The Rationalists group of people are opposed to astrology above anything else. It seems that they have not found any other topic like this to test the mettle of their arguments. They think that the rules of astrology are superficial or they emanate from extra-terrestrial sources. According to them the Sun, Mars, and Saturn create or change the destiny of the people therefore they have to oppose it. Because astrology believes in all this, as they say, therefore it is not a science. But all that they believe is not true.
The Rationalists generally challenge the astrologers to answer particular question, mostly about a misplaced thing or stolen animal. They champion their victory over the predictors when the latter fail in the test. Those who know something about astrology would understand that what they expected was not a valid concern of astrology. It is wrong for the astrologers too to profess that they can solve petty problems like that. But when the astrologer's answer is not correct, the Rationalists denounce them as liars as well as declare astrology as not scientific. Admittedly, many astrologers might be at fault for being ignorant about the true nature of their profession but to deduce from this that astrology is not scientific is not a logical conclusion.
If we admit this precept we may have to discard many if not all sciences as figment of imagination or worthy of trash. For instance homeopathy will become a bundle of falsehood if some homeopath was not able to cure a patient for he erred in understanding his case. Also it will be assumed as unscientific if some practitioner overcharged the patient in his lust to earn a few more bucks. Such a conclusion, however, would be disastrous for homeopathy. It would be baseless for it does not falsify none of its rock solid laws viz. Similia similibus currentur, development of medicinal powers of a substance through potency formation and the efficacy of the minimum dose.
No Rationalist would ever take a one-week pregnant woman to an astrologer to ask when will she give birth to the child. He understands from his previous knowledge that the child will be born after nine months from the date of conception. This knowledge comes to his head not from God or from some other divine source. It comes to him from the consolidated experiences of generations who verified it innumerable times. Without any doubt he assumes it as a scientific truth and right so. But the same type of experimental knowledge is used in astrology which he does not consider as science. This is not a simple dichotomy in his understanding that can be resolved at some level of rationalization but a serious bias in his approach to evaluate different domains of science. Because of this avowed bias he makes every effort to prove astrology as false and astrologers fraudulent.
Perhaps it is due to this bias that the Rationalists cannot penetrate and evaluate the scientific base of astrology objectively. Perhaps that is why they do not want to know that astrology like science is based on scientific methodology. What is this methodology?
Let us explain it with the help of an example. Suppose there is a window in your room which opens on a busy street. You stand at the window every day from 6 O’clock to 10 O’clock for ten days to observe the passing traffic in the street. You watch keenly and keep track of what you see by writing hourly notes in a register. After ten days when you represent the total figures in charts and tables and prepare the results after careful calculations. Suppose you find that between 6 am and 7 pm, 70% of the people were elderly devotees going to the Gurdwara or temple for daily worship. The traffic between 7 am and 8 am comprised of school going children by 70%. From 8 to 9 o'clock, 70% the street by-passers were daily wage earners like laborers and masons, and from 9 to 10 o'clock, 70% of the passing populations was of vegetable and milk sellers. Now you have a tested profile of the behavior of the street traffic ready with you like the Fal Sutra (Result Code) of an astrologer. You have the law that if this pattern was true for 10 days in the past, it will hopefully be true in the future as well.
Now you close the window and let someone asks you to tell who was passing outside in the street. You will simply check the time and open the register. If it is between 6 and 7, you will predict the possibility of a devotee going to a place of worship and if it be between 7am to 8am, you will tell that probably a student was passing. Similarly, for 8-9 and 9-10 your answer will be workmen and salesmen respectively. Chances are that your answers are correct upto 70 per cent for your data confirms this result up to 70 per cent only. Your conclusions could be cent per cent correct if your data revealed 100 percent verification. It is simple statistics that the percentage you got through the test is the percentage of correctness of your predictions. Astrology does not guarantee anything to be 100% correct and 100 per cent correctness in its results. Most of the times its results have to be concluded from symbolic expressions. So it is wrong for the Rationalists to expect concrete answers to their questions and queries from the astrologers. Both astrology and science follow this method, called empirical method. Aristotle, the father of Logic, calls it the inductive method. According to him the application of general conclusions to particular units is the deductive method. Though both the methods of logic are valid in scientific studies but to be scientific the beginning must be made with inductive logic. This follows that general conclusions can not exist without first taking the particular into consideration. For the same reason, no concept of God is valid if it does not emanate from the particulars that is the concreteness of reality. Since the concrete reality of life is nature around us therefore no concept of God is warranted because the nature is self regulatory. Modern science has shown that motion is inherent to matter and it is its mode of existence, therefore it does not need external motion to motivate or energize it.
In the example of window and road above , prediction were not made on the suggestion of a god or consultation of a religious book but according to a law based on collected data. It was a scientific law and laws like this are discovered in all branches of knowledge. This method is followed in every domain of science like natural science, philosophy, law and medicine. The medicine pill which the Rationalist takes daily for blood pressure in the morning is also prescribed by his or her physician according to a law developed in this way. It also must have been tested on many people before determining that it lowers blood pressure. Numerous patients are administrated this pill for the same ailment on the basis of this law. This method has a special application in homeopathic branch of medicine. If anyone feels the need to see the animated proof of this truth, he should pull out the ten-volume Materia Medica of Dr. Constantine Haring, and go through every remedy to see that not only drug proving have been given there but also the names names of the provers have been listed.
I don't want to go into more details but I must mention that while one should use logic and science, one should also be knowledgeable in terms of education to understand what is right and what is wrong. Above all, everyone must understand the definition of science concretely and closely.
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