The link in the 28 Feb 06 - 12:06 PM post is well worth reading. Richard Wiseman is a fine scientist of a quite skeptical kind. He looks for natural explanations instead of paranormal in all sort of reports/data/experiences. He's the man to go into haunted houses and to look for natural causes like temperature changes ("makes me shiver"), draughts ("felt like a cold hand"), noisy rafters ("there was a knock but nobody was there al all"). In the above mentioned article he first looks whether the data are there at all and then goes on to find natural explanations. He mentions a few but not all at the end of the article.

His findings, however, have nothing to do with the predictions of the usual birth chart astrology, and his explanations even less so.

Gravitational effects of the planets are so small it makes no sense at all to look for an explanation along these lines. When your dog comes into the room near to you, its gravitational pull is larger than that of all planets combined.

Now if the astrologers has said before 1930 that something was missing in the equation for the best of their horoscopes were still a bit off target and a ninth planet could explain the deviations, we would regard their theories with awe. However, it was not them but the astronomers making this prediction.

Wolfgang