Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 June 16

= June 16 =

Araft Institute
Is there such a thing as an Araft Institute that's involved in the Israel-Palestinian conflict? Fatah talks about such an organisation existing in 2005, but the cited source for this paragraph doesn't include the word "institute", and I'm wondering if "Araft" is an error for "Arafat". "Arafat Institute" gets few relevant Google results (one of the first results, from 2016, calls the institute "newly created"). "Araft Institute" has just fifteen hits, and while the top one is HaAretz from 2009, everything else is related either to Wikipedia or to a plastic surgery institute at Mount Vernon Hospital, so I'm not sure that the single HaAretz article is correctly spelled. Nyttend backup (talk) 16:55, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Here's a diff and an archived version of an older ref, which also doesn't seem to mention "Araft" or "institute". It mentiones a chairman of Fatah's new platform. Personuser (talk) 18:15, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Good idea; thank you. I've removed the sentence in question, since it demonstrably wasn't sourced and hasn't been since.  Nyttend backup (talk) 18:21, 16 June 2021 (UTC)


 * The disputed sentence is found almost the same in this news source, but with the spelling "Arafat Institute". It does not further explain what the Arafat Institute is, nor does it identify its chairman. --Lambiam 19:24, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
 * There is a "Yasser Arafat Foundation", that at least some later sources (improperly?) called "Institute", still needs a better source. Not sure if Nasser al-Qudwa was chairman in 2009, but his article needs a better/updated source too. Personuser (talk) 22:21, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

By the way, the part of Arafat's birth name which is most similar to a western surname is actually "al-Qudwa" (formerly commonly transcribed "al-Kidwa") -- definitely not "Arafat"! AnonMoos (talk) 23:40, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Astrological aspects - how frequently do they occur in horoscopes?
Hi, I have read in one of Liz Greene's books ( I am sorry, I can't find the specific book now) that an astrological aspect between two planets occurs in about one in every 18 charts. For example, an aspect between the sun and Pluto would affect one in every 18 people. I cannot find anything to corroborate this, although given the status of the author, I have no reason to doubt it. It was not clear whether Liz Greene was commenting on an aspect in general, or whether it applied to a specific type of aspect, for example sun square Pluto. I think it is more likely to be the former. Is anyone on this site aware of this information or could point me in the right direction? Thanks Andrea2603 (talk) 19:51, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
 * How about you read Astrology and find out how worthless it is. <-Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots-> 22:28, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
 * This still makes an interesting math question and humanity needs an excuse to keep calling Pluto a planet. Personuser (talk) 22:37, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Natal Astrology (as opposed to Sun sign astrology which was introduced around 1930 purely as something to run in newspapers and boost readership) can be useful, but it doesn't of course work in the way traditionally assumed, that is through (non-existent) "influences" of the positions of planets, etc., on someone at their moment and place of birth or on the outcomes of some timed and dated event.
 * Instead (and this is admittedly Original Research), the process of drawing up the natal chart or horoscope of a subject (which need not be a person) and interpreting the results of its many interacting and multi-valued "influences", in conjunction with the astrologer's personal knowledge of the subject and of the world (sometimes combined with the subject's active participation in the process), allows the astrologer to utilise subconscious (and/or sometimes conscious) calculations to determine what courses of action might more usefully be pursued. (Relatedly, the Placebo and Nocebo effects work even if their subject knows that they are in operation.)
 * Similar mental processes in the practitioner (not primarily the subject if different) can be tapped into by use of the I Ching, of Tarot card readings, and for that matter by Philip Pullman's fictitious Alethiometer, and doubtless other systems of recursively combined symbolism combined with intellectual introspection.
 * As Granny Weatherwax would say: "It's all headology." She too may be fictitious, but she's not wrong. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.0.58 (talk) 00:00, 17 June 2021 (UTC)


 * An aspect is an angle, presumably with some nonzero tolerance; the assertion is equivalent to saying that all such tolerances add up to 20 degrees (1/18 of the circle). How many ideal angles are recognized as aspects?  Do they all have the same tolerance? --Tamfang (talk) 00:29, 17 June 2021 (UTC)


 * To actually address the question(!) not all astrological aspects have the same orb, or tolerance. But a conjunction indeed has an orb of 10 degrees either side, or 20 degrees, which is one eighteenth of 360 degreess, so 1 in 18 charts will have that particular conjunction. And since people are making general comments on astrology instead of addressing the question, here is another: Isaac Newton, when questioned by his student, Edmond Halley, on his interest in astrology, said "Sir, I have studied it, you have not.".--Shantavira|feed me 07:19, 17 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Astrology has very little merit (to start with, the precession of the equinoxes means that astrological signs are disaligned with astronomical constellations), but through at least the 15th century, many advances in astronomy were pursued as much or more for the purpose of improving the accuracy of horoscopes as for the sake of pure science... AnonMoos (talk) 08:17, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
 * The 12 Houses of the Sun have traditionally been named after the corresponding ascendant constellations of the zodiac. This is merely a naming convention; they could also have been named House I through House XII. The fact that the zodiac has so to speak "precessed" does not mean these Houses have moved, and is no compelling reason to rename them. --Lambiam 23:52, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Adherents of Sidereal astrology (including most forms of Indian/Hindu astrology) would disagree with you... AnonMoos (talk) 01:37, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
 * And at a more mundane level, some (what we would now call) astronomers, such as Johannes Kepler, were able to earn fees for "casting horoscopes" for wealthy patrons, enabling them to pay their living expenses and pursue (what we would now see as) more scientific goals. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.0.58 (talk) 22:20, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
 * The book A Scheme of Heaven is devoted to an examination of the historical role of astrology as an ambitious "applied mathematics problem". --Lambiam 00:07, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this. I am hopeless at maths and never think mathematically but applying maths to an exact aspect (no tolerance or "orb") would this affect one in 360 charts? Or have I got this round my neck, as usual?


 * That would be true if astrology sistematically ignored angles of less than 1 degree, which given the chase for more accurate horoscopes mentioned above seems unlikely. Otherwise it would be true for an orb of 0.5 degrees. Guess it can be calculated how often a specific exact aspect happens, but given different charts for arbitrarily small changes in time and an arbitrarily small tolerance, the exact matches would approach 1 in infinity. This is an outline of how this works, an actual answer would require knowing how this charts are made. Personuser (talk) 09:11, 20 June 2021 (UTC)