A researcher has gone viral for calling for an open mind on astrology, and argued for its uses as an observational science.
Olivia Victoria, 32, lives in Los Angeles where she works as a behavioral health and health services researcher at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
She regularly shares her thoughts on life as a scientist and federal employee to her TikTok account, @liv_inla, and in a recent video defended the use of astrology as a medium, calling for those in the scientific community to keep an open mind about it.
Victoria told Newsweek she grew up interested in astrology, which in turn “nurtured my love for science.”
Victoria said she’s “always loved any extra tools for trying to understand myself and others, and I think astrology definitely serves as that in so many ways.”
In the video, posted on February 20 and which has been viewed more than 250,000 times, she clarified she does not “believe” in astrology, as it is not a faith or religion, but believes astrology is essentially “observational research.”
“Research doesn’t have to be just randomized control trial,” she said. “All other research just implies correlation—we don’t know why this is, but we can say this is correlated with that. Which is the thing with astrology.”
Accepting that astrology does not go through peer review like biology and physics, she argued there have been noted correlations between what is happening “in the sky” and what happens on earth, using mercury in retrograde as an example.
“It’s a system of observation that has been passed down for millennia,” Victoria said as part of the wide-ranging argument.
According to UNESCO, evidence of astrology practices goes back as far as the 3rd millennium B.C., and likely began as soon as humans first started to observe astronomical cycles. It was considered an academic discipline across Eurasia up until the 17th century.
In the video, Victoria claimed she had been criticized by some fellow scientists for sharing her defense of astrology in the past, but told Newsweek that several of her colleagues “appreciate astrology as much, if not more, than I do.”
“I truly think it’s because they are of the same mindset that I am—that science makes us aware of how much we don’t know and cannot know, and so to just disregard this very fascinating, ancient system because it doesn’t fit into our current model of what proper ‘science’ is would be ludicrous.”
“Disregarding things you don’t understand simply because they don’t fit your own existing conceptual model of something is the least science-minded thing ever in my opinion,” she said, adding that scientists “should be the most open-minded people there are.”
Victoria said she believes there are “misunderstandings around astrology,” including that it’s a type of religion, but reiterated it’s “really just observing patterns.” However, she acknowledged there was a connection between Vedic astrology and Hinduism, but “I don’t know enough about that to speak on it.”
Newsweek spoke to Paul M. Sutter, an astrophysicist at Stony Brook University, who argued that scientists were “open-minded about astrology for about 5,000 years, and then it just didn’t work out.”
Acknowledging it as the “precursor to modern astronomy,” he said scientists had recognized “fatal flaws” in astrology, including that it “lacked a physical mechanism. There’s no measurable force or influence that the stars or planets have on our lives.”
He also argued that horoscopes are “so vague,” and if you “try to be more specific and detailed, then you run into issues like no two astrologers agreeing, or the uncomfortable fact that everybody’s sign is actually a month off because of the wobble of the earth’s spin.”
In response to pleas for scientists to be more open-minded, Sutter said: “In science, we keep our minds open. But we also keep them sharp. Evidence rules the day and guides our beliefs.
“Astrology had thousands of years to prove itself, and some of our best and brightest tried to make it work. But in science, as in life, sometimes you just have to let go and move on.”
Victoria’s video sparked a huge reaction, with one one person arguing: “Observing patterns isn’t enough to make something scientific. Without testable, falsifiable results, astrology remains anecdotal, not research.”
“But those patterns are just false, they do not exist consistently, so you’re not even finding correlations,” one said, as another argued there was too much “confirmation bias” and “lack of data transparency” for it to be considered a science.
Many also agreed with Victoria, one calling astrology “pattern recognition,” and another “data collection.”
“Astrology is not a reason of what happens with us, it is a reflection,” another agreed.
“It’s literally just observations. That’s what science does,” someone else said.
Victoria told Newsweek: “Overall, I just really feel like exploring/appreciating astrology encourages us to explore ourselves and others and our world, and I think that’s a really wonderful thing.”
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