Astrologers and bullshit

This post was prompted by a DNA article which called astrologer R. Narayanan 'the Nostradamus' of the 21st century. It credits him with some fantastic predictions and quotes him saying Monday, Feb 23, 2009 will be 'deadly'. Like his ilk he proceeds to dish out generic predictions which have no timeline and are vaguely worded. Most times I have a good laugh at these things but sometimes it rankles me that people don't see through their hollow craft. Here is the article

"THIS MONDAY WILL BE DEADLY, WARNS ASTROLOGER

He is undoubtedly the 21st century Nostradamus. Having predicted the fall of MGR and the ascension of Manmohan Singh, 77-year-old, retired central government officer R Narayanan predicts a political upheaval in India, a volatile stock market and crash in real estate prices due to an unusual conjunction of six celestial bodies viz Sun, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Uranus and Moon in Capricorn constellation on February 23.

"Because of this phenomenon, both good and evil will occur in the world. I foresee a major war in the Middle East involving Israel, Jordan and Iran. A war is also imminent between India and Pakistan. Political leaders in India will suffer health hazards and IT staffers working in the US, the UK and Middle East may return home," the numerologist told DNA from his first floor flat of a posh locality in Chennai.

He also predicts terror attacks in India and the West as well as natural calamities such as an earthquake occurring in the Himalayan region, Andaman and Nicobar islands, southern states of India, Afghanistan, Los Angeles, Ivory Coast, Africa, Japan and Jakarta.

"We come from a family of traditional astrologers with my ancestors being much sought after by the kings of Ramnad [Ramanathapuram]. My father was a teacher and he groomed Abdul Kalam by providing him shelter in our home. He didn't believe in astrology and always insisted on education. But by divine grace, I developed an extraordinary extra sensory perception following a head injury at the age of 24 and have since been able to foretell the future based on the science of astronomy," he explains.

The injury left Narayanan in a state of coma for close to 20 days in a Ramanathapuram hospital. His sojourn of premonitions based on extra sensory perceptions began then.

"After I regained consciousness, I foresaw a grave danger for the doctor who was supposed to conduct my surgery. I told the doctor about it. But the doctor dismissed it as hallucinations due to my injury. Unfortunately, the next morning I was informed that the doctor had collapsed due to a massive heart attack," he says.

Narayanan was soon discharged from hospital as he also predicted the fate of a fellow patient, who too succumbed to illness.

Narayanan has a huge corporate following. Many corporate entities seek his advice on names and logos."

I never heard of any of his predictions before. Which terror attacks had he predicted. Why doesn’t DNA give us details of when these predictions of his happened and when the actual events took place?

To me it is nothing but bullshit. If these people who claim to predict the future really have the capability to do so then let them make concrete predictions with specific timelines. Say like India and Pakistan will declare war on each other on XX-XX-XXXX and the war will last for XXX days. Or a X.X magnitude earthquake will strike so and so region on XX-XX-XXXX. Till that happens the media should not give them undue publicity.