i did a writeup about it awhile back:

https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/astrology-science-or-psuedoscience

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5878327&forum_id=2most#49969288)

I will say that this sentence is extremely credited: "Anyway, this is a roundabout way of saying Whig history is wrong, our ancestors were smarter than we acknowledge through our modern prism, and that part of the job of reorienting the public away from globohomo’s toxic vision of humanity, life, and history is to re-engage with a better respect for why people did things historically."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5878327&forum_id=2most#49969488)

What convinced me over time, although I am by no means an expert or even intermediate-level astrologer, was I spent a stupid amount of time looking at natal charts of specific individuals, both historical and personal, using the full chart on Astrotheme (https://www.astrotheme.com/birth-chart-sign-ascendant.php ): planets, houses, aspects, and degrees (especially degrees). I found that the descriptions lined up much better than chance. I also found an astrologer I like who does natal and progressed readings (Indian, woman, she does it as a hobby, not a career); without knowing me, and with only my birth data, her readings were surprisingly accurate.

Epistemically, what separates it is specificity and falsifiability. A tabloid horoscope says "you will have a challenging week" which is vague and un-falsifiable. A detailed reading says something like "you have a Saturn-Pluto square in the 7th house, which suggests a particular kind of relational tension that will manifest in a specific way." Again, this isn't proof, but it is evidence of a sort, and I would also point you to this:

"“In 1951 Jung’s synchronistic theory of astrology began to waver. That year Max Knoll (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Knoll) delivered a lecture at the Eranos meeting in Ascona, Switzerland, on “the Transformations of Science in Our Age.” He pointed out that the proton radiation from the sun is influenced to such a degree by the conjunctions, oppositions, and quartile aspects of the planets that the occurrence of electromagnetic storms (sunspot periods) can be predicted with a fair amount of probability. And since correspondences have been established between sunspot periods and the mortality rate, as well as disturbances of “radio weather” during those periods, there is a real possibility of causal connections and direct influences. These astronomical observations have confirmed the unfavorable influence of planetary conjunctions, oppositions, and quartile aspects, as always assumed by astrology, and the positive influence of the astrologically favorable trine and sextile aspects.

The scientific discovery of these causal relationships gave Jung an unexpected glimpse into the theoretical foundations of astrology. At first he was inclined to repudiate its inclusion among the mantic methods based on synchronicity, for, according to the new findings, the possibility of a causal connection between the planetary aspects and man’s psychophysiological disposition would have to be taken seriously into account. “Astrology,” he said, “is in the process of becoming a science.”

Later Jung revised this somewhat too drastic or one-sided statement and opined that synchronistic as well as causal connections would have to be adduced in explaining astrology. In April 1958 he wrote in a letter: “Astrology seems to require differing hypotheses, and I am unable to opt for an either-or. We shall probably have to resort to a mixed explanation, for nature does not give a fig for the sanitary neatness of our intellectual categories of thought.”…After the death of Jung, science made no further endeavors to solve the problem.”

- “From the Life and Work of C.G. Jung” by Aniela Jaffe, p. 32-33.

http://www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5876411&mc=6&forum_id=2

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5878327&forum_id=2most#49969517)

https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5724788&mc=22&forum_id=2

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5878327&forum_id=2most#49969549)

There are other issues too, for instance with the Gauquelin section, which is worse than just "validity remains up for debate," and the degree astrology section, which is basically just post-hoc Forer/Barnum-style symbolic overfitting (the celebrity examples are just retrospective pattern matching), but I don't feel like turning this into a redditor-style debunking poast and noone is going to read all that anyway.

The part I agree with is that ancient people were not idiots, cultural practices can preserve useful knowledge, and modernity can be arrogant toward premodern systems. Astrology has historical and symbolic richness. But that doesn't mean astrology has predictive validity. I think the stronger version of the argument wouldn't need Gauquelin at all, you should just make the case that symbolic frameworks and causal explanation address different orders of reality.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5878327&forum_id=2most#49969552)

Absolutely based I guess

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5878327&forum_id=2most#49969556)

The older I get, the more certain I become that the issue is that society has a hard time with nuance. The shift from religion/spiritualism to rationalism was very turbulent, and because rationality won people quickly became dismissive of everything else.

Now, with rationality* shown to often be flawed, we're seeing people reject it completely, and now there's people that believe every malady can be cured with fasting and a paleo diet, and all modern medicine is a lie.

*Not the system of rationality itself, but how things promulgated as indisputable "trust the experts" have been shielded from any criticism or nuance with "it's science!"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5878327&forum_id=2most#49969565)