Heavenly Fixes

Are you one of those who never turns to the horoscope in a newspaper or magazine or like millions around the globe are you someone who must get a daily dose of "Personal validation" from a very generalised, very vague prediction written up for public consumption?

You may wonder where this question is going. I’ll simply tell you.

Going through the list of the 10 most wanted men and women in Dubai (our cover story), it was pointed out to me that six of them were Geminis.

Well, since I am one of those millions that gets my daily fix of prediction and has dabbled in the personal characteristics of the 12 Zodiac signs I found it a trifle surprising that the charming, affable Gemini should be so maligned.

However, another colleague pointed out the dual nature of most Gemini and their love for the easy, good life could very easily lead them to becoming confidence tricksters. This in turn flared into an argument, begun by a Gemini, no less. He said the whole affair could simply be a coincidence and was not based on science.

To be fair, astrology is a pseudo science and yet its origins can be traced back to the Hammurabis of Babylon around 3,500 years ago.

It has seen its ups and downs throughout the so- called dark ages of Greece, Rome, India, China and Arabia and the eras of the Renaissance and the Crusades, but it is only in our scientifically enlightened times did it make its strongest comeback. That golden period was begun after World War I by British Astrologer R.H. Naylor who began the daily newspaper horoscope.

This little bit of fact of course adds fuel to the argument that one should not always believe everything in newspapers, because they are not scientific and are arbitrary like all pseudo sciences.

Well, the arguments can continue about the relevance of newspapers and horoscopes, but it is a well-grounded fact that the newspaper horoscope is still very popular around the world and that has left scientists baffled for a long time.

Even the online guys agree.