The harmony of Worlds

You would find a column on Astrology virtually in every newspaper and every magazine on the newsstand (This is not a debate on astronomy and astrology). Majority of the people I meet would definitely ask me my sun sign. I believe that in India, astrology runs in our blood. Every thing we do has to fall in congruence with the “auspicious moment” as declared by astrology.
I have always been fascinated by the thought of knowing the future but had my doubts in believing astrology as a science till I found an analogy to explain the rationale.
First of all, let us understand the origin of astrology in the words of Carl Sagan –
A few thousand years ago, the idea developed that the motions of the planets determined the fates of Kings, dynasties, empires. Astrologers studied the motions of the planets and asked themselves what had happened the last time that, say, Venus was rising in the constellation of Goats; perhaps something similar would happen this time as well. Astrology developed into a strange combination of observations, mathematics and careful record-keeping.
Now, as I see, astrology developed into a forecasting technique which used Historical Data.
If I talk about the Technical Analysis of the shares, calculation of Value at Risk and RAROC, Time Series analysis, Regression……aren’t these themselves tools for forecasting based on similar technique i.e. using historical data.
The next argument would be that these analyses give you just an approximate idea. But so does astrology.
Astrologers have developed very sophisticated and comprehensive models like the Vedic Sidereal Model. As all forecasting techniques tell us that greater the amount of historical data taken better the accuracy, then astrology must be able to predict far more accurately; and so is it. But, had every one been able to master the science behind financial models, every one would have been Warren Buffet or George Soros. Thus the only condition for a near perfect future forecast is that the person handling the model has a thorough knowledge of the science he is dealing with.

“An argument for those who find ‘despising astrology’ as a fashion statement.”