Can astrology predict when I will die?

Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children has recently been in the news a lot for many reasons.  For one, it was recognized with the "The best of the Booker" books.  A movie version, for which Rushdie contributed the screen-adaptation as well, will hit the US screens next week.

The midnight that is referred to in the title is the midnight that India became independent and marked the country's "tryst with destiny" as its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, put it.  India chose that midnight hour for independence, and for its Constituent Assembly to convene, because of the majority opinion of the Indian astrologers that the morning of the 15th was an inauspicious time.  Thus, the midnight, which then made possible the magical title for Rushdie's book--otherwise he would have had to title it "Morning's Children" and that would never have had that same magical appeal ;)

Astrology is a huge deal in India.  From side-walk squatting palm-readers to horoscope-reading specialists in luxurious settings, there are hundreds of thousands who make a living out of predicting others' futures.  As I noted in this post from three years ago:

a classmate from my engineering days is now a much sought after (which means highly paid as well) astrologer in India.  Yes, astrology!  The guy is proving in his own ways that there is a sucker born every minute :) 

Astrology is highly revered by many in India and rarely is anything out of the ordinary life ever scheduled without consulting with the astrologer.  From matching the horoscopes and determining the wedding date and time, to the time when a business venture might be inaugurated, to when one might want to set off on a long voyage, and, apparently, even when a Caesarean operation should be done so that the child will be delivered at the best of all times and not at the worst of all times!

The latest issue (March/April 2013) issue--not online yet--of the Skeptical Inquirer has an interesting piece on a scientific experiment that was conducted in India to test the accuracy of astrological predictions.  Surprise, surprise--they were no better than results that one would end up with by guessing or tossing a coin!

Jayant Narlikar, who is an astrphysicist, and his science colleagues set up an interesting experiment to test the  astrologers' claim that "they are able to tell intelligence from a person's horoscope."  So, they first collected from different schools names of "teenage children rated by their teachers as mentally bright.  They also collected names from special schools for the mentally handicapped."  A total of 100 bright and 100 mentally-challenged children.  Then they obtained the relevant information from the parents of these children and charted their respective horoscopes.

Narlikar and his associates invited astrologers to participate in the controlled experiment--"each participant would be given forty horoscopes drawn at random from our set of 200 and would have to judge whether their owners were mentally bright or handicapped."  Interested astrological organizations--not individuals--would be given all 200 horoscopes.

Long story short, the participants failed, failed miserably at that.  "None were able to tell bright children from mentally handicapped children better than chance.  Our results contradict the claims of Indian astrologers ... In summary, our results are firmly against Indian astrology being considered a science."

The pairing of astrology and science is especially important because it is one crazy country that even legitimizes offering astrology as an academic degree.  Yes, if you are interested, you can work on that degree  thanks to distance education opportunities like the one offered here!

It is a culture where determining auspicious times and seeking the divine assistance is so pervasive a practice, so much so that a few weeks ago:

Ahead of the launch of the Indo- French satellite 'SARAL' onboard ISRO's workhorse rocket PSLV from Sriharikota, ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan today offered worship at the hill shrine of Lord Venkateswara near Tirupati.

In case that didn't impress you enough, the same news item continues:

Since the last two decades, heads of the space agency have made it a practice to visit the the over 2000 year-old Tirumala hill temple to seek divine blessings before every satellite launch, the sources said.

Shouldn't surprise us in a country whose hour of independence was determined by astrologers!

A much younger me, with a whole lot of hair, amusing myself with Linda Goodman's astrology (1989)