Oriental Astrology - arguments needed

[Evil Knevil]

Heard of the Barnum effect?

[Whaleboy]

no

[Evil Knevil]

I really should have this on file.............

Bertram Forer did and early study(1949)
He asked his students to fill out a test listing their hobbies, ambitions, secret hopes and personal characteristics.

He returned personal interpretations to each of them. They were then asked wether the interpretations were accurate, on a scale of 0-5. The median was 4.3.

It turns out that Forer gave the exact same 'interpretation' to all of his students, without looking at any of their profiles:

1/ You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.

2/ You have a tendancy to be critical of yourself.

3/ You have a great deal of unused capacity, which you have not turned to your advantage.

4/ While you have some personality weaknesses, you a generally able to compensate for them.

5/ Your sexual adjustment has presented problems for you.

6/ Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worried and insecure inside.

7/ You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.

8/ At times you are extroverted affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary and reserved.


Hmmm...

[Urban Ranger]

Solver,

What your friend did is called "casting a horoscope," and that's what professional astrologers do for a living. Here are some counterpoints I can think of off-hand:

1. The constellations do not move very fast. More precisely, the earth doesn't rotate around the sun that fast.

2. Precession. The 12 houses astrologers use are based on Babylonian stuff, yet in the intervening thousands of years the constellations had shifted around, so the correspondence to seasons etc. is now all out of whack.

3. Some famous tests:

In 1979 Michel Gauquelin put an advertisement in Ici-Paris offering a free horoscope. Recipients were asked to reply saying how accurate they and their friends found the horoscope. Of the first 150 replies, 94% percent said it was accurate as did 90% of their friends and family. Unfortunately, they all got the same horoscope, that of Dr. Petiot, a notorious mass murderer.

In 1982 Australian Skeptics collected thirteen newspaper horoscope columns for the last week of August, rated them for good, bad and vague predictions about News, Health and Luck; Relationships; Finance and Travel. They found very little consistency, in fact most signs had a fairly even spread so, for instance, you could find one paper telling you it would be a lucky week and another saying the opposite. This shows that newspaper horoscopes are essentially random.

In 1985, Harry Edwards checked all the predictions from Old Moore's Almanack for 1984. These were written by a couple of top astrologers. Of the 200 predictions it was possible to check, less than 5% materialised and practically all of those could have been based solely on probability, prior knowledge or astute speculation. Astrologers are no better than pastry cooks, taxi drivers or any of us at predicting.

In 1985, at the University of California, Berkeley, Shawn Carlson designed a test in conjunction with a number of America's top Astrologers to test the fundamental thesis of natal astrology. Considerable effort was spent ensuring that all parties were happy with the experiments beforehand. In the first experiment, people in a test group were given three horoscopes, one of which was theirs, and asked to rate them for fit. A control group, matched for sun-sign, was given the same horoscopes. The astrologers said the test group should pick their own horoscope at least 50% of the time but both groups did no better than chance. This showed that people can't identify their own horoscope and find any horosope satisfactory. In a second experiment participating astrologers were asked to match horoscopes with corresponding personality inventory tests. Again the astrologers did no better than chance. This shows that horoscopes do not predict personality.

On June 7, 1989, on American television, James Randi offered $100,000 to any psychic or Astrologer who could prove the truth of their claims. An astrologer who took up the challenge was given the birth information of twelve people and had cast their charts. He interviewed the twelve without knowing who was whom and was to identify them by matching them with horoscopes. He got none right.

4. The ever so vague predictions.

5. Cold and warm readings. Also, you said this guy who casted your horosope is a friend of yours? There you go.

[Evil Knevil]

Ha! My study is older than yours UR

Both good work though.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by elijah
I dont think the strikethrough is working

Yes it is

[Solver]

Wow Evil, that Bertam guy study is something excellent! I LOVE that!

UR - good points .

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Evil Knevil
Ha! My study is older than yours UR

Both good work though.

Both showed how vaguely worded "predictions" and "descriptions" can be interpreted by various individuals to fit their own situations.

Just to give you a glimpse of my staggering paranormal powers, I will make predictions for the rest of 2003:

1. There will be more people at the end of 2003 than the beginning of it.

2. Nasty diseases will ravage parts of the globe.

3. Earthquakes and volcanic activities will strike unexpectedly.

4. Some people will die, dispite the best efforts of medicine.

5. Some people will make remarkable recoveries from debilitating diseases.

6. GWB will have his foot planted firmly in his mouth.

7. Climatic anomalies will rage on.

8. New forms of diseases will be discovered.

9. You will enter a period of unluck.

10. Don't miss out! Secure prime Martin real estate properties before the rush is on.

[Sava]

astrology =

[Berzerker]

Just my opinion, but astrology derives from an ancient belief that the celestial bodies, primarily planets, were gods or represented gods. Their position in the heavens could then be viewed as "favorable" or "unfavorable" wrt events here on Earth. Just how is a matter of speculation, but I suspect a complex framework of "myths" about the constellations (even Christianity and the Bible contain some of these myths) and the stories told to account for them and their arrangement in the sky, e.g., Orion the Hunter, Hamlet's Mill and the great mill in the sky (the North Pole), the Milky Way, etc., were the background for the movement of the planets. Regarding the Bible, Genesis tells us a punishment for the Serpent was to be trod upon by Eve and her descendents - a reference to the positioning of Virgo the Virgin's heel and Draconus the Snake. What's interesting is not all this horoscope stuff, but the mythology and how some of these myths appear on opposite sides of the world.

[badams52]

This all reminds me of an interesting book my friend had which took the lives and personalities of many people born on a certain day, took the common traits and put them together into a profile for that specific day. It was actually quite an interesting read.

The probelm with Forer's study is that the statements are too vague and could describe anyone. When you read some astrological examinations (not talking about the garden newspaper variety) they actually try to pinpoint personality traits much more with varying degrees of success. Some always will sound more correct to one person or another, but I've never seen a perfect match.

I think UR's test and results are better at "disproving" astrology.

Oh and just as a side note, something that is very intersting to me is that I was born a taurus and a bull/ox. Two systems, the same sign.

[Urban Ranger]

Berz,

I reckon the night sky was a source of infinite facination to the ancient peoples. The Egyptians had the stars correspond to their gods, the Chinese had lots of tales with regards to people and celestial bodies. Some of the most famous ones involve the moon (Mid-Autumn Festival).


badams52,

That means you are very bullheaded?

[Sikander]

Solver, was he doing Indian astrology or Western? IIRC the Indians take into account the "drift" of the constellations while western astrology does not. Interestingly this sort of astrology was introduced to India by the Greeks who travelled with Alexander. They took it to heart and even improved upon it. In the west a lot of astrology was destroyed / forgotten, and was reassembled from incomplete sources later.

As for whether it "works" or not, I can't say. Certainly I've seen no evidence that it does. Its usefullness as a means of thinking about your own life may be useful though.

[:) Smiley]

Don't bother with astrology if you're looking for predictions, though many of the stories associated with its elements are interesting and worthwhile.

[CerberusIV]

I am currently reading a book about early astronomy. For most of history astronomy and astrology go hand in hand. The big difference has been that, until very recently, astrology pays and astronomy doesn't. Most ancient and medieval astronomers did astrology to pay the bills whilst pursuing astronomy as their interest.

OK, that doesn't invalidate astrology but some people making money out of other peoples desire to know what is in store for them is enough to explain why it exists, regardless of whether it works or not.