sentence that is coming back to haunt me. Based on the boundaries of the constellations on my big star chart over my computer desk that I've been staring at for over a decade, I made the following casual observation:

A small corner of the constellation Sextans is also crossed [by the ecliptic] and the north forty of Orion is barely nicked as well.
I repeated this claim in my email to Mr. Ward.

Sextans the Sextant is a modern constellation that was introduced by Johannes Hevelius in 1687. There are very few stars in this region that are visible to the naked eye, even under the best of conditions. Under such circumstances, it's tough to make a picture of anything. The sextant is a device for measuring the positions of celestial objects in astronomy and navigation. I guess Hevelius simply wanted to immortalize one of his favorite scientific instruments.

On my star chart, the ecliptic clearly goes through the northeast corner of Sextan territory. But when I was researching Sextans online the other night, I noticed none of the other star charts I examined had such a crossing. The Orion crossing also disappeared on me. It appears that on my chart, the boundary lines aren't completely accurate. Even worse, the ecliptic seems to be drawn a bit south of where it should be. Together, this creates a false crossing on the map: right conclusion from wrong data.

So I retract that statement -- Mea culpa! I'll have to be more careful with my star chart in the future. Despite the embarassment, this gaffe doesn't really affect the rest of my argument -- just my pride. (Too bad, it would have made a great subplot...)


Don't Pick on Scorpio!

One consequence of this "new zodiac" is that Scorpio is reduced to only 6 days. Remember that the IAU is the same group that demoted Pluto recently. And now their presumptuous redefinition of sun signs short changes the zodiac sign that Pluto rules as well.

If I were Pluto, I'd be pissed! And getting on Pluto's bad side is not something you can get away with indefinitely. Someday, he'll get even...


TIME Magazine Weighs In

My TIME magazine (Jan 31, 2011 issue) came today. On page 56, under the heading of "Behavior", is "Zodiac Switcheroo", their take on the Kunkle interview. To their credit, they got a second opinion before publishing and actually interviewed some astrologers. They at least got the distinction between tropical signs and constellations, resulting in a much more intelligent article. There are a few technical glitches in their presentation, but for a popular article, nothing that rises to the level of an impeachable offense. After last week's media circus, I was surprised to see someone set the record straight.

There may be hope after all...


Beyond Sun Signs: Does Astrology "Really" Work?

One thing I did not try to do in my email was argue the purely astrological issues. One of the really annoying problems with precession arguments is that it is presumed that "astrology" is this simplistic field that no competent astrologer would agree to. In particular, the entire vast subject is reduced to the trivialized "sun sign" business, as though the zodiac sign of the Sun alone was important and the rest of your chart can be ignored.

The area of "sun sign astrology" is largely an invention of British newspapers and publishing companies in the early 20th century. The intent was to sell more books and papers, not to popularize traditional astrology. Given that tropical sun signs are fixed in the calendar, all you needed to know to get your daily "astrology reading" was your birthdate. In fact, these early sun sign columns were so far removed from real astrology that editors refused to use the word "astrology" in their articles for fear of running afoul of "truth in advertising" laws.

When you're working with full horoscope charts, the zodiac signs are some of the least useful bits of information you work with. I've been known to do entire two hour readings without mentioning a sun sign. Planets and aspects are much more useful to me. And without a full chart, you have no house information to go on, some of the most detailed information available. I generally pay scant attention to signs in most circumstances.

So when someone criticizes "astrology" because sun signs are bunk, I half agree with them. Sun signs are mostly bunk. But they aren't astrology, in my opinion. It's time we have an adult conversation about astrology in the press, not this pseudo-discussion based on wrong premises.

It's also wrong headed to assume the astrology of today is the same as it was in centuries gone by. Like all areas of knowledge, our understanding of astrological principles evolves and grows with time. The evolution of the zodiac concept over the last 3000 years is only one example of how the field changes.

And finally, there's the uncomfortable issue of whether astrology "works" or not. No amount of rational argument can decide this issue. It seems most scientists (at least the ones most vocal in the popular press) simply assume a priori that "astrology" is ridiculous and therefore wrong, without ever feeling the need to test whether this assumption is true or not. When you do an experiment, sometimes the universe surprises you. The history of science is littered with reasonable ideas that were "obviously true" at the time, only to be contradicted by experiment and the testimony of nature herself. The only way to determine for yourself whether astrology works is to study and practice it; I recommend about 5 years of this before you're even allowed to have an opinion on the subject. Debate by a priori assumptions (a fancy phrase for "prejudgment") is not science, it's dogmatic ideology.

I'm reminded of the famous story of Edmund Halley and Isaac Newton. (If it's not a true story, it should be...) Halley, the astronomer famous for his comet, was pooh-poohing Newton for his interest in astrology. Newton was not only a mathematical and scientific mind of the first order, but also an astrologer, alchemist and occultist. He reputedly retorted to Halley in a testy manner, "Sir, I have studied the subject and you have not!" Modern scientists would do well to pay attention to the advice of one of their own heros.


In Conclusion...

There are a number of lessons that can be drawn from this latest skirmish.

First off, if you use tropical zodiac signs and the Gregorian calendar, your sun sign dates have not changed one bit and (to a high degree of accuracy) they never will. So stop panicking about your sign changing or anything else in your birthchart shifting. This claim in the media is totally bogus. This story caused a lot of senseless damage.

Second, the claim of Ophiuchus as a 13th sign is extremely shaky, at best. And the claim that it was "discarded" by the Babylonians contradicts historical facts. Western astrology can survive with the traditional 12 sign zodiac quite well, thank you.

There's a vast chasm between mythic thinking and the ways of modern science. It seems to me that constellations and zodiacs are these funny historical artifacts that science can't erase (they are too deep in our collective psyche for that) or come to terms with. They are an inconvenient holdover from another time that doesn't make sense in our own. Sort of like that "crazy relative" of yours that won't go away. Astronomers have no need for constellations, other than as a way of naming stars. But rather than outgrowing the constellations, all they could do was define them precisely, with lots of decimal places and lots of arbitrary decisions to settle the boundary disputes. (Astrology itself is another of these historical artifacts, as far as science is concerned.)

But having taken on the role of defining words and concepts for us, I sometimes feel science falls into an objectionable hubris. Astronomers seem to hit raw nerves with the public when they redefine commonly used words, such as when they changed the meaning of "planet" with the intent of throwing Pluto out of the club. The current debate boils down to whether the IAU should be the "standards group" for the occult sciences, the body that tells us what our sun signs "really" should be. How ridiculous can you get?

It's quite obvious that much of what passes for astrology these days in the popular media can be ridiculous. But one lesson of this story (and all the repetitions of this argument that preceded this) is that scientists can also say stupid things, especially when they are talking outside of their area of expertise. Media people can be very gullible, as well, particularly when they fail to exercise good journalistic practice, a healthy skepticism and some critical thinking. As I said, an adult conversation is in order here.

And one last prediction (which requires no astrological insight on my part): I don't ever expect to be interviewed for the Variety section on this topic. The nice thing about such a prediction: right or wrong, I come out ahead.

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