In layman terms:
Experiment: We examined Vedic astrology through a comparison of the birth charts of people who have exactly opposite life patterns. This is called an empirical test that is necessary for any "science" to be proven as "science". We tested following Opposite life patterns -
(1) Cancer Versus No Cancer (2) Never married in life Versus long married life without separation (3) Mentally retarded Versus Intelligent (4) Celebrity Versus ordinary people (5) Divorcees Versus long married life without separation (6) Long life Versus short life.
A computer based solution was developed to cast birth charts, analyze them in terms of various astrological parameters and verify their compliance with astrological rules. In each experiment, two sets of birth charts of opposing life effects were created. Statistics says, if one has prove any thing statistically the data size must be as high as 300 - 500 per groups. So we took those many birth charts in each group. Note, this is a huge scale that happened for the first time in India for testing astrology. One of the challenges in testing astrology is that there is not a single authentic source of rules as there are various opinions and versions of astrology. Rule means astrological configuration which is considered as unique. For example, 'Retrograde Mercury in malefic nakshatra indicates mental disorders' - is a rule. You already must have heard another rule - 'malefic planets in 7th house is not good for marriage' and so on. There are several such rules but we have selected some of them that act as basic principles of astrology. They're in every astrological textbook. So we tested both groups (with opposite life effects) for each rule. In addition, we tested these groups for what you can call as astrological 'negativity'. You must have heard astrologers saying "sadly...Venus planet is in conjugation with Saturn..marriage could be late" or "Moon is debilitated and hence some undesired effect" etc. It is that 'negativity' we are talking about. We measured it for all individual planets, for all houses and also their lords for each Kundali and compared among the two groups. You will obviously expect this negativity to be very, very negative for the group which has the worst life effect. For example, if we create a set of all kundalis of people having cancer, it should have lot more negativity for a planet or a house which is responsible for cancer as compared to healthy people, correct? Or if we take experiment of mentally retarded versus intelligent then as per astrology the mentally retarded group will have more 'negativity' for the planets which are considered as responsible for intelligence. Mercury and the Moon are considered significant for intellect and therefore they should have more 'negativity' if astrology is true. We tested all such rules. Moreover, in order to be complete and to avoid any scope for argument in future, we in fact have tested all planets, all houses and lords of all houses and did comparison. Even though one of them is more negative in one group than the opposite one, we can consider it as evidence of astrology having a merit. Hope you liked our experiment. Want to know the outcome?
Conclusion: We observed that there is no significant difference between the two data sets in terms of astrological 'negativity' of any planet, house or the lord of house. We repeat - No Difference. Not in any planet, nor in house or its lord. And the same observations in every experiment we conducted, i.e., in Cancer versus No Cancer and Mentally retarded versus Intelligent and all listed above. Our statistician carried out different tests and confirmed those observations. These results demonstrate how astrology totally fails the empirical test. It also challenges the basic premise of astrology which assumes that certain planets, certain specific houses and their lords are responsible for predicting a given life effect. For example, as given above astrology says Mercury and Moon are significant for Intelligence but we observed these planets are equally negative in the birth charts of mentally retarded and Intelligent persons. Therefore, these planets cannot be considered significant to predict the intellect. Neither these two nor any others as none were significantly different. Another example, astrology says that Venus and the 7th house are significant for marriage. But we have found that both are equally negative in people who never married in their life versus those who were longtime married. So here also we challenge the basic premise of astrology that Venus and 7th house are responsible for marriage. Again, neither these two nor any other planet or house can be significant for prediction because none were different in negativity. The concept of any planet or house of birth chart becoming responsible for predicting the effects in life is thus not valid. A number of fundamental principles (rules) which your astrologer will use to predict your future (e.g. Planets in 6th , 8th or 12th house give malefic effects or the planets in conjugation with Saturn give unfavourable effect, etc.) were also tested as part of the study. Here the given rule gets complied equally in both groups and hence we consider them as invalid. Now listen carefully, these are the rules used by astrologers in everyday practice. You can therefore imagine the accuracy of the prediction made using them. According to the above tests and comparisons, in all six experiments listed above, it is concluded that Vedic astrology does not pass through the empirical tests nor does it have the merit to predict any life effect. It is disheartening for many to hear this but that is the truth we found through our 10 year long experiment.
We have done much more than what is given above. We intentionally do not talk about all that here as we promised you to keep this discussion as simple as possible. For more details, please browse the remaining pages in this section.
Know more about our Our computer based solution, How did we test? From where we got Data?