Science - USA (2020-01-17)

SCIENCE sciencemag.org 17 JANUARY 2020 • VOL 367 ISSUE 6475 255

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not offer a comprehensive his-

tory of astrology but guides

the reader along particu-

larly important episodes

in the practice’s story,

taking cues from specific

historical events, char-

acters, and objects. The

resulting gallery tour

takes us from ancient

Egyptian pyramids and

coffin lids to Mesopota-

mian cuneiform tablets.

We learn of the cosmic

models and analog calcula-

tors that Archimedes’ work-

shop might have contained,

and astrological intelligence

policy in 1st-century imperial

Rome (and its relation to the philo-

sophical schools of the time) becomes

more vivid than ever. Descriptions of the

ambitious programs to systematize and ex-

plain human diversity through

astrology in 2nd-century Egypt

and to turn astrology into a

comprehensive theory of human

history in 8th-century Baghdad

amply convey the historical fas-

cination with astrological pat-

ternmaking. Late medieval Italy,

on the other hand, becomes the

backdrop for exploring astrol-

ogy as a science of practical al-

gorithms that would not be out

of place in the modern world

of stock forecasts, whereas the

Age of Aquarius sees astrology

reworked into an art of spiritual

counseling, a shift that Boxer traces to the

theosophical movements of the 1870s.

A Scheme of Heaven—like all good his-

tory writing—turns its subject into a

mirror. (In the words of the Roman poet

Horatius, “the story is told about you.”)

Statistics, Boxer shows, not only debunk

astrology’s claims, they confirm that some

of our most private behavior happens in

step with cosmic rhythms today. History

not only documents a distant past, it shows

how intimately some of our most presti-

gious scientific traditions really are—as Jo-

hannes Kepler argued—the children of this

foolish daughter. And like astrology, the

patterns that data science reveals turn out

to hinge on far more interpretation than

we might like. Boxer points out, for exam-

ple, how the contemporary combination of

big data with machine-learning algorithms

is rapidly creating a rift between empirical

forecasting models and causal understand-

ing—exactly the kind of rift that has often

been invoked to criticize astrology.

In the closing pages of this excellent

book, Boxer candidly voices his fear that his

fellow scientists will misunderstand his ef-

forts as an endorsement of astrology. From

my own experience, I suspect academia is

more neutral toward such enterprises than

it once was. Recognizing the historical im-

portance of astrology certainly makes for

a far messier account of early scientific

practices. Done correctly, however, these

messier pictures of science only reinforce

our appreciation of the amount of work

that goes into it—and of the vulnerability

of human wonder propelling it. j

10.1126/science.aaz9644

A

lexander Boxer, a professional data

scientist, knows a thing or two about

distilling patterns from big data.

Surrounded by constant, endless

streams of information, humans are

pattern-matching animals, and as-

trology, he claims, “is the universe’s grand-

est pattern-matching game.”

Boxer’s new book, A Scheme of Heaven,

is an introduction to astrology that offers

a handsome primer of the structures and

concepts with which astrologers have tried

to make our world of data manageable. He

constructs his story as a historical narrative,

picking out specific historical events to re-

veal the degree to which local religious, po-

litical, social, and cultural contexts shaped

astrology’s pattern-matching game.

The book also exposes readers to the

rigor of statistical analysis. Here, Boxer

applies his knowledge of statistics to some

of the most enduring and fasci-

nating patterns that astrology

educed from its constant com-

parisons between heavenly and

terrestrial events. This combi-

nation of topics is usually the

preserve of critics, who like to

mobilize analyses of astrology’s

conceptual apparatus, history,

and statistical soundness to

demonstrate the art’s vacuity. A

Scheme of Heaven is different in

that it seeks to offer a kind word

for the endeavor.

Astrology was the first art

to capitalize on “the powerful

storytelling possibilities inherent in nu-

merical data,” writes Boxer. In that regard,

it was the predecessor of all modern big

data disciplines. To be clear, Boxer is not

a closet believer. He never argues, for ex-

ample, for the reinstatement of the prac-

tice into the academy. (It was ousted in the

second quarter of the 17th century.) His

narrative takes a far more interesting tack.

Refreshingly, A Scheme of Heaven does

DATA SCIENCE

By Steven Vanden Broecke

Patterns, statistics, and the stars

Highlights from the history of astrology reveal the origins

of our quest to find meaning in data

The reviewer is at the Department of History, Ghent University,

9000 Ghent, Belgium. Email: [email protected]

BOOKS et al.

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  criptions of the
  tematize and ex-
  iversity through

origins

A Scheme of Heaven:

The History

of Astrology and

the Search for Our

Destiny in Data

Alexander Boxer

Norton, 2020. 349 pp.

Astronomers and astrologers alike have relied on the

astrolabe to plot schemes of the heavens.

Published by AAAS