Not everyone accepts this view instantly, so it seems I need to explain my position.

No, I am not closed-minded. However, I have reached a firm conclusion based on the available evidence: astrology is bunk. I shall stick with that conclusion unless or until someone comes up with far better evidence than any I’ve seen so far. I offer two approaches.

A. If astrology is proposed as a physical fact, it must conform to the rules of scientific investigation. There must be a hypothesis, and an experiment. The experiment must rely on objective methods, observations and interpretations. These are well established, so I don’t need to go into them.

At the conclusion of the experiment, both sides must accept the outcome: astrology is confirmed, or it is refuted, or further experiments are clearly needed.

My reading of the current situation is that either no such experiments have been conducted to the satisfaction of any scientists, or any experiments that have been conducted have totally failed to confirm astrology as a physical fact. (The lack of successful claims on the $1m prize offered by the Skeptics provides further evidence, if it were needed).

In this situation, a scientist will reach same the conclusion I have: astrology is bunk. A non-scientific person who would like astrology to work will refuse to accept the situation and will keep demanding “an open mind”. In my opinion the only closed minds are those who refuse to accept the evidence and keep looking for physical fact where there is none.

B. If astrology is not proposed as a physical fact, it need not conform to the rules of scientific investigation. Those who wish to use astrology as a personal tool to guide themselves or others in their daily affairs are (as always) free to believe whatever they wish.

I do not wish to deny people their cherished beliefs. In return, I ask that they do not propose as physical facts, any events and mechanisms which clearly have no such basis. Astrology is one of these, but there are countless others.

To all of them I say: XXX is bunk! (Substitute your own favourite in here).