A NEW HERALD OF THE NEW AGE
The December issue of OMNI, the American semi-scientific
monthly, featured an article by one Dava Sobel about a British
astronomer who has made international headlines because of his
defence of astrology.

Percy Seymour is principal lecturer in astronomy at Plymouth
Polytechnic Institute in southwest England, and director of
the William Day Planetarium there. He has, apart from his work
on astrology, also written a textbook on "Cosmic Magnetism"
which has reportedly won acclaim as a "valiant and successful
attempt to convey to the layman the omnipresence of magnetism
in the universe."


AN EXPLANTION IN SEARCH OF A PHENOMENON?
In the OMNI article mr. Seymour is hailed as "(the) British
astronomer...whose studies reveal...evidence that the planets
do indeed influence our lives". 
Anyone who goes on to read the article, however, will find
that no such evidence is cited anywhere. Seymour has not done
any studies that suggest a cosmic influence on our lives, he
has merely produced a theory to explain the planetary
influence, IF it exists.

Seymour has chosen the studies of Michel Gauquelin, the
founder of "astrobiology" as the factual basis for his theory.
Gauquelin did statistical analyses where he correlated the
lives of important persons with the position of certain
planets. He also tested traditional astrology and found it to
be statistically disproved. Most astrologers consider him a
heretic, and his positive results for planet influence have
not been confirmed by independant statisticians.



MAGNETISM DOES IT ALL.
But, let's take a look at Seymour's theory, and see what it is
all about. 

The earth has an enormously strong and fluctuating magnetic
field. The sun continuously sprays the earth with energetic
particles, and in years when there is much sunspot activity
this gives rise to "storms" in the magnetic field of the
earth.

Organizms react to magnetism:
Many organisms on earth have a capacity to perceive magnetism.
Some birds use it to navigate in dark nights, and a few
species of bacteria react to magnetism. Possibly some people
who have a particularly good "homing" ability also use
magnetic clues.

Do the planets influence the sunspot activity?
The sun reverses it's magnetic field every 11 years, and this
coincides with periods of high sunspot activity. Seymour
believes that this cyclic reversal is caused by special
constellations of the planets. (No astrophysicists think so!)
This then completes the link between the planets and people. 


THE REACTIONS TO SEYMOURS THEORY:
When Seymour's book was reviewed in New Scientist, it was
dismissed as "..unsupported speculations, founded neither on
known facts nor on physical calculations." 
(According to OMNI the reviewer cannot have had "a clear
understanding of Seymour's theory")
The Astronomy community has unanimously denounced Seymour's
ideas, and criticized him heavily for promoting them. 

Astrologers also criticize Seymour. The kind of astrology
which is in vogue today find such attempts crude and in bad
taste. According to modern astrology the stars don't exert a
direct influence on people. It is all on a much more esoteric
plane, and quite unaccessible to scientific method. If pressed
on this point, astrologers will give you a lecture about how
macrocosm is reflected in microcosm, and that the stars are
holistically and harmoniously unified with the atoms inside
your body.


WHAT IS THERE TO EXPLAIN?
Seymour's theory does probably not hold water, and even if it
did, theories are not what astrology needs to become credible.
Horoscopes that make accurate and testable predictions is all
that it takes to convince the sceptics. Until the day when
astrology is shown to give real results, explanations are of
little interest.

Seymour's book is called: "Astrology, The Evidence of Science"
Lennard Publishing, 1988