Why Astrology is a Pseudoscience

I read a nice article called “Why Astrology is a Pseudoscience" by Paul Thagard. It is part of my Philosophy of science reading. I am trying to understand the scientific processes and how it is similar to or different to the other competing schools of thoughts in explaining the universe. Anyways, I will now give a brief summary of the article.
Astrology is a system of knowledge that mainly tries to predict the personality of a person. Its main tool is the sun sign which is the area of the sky that the sun occupies when the person is born. There are twelve sun signs each corresponding one of the twelve areas the sun has been divided into.
Astrology is a very ancient practice, it is supposed to have started around 2500 years ago and its rules were codified by Ptolemy in 2nd century AD.
Over the years, several scientists have provided multiple reasons for Astrology being a pseudoscience. The author argues that all of these are invalid reasons. Some of the reasons and the authors counter arguments are written bellow
There is no material connection between the celestial objects and the fate and personality of people. But Thagard argues that the lack of physical foundation does not render a theory non scientific, since there are a number of theories that had no physical foundation till recently but were considered scientific. Examples include the continental shift and link between smoking and cancer.
The origin of astrology is in the occult and magic. Thagard argues that this is also not a valid reason since the origin of many science lie in the occult and magic. Examples include the origin of chemistry in alchemy.
People believe in astrology because of their need for comfort. Once again Thagard refutes this argument by stating that why people believe in something is irrelevant since people sometimes believe in good theories for the wrong reason.
Astrology is not testable. Roughly a theory is testable if we can confirm or reject a theory based upon some observation. Thagard argues that although its predictions are vague still we can test their validity on a group of people. In fact the author mentions one such statistical study.
Astrology is not falsible. Falsification is the rejection of a theory and adoption of a better theory. In principle Astrology is falsifiable. In fact Psychology is one such competing theory that attempts to predict the personality of persons.
After providing convincing counter arguments, the author provides his reason for astrology being a pseudoscience. Which is the progressiveness of the practitioners of a theory? Thagard say that a theory is scientific if its practitioners are actively involved in testing, validating and improving a theory. Hence a theory is scientific if it is being updated to give better and better predictions.
Everybody knows that astrologist around the world are still using the rules laid down by Ptolemy. Therefore, astrology is a pseudoscience.

life

I have been reading some biology during the last few days. I was amazed by the molecular nature of life. How at the basis of all life are some carbon based molecules interacting with each other. I am sure that some people would count this as a proof of intelligent design or worst still an evidence of a soul. Well they are wrong.
The molecular basis of humans shows that life too follows the rules of physics and chemistry. So if we have a super super super computer and we code an artificial earth in it with all the rules of physics and chemistry. We start the program with the initial conditions of early earth and let it run for a few billion years. Then when we look at the artificial earth it would have life in it with humans running among the chimps. Ofcourse we never would have the computing power to run this experiment.
In conclusion, there is no need for a soul to explain life.

first post

This is my first blog post. I wonder if it would be a successful experiment or a flop. My fingers are crossed