Yeah, I made a Black Eyed Peas reference and a non-ad-hominem attack in the title. Whatcha gonna do about it? I’ll be cross-posting everything below the fold at his site and will add the link here momentarily. I’ve cross-posted it here, though it’s apparently still in moderation due to the copious amount of links. Update: Jamie has pulled it out of the spam queue, right here. He edited it down to a link back here. Color me underwhelmed.
As I’m cross-posting, I plan on adding images and other kitsch to my post here to break up the wall-of-text effect, after the fact. I’ll save my most sarcastic commentary for their captions, naturally.
Brace yourselves. This is gonna be another long one.
—
(from sevensidedcube.net)
Jamie Funk, of Funk Astrology, saw my post linking to his postdiction of the BP oil spill at Deepwater Horizon via the trackback I left enabled, and saw it as a glove across the face. He has invited me to debate with him over at his blog, ostensibly as it would “get my message to a larger audience”. I suspect rather it’s so that I would be forced to air my concerns about astrology in front of a hostile audience, one that’s already primed to believe astrology to be unimpeachable and supported by ample historical evidence, with many recorded “hits” and very few recorded “misses”. I will be cross-posting this post as a comment on his blog, in direct response to his invitation, and I strongly encourage proper, reasoned debate, with the understanding that I’m not terribly interested in what makes your special brand of astrology different from all the others, but rather am interested in proof that astrology as a field could have any kind of verifiable, falsifiable effect on humanity.
(from englishrules.com)
Any argument I can make against astrology, because the field is comprised of so many competing and conflicting arguments about specific methodologies, can be shrugged off with a simple “but that’s not what MY astrology says!” So, there’s a bit of a draw, in my mind, toward creating another overarching deconstruction of astrology along the same lines as my recent Why Prayer is Nonsense series. Others have done it so much more proficiently. There are even peer-reviewed scientific papers that deconstruct the whole concept. However, I’m aware that very few of these resources are going to be utilized by the majority of the readers of this post. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is very likely to dissuade many of Funk’s readers from even making an attempt at reading this (admittedly long) comment, much less honestly analyzing the arguments or falling into one of several counterpoints I hope to mention below.
I’ve made mention in the previous post of the concept of a pseudo-random number generator (PRNG). It’s a computer term, and the name is slightly misleading. In terms of using a computer to generate a random number, it’s pretty much impossible to guarantee randomness in this deterministic universe in which we live. The closest thing we can manage is to build formulae that take a defined bit of input (a “seed”), and output a seemingly random number. However, given the same seed, the PRNG will generate the same sequence of numbers every single time. So, it’s not REALLY random — it’s a mathematical formula that gives you the same result every time you feed in the same numbers. The word “random” doesn’t imply that you’re throwing dice when you draw up a natal chart. On the contrary — if you’re following the same rules and use the correct planets and locations and dates every time you draw up a chart, you’ll end up with the same results.
Natal charts function, approximately, as follows. The sun signs are placed around a circle, degree marks notching off the full 360 degrees in a slight simplification of the actual heavens, and based on whatever “house rules” you or your astrologer happens to use for your calculations, you mark where the planets were at a specific time and on a specific location on Earth. You then take those planets’ relative alignments and see what neat geometrical patterns you can find in them — the aforementioned Yods or Y-shapes, quincunxes, and a whole host of other configurations. You also take note of what houses the planets land in, and you get to work interpreting these auspicious correlations. It is as much art as science at this point — you can choose either to employ specific historical aspects for planets and the houses they land in, or you can make up some of your own, e.g. ignoring the sun sign as anything other than a convenient placeholder, a la Kepler.
(from a forum thread at upsidebackwards.info)
Most astrologers like to ascribe the classical conception of the gods that particular planets were named after — e.g., Mars, despite being a barren and cold rustball, symbolizes war and passion and courage and heat. Pluto, despite being incredibly distant and so small as to be demoted to a dwarf planet, has all the influence of the god of the Underworld, driving evolution and life by meting out death and change (and for some reason, sex). To make matters more complicated and the results more elegant, each planet is associated with a gender, as with each star sign, and the combinations of genders also modify your results.
Every additional layer of information added to the formula increases the amount of interpretation that can be done on the results, and therefore to the amount of possible predictions that can be made. Because of the vast range of potentialities in any single set of aspects, you’d be hard pressed to find two astrologers who predict the same thing with the same chart. And results often include “X’s place in Y house may complicate/modify Z” giving every prediction a fuzzy margin against which you can lean when it turns out your predictions didn’t quite work. It’s only ever just enough to mask the misses, but never enough to sully the hits.
(from Wired.com)
The pseudo-random number generator of natal astrology is deep enough that it will produce a very… VERY large range of configurations, which is a necessary prerequisite for any engine at the center of a machine that can ostensibly predict basically anything in the world. It’s like having a billion-sided die, in terms of randomness, even if the specific configurations can be predicted and calculated through known and duplicable methods.
The problem I have with astrology has nothing to do with what I’ve mentioned above. In fact, I have a sympathy for the idea of it — it all makes so much sense, if you just accept that the planets must have some sort of effect. That’s where it loses me, though. The whole thing pre-supposes an effect, one that can’t be measured, detected or verified.
In most fields of human knowledge, the process generally goes as follows:
- Observe an effect
- Test to see if the effect is real, and keep testing until you’re certain
- Measure the effect
- Try to figure out what causes it
- Make predictions based on the data you’ve collected in the previous steps
Astrology works on the assumption that the position of the planets and other celestial bodies has a tangible effect on the course of human events. It was built off of portends and omens, people trying to detect agency in jarring events like natural disasters and political upheaval. The second step listed above was never really done. It could be done easily — for instance, if you think for instance that Mars has a role in causing wars, find wars where Mars wasn’t in a position to influence. Or, conversely, find situations where Mars could theoretically cause a war, but didn’t. Remember the “misses”, as well as the “hits”, when you look at the sum total of all the predictions ever made. When Mercury goes retrograde, do you remember all the times Windows didn’t crash? Do you remember all the times Windows crashed when it wasn’t in retrograde? Did you count those as misses, or did you count them as the normal course of events? Did you ever tally up how often Windows crashes during the course of your computer’s lifespan, and see if there IS a statistical jump when Mercury’s doing its back-swing?
(from allproducts.com)
And if someone handwaves away the misses by claiming to have made a calculating error, or to have underestimated the influence of a particular celestial body, remember that as a miss, not a hit. Recognize it as a post-hoc rationalization, a “cooking the books” so to speak. Realize when a claim to superior knowledge becomes unfalsifiable — when it’s impossible to DISprove something because the goalposts move. And if you can think to do so, remember the times when you could predict something based on other factors — such as a several-year-old refridgerator fuse being due to blow out — and you went and ascribed that event to some magical influence from a planet, when old refridgerator fuses happen to blow every single day somewhere on Earth.
Astrology also skips part three, wherein effects are measured. Sure, there’s a ton of different aspects that can show up, but what effect does each one have? Is a quincunx a multiplier? How much of a multiplier? And how much potency does each planet have? What unit of measurement is used to determine how powerful a particular planet’s influence is?
And for that matter, what IS the planet’s influence? Astrology also skips part 4, in either postulating heretofore unknown and unmeasurable energies. We know that in this universe, by our current model of physics (without which much of the technology we enjoy today would not exist), there are only four fundamental “forces” — that is, four types of energy that can be transmitted between objects at a distance. There’s the weak force, the strong force, electromagnetic force, and gravitational force. The weak and strong forces act within the scope of atoms, and by the time you’re a billionth of a metre away from it, it ceases to have any effect whatsoever. One holds atoms together, and the other peels them apart via kickstarting the process of radiation.
(from femalecare.net)
Gravity is an obvious choice for a force, since we have empirical evidence that it can have an effect over very great distances. It’s powerful enough to bend light, even. However, in the context of the universe around us, the moon is the only celestial object near enough to perturb our orbit around the sun. It drives the tides that churn up the oceans and allow sea life to survive on the nutrients that get picked up from the sediment on the sea floor. And the sun has 99% of the mass of our solar system, so between it and the moon, any gravitational influence felt by an object as distant of Pluto is negligible. In fact, as Carl Sagan said in Cosmos, the gravity of the obstetrician is far greater than the gravity of Pluto when you were born — born in the hospital that is today possible thanks to the technology we’ve created with our scientific understanding of this universe.
And if you want to go the electromagnetic route, well, not every object has an electromagnetic field. Not every object is large enough or still hot enough internally to have a molten core, much less one with a solid nickel-iron alloy inner core that’s probably generating our electromagnetic field via the dynamo action from our angular momentum. And any electromagnetic influence in our solar system would be completely drowned out by the one celestial body upon which all life on this planet depends: the sun. The life-giving radiation of the sun wouldn’t exist without the nuclear inferno driving the sun, which generates an electromagnetic field large enough that a stray solar flare could wipe out our orbital satellites even if all the “fire” had long since dissipated in its eight-minute trip across space to reach us.
Which brings to bear another failing of astrology: how can tiny, distant objects have equal bearing on individual lives on Earth to the very close or very powerful ones like the moon and sun, at such a great distance? If every other force known to humankind diminishes over distance, but astrology posits that the planets have some effect that does NOT diminish over distance, then what of the fact that there are over a billion asteroids in our solar system that are over 100m across? That there are objects bigger than Pluto in our neighborhood, like Eris, which is three times further from the sun than Pluto; objects of approximately the same size and distance, like Makemake, which is at a steep incline compared to the rest of the solar system’s orbital plane; or objects like Sedna, which takes 12,000 years to orbit the sun but does so at such a strange incline that it is sometimes closer than Eris, most of the time not? What about the fact that there are 464 known extrasolar planets (at time of writing), and that’s just around stars we’ve investigated so far? What about the fact that there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy, and hundreds of billions of visible galaxies in the visible part of the universe? Do those planets and stars have an effect? Does it decrease over distance? How quickly does it decrease? And did you just make up those numbers, since you have never bothered to measure or even verify that there’s an effect to be had? What about the mere fact that the position of any particular object you see, is lagged by the time it took for light to bounce off it and return to Earth, so you don’t actually know where it is NOW except by mathematical calculations that were probably never included in your already complicated pseudo-random number generators?
So there is, ultimately, no force that astrology can point to, to explain how distant planets can have any kind of effect; and there are too many distant planets and stars that your planetary effect cannot account for. The error bars on any of your calculations are so great that you’re probably just guessing anyway. There’s too much noise for any signal to come through, and nobody’s bothered to check to see if what you’re seeing is ACTUALLY signal, or if you’re reading tea-leaves. That is to say, you’re seeing the Virgin Mary in toast. Um, it’s saying you can read lumps on someone’s head and determine what kind of person they are. Err, I mean, you’re looking at a sorta-random pattern, and instead of marvelling at the fact that we’ve figured out how to predict how the pattern will proceed mathematically, you’re trying to tell me that it can predict things. I sense I’m losing my audience here, so I ought to wrap up.
If anything in the above explanation is incorrect in the context of astrology, I apologize. The point was not to make a caricature of your deeply held beliefs. It was to show that they are unfounded entirely. That I don’t understand what the Moon being in Virgo means in your field should not obfuscate the fact that the Moon only has influence over our tides, not our fates. I am acutely aware that you will probably not come out of having read the above, thinking anything other than that I am a poor deluded fool — I mean, you have your livelihood to defend, and you’ve invested too much of your life in this concept for it to turn out to be wrong. If you think that about me though, don’t be surprised if others think the same about you.
And understand that, if there were any kind of verifiable, measurable effect, if you could show me some evidence of what’s causing the effect, how it works, and make some predictions that couldn’t be ascribed to pure chance or keen understanding of local political, meteorological or social events, then you could convert me. You just have to show how it works scientifically. That shouldn’t be hard to do, if these planets have such a huge influence and if Jamie Funk is everything he says he is.
(from visualstatistics.net)
Johannes Kepler’s great achievement was not his astrological predictions. It was that he figured out some very hairy math about Mercury’s orbit, and helped to break humankind’s insistence that the universe is geocentric with fixed circular orbits of the planets, and a solid firmament sphere encompassing it. I am happy that astrology has assisted in turning stargazing into science, and I am happy at all the knowledge about the nature of our universe that we’ve since achieved. However, it’s time to put astrology back on the shelf. It’s outlived its usefulness in driving people to look up at the stars.
Now we have real reasons to look up at the stars — to discover more about our universe, and to do so with a truly open mind. Let the universe tell us its story. Be satisfied with the real answers it gives, and go only where the evidence leads, not where you wish it would lead. Every bit of the real science I’ve discussed (though in most cases grossly oversimplified) was directly derived from this evidence. And every bit of it is so amazing, I’m surprised anyone looks at the universe as it stands and determines that it is insufficient, that there “must be something more”.
Thanks for your time, and let the stone-throwing begin.
Further reading:
Religious Prophecies and Confirmation Bias, over at Atheist Climber. VERY related, despite the misleading title. At the very least, check out the James Randi video.
James, my only conceit in this world is that anything that exists, anything that has an effect, can be proven to have an effect. This is generally done with correlations like “people born when Jupiter trine Venus have a generally sunny disposition” by taking very large sample sizes of people meeting that specific criterion, being born when Jupiter was trine of Venus, and showing a statistically significant “sunny disposition” among the population greater than that of a large enough control group of totally randomly selected people.
Once you have made that particular correlation, then you can add that to the body of knowledge that astrology has about particular correlations.
Among my contentions, is that no such endeavour has ever been undertaken by astrologers in order to develop all their current ideas about how the body of astrology affects human lives, events, and dispositions. The origins of the “influences” that each planet is said to have, comes from what names they were coincidentally given. Every study undertaken to show any kind of generalized influence, at that, has shown no statistical ability for astrologers to correctly interpret people’s lives using astrology with any efficacy anything better than chance.
I’ve said a few times now — I am open to positive evidence that there’s something to astrology. This evidence should probably be taken a bite at a time, if you want only to prove specific influences (e.g. the moon’s position influencing oysters’ opening and closing), but if you want to prove there’s anything to astrology as an overarching body of knowledge, you’ll have to show me some very large bodies of statistics in some very large sample-sized studies. Not some individual amazing hits, not some Birthday Problem math legerdemain (which Robert effectively pointed out some of the problems with your model, and George intends to test and prove), and certainly not some chicanery regarding how closed-minded we skeptics are.
For the record, I am going to attempt to un-thread this comment. I will be changing the comments field so that specific comments have numbers for easy reference, and I will also endeavour to have links automatically added to comments so that the “in-reply-to” still exists.
The length of the comments on this thread is causing my database some grief, since threading supercedes the “50 comments per page” setting. I’d rather do this than risk the ire of my webhost. If anyone would like to grab the original HTML for each page, please do so now. I will be temporarily closing the comments on this thread until the work is complete.
Edit: I don’t unfortunately have time to play with it, but unthreading and adding the reply-to link is evidently a bit more work than I’d anticipated. I’ve reopened comments and I’ll take another stab at it later today.
Edit 2: Huh. Managed to get the in-reply-to links working perfectly on my second try. Can’t get the comment count yet, not until I can take account within the loop of the number of pages being displayed — I had numbering working briefly but it was only counting the comments on the current page. Oh, I wish I was less pressed to do real work today…
Stephanie,
That was not considered as there is no evidence of that being the case.
What I do need would be more intelligent enemies.
I’ve grown tired of the same old idiots spouting the same old misinformed “ideas” that haven’t been fully fleshed out…
Peace
James
Jason,
Re: “…my only conceit in this world is…”
That statement, on its own, shows a mountain-load of conceit.
As for your example, it’s not anything that I haven’t hammered nimrods before on. Astrology works by multiple factors. There’s even a saying amongst astrologers, that if it’s not shown three different ways (ie. corroborated amongst factors), then it is unreliable. Your Venus-Jupiter example is exactly of the same ilk.
Now, if you statistically look at people that have Venus-Jupiter in positive contact, AND have (say) Sun in Leo, AND have an unafflicted Moon; THEN they are much more likely to have a sunny disposition…then you will actually be EXAMINING Astrology in the way that it is used, rather than the way that you imagine it is used. That seems fair.
The problem with LARGE statistical studies is that there is not a body of data large enough to do so. A very large part of Astrology depends on the Angles (Ascendant & Midheaven) being very accurate. For every 4 mins of birthtime error, the Ascendant or Midheaven will be off approximately 1°. As the main system that I use (Topocentric Primary Directions) measures aspects only within 0° 11′, perhaps you can understand the problem. As little as 1 minute of time error can mean that aspects that ARE there are missed and aspects that AREN’T there are seen as if they are. I am a stickler for details, perhaps THAT you can appreciate.
Single-factor studies are destined for failure and are invalid BECAUSE that is not the way that Astrology is used, if we’re talking about real Astrology, not what often passes for Astrology on the internet, where anyone can read a book and say they ARE an Astrologer.
I’ve been doing this for over 20 years. Most of my clients are professionals. They want BUSINESS advice…timing information and to get past early home life circumstances that still way upon the present and influence their future.
Even if nothing else, perhaps you will receive the gift to actually understand the topic a little better. It’s the only direction you can go, frankly.
Peace
James
Hi James,
Thanks for your comments. I am sorry that I was not able to join in, but I can only deal with one issue at a time.
But you are of course, right that as astrologers interpret birth charts by identifying themes, it is essential that tests take this into account, which is the strength of the Carlson test. Because the effect size on single chart factors tends to be small (depending on the rules like orbs), you can only show statistical significance with huge sample sizes. This does not include all the argument about how to measure character objectively.
It’s like saying all tall people play basketball well. This statement is unlikely to be statistically significant in a medium sized survey, but if you also include those with good hand-eye coordination, it probably would be significant in the right part of the world.
Such tests are never done due mainly to lack of resources.
James – delete the word all from 2nd para – I meant the statement that tall people are above average at playing basketball.
I think we may have some consensus on Carlson. First, the experiment like most quantitative/qualitative tests in the social sciences has flaws – we can all agree on that. However, I think most of us agree that the flaws are not fundamental so that every part of the experiment must be discounted. Proof or empirical verification for astrology is not going to happen in one test of around 100 people. Again, I think we are agreed on that.
So really it’s the conclusion on which we disagree. We have to rule out Carlson’s conclusion that it represents a surprisingly strong case against natal astrology simply on the size and lack of replication regardless of the results or the disadvantages to astrologers. So I predict that all three of you will see it as an inconclusive result where the results favouring the astrologers must be put down to chance. As you can imagine, I see it as statistically significant results under agreed scientific conditions as evidence that supports astrology (and I interpret that as Ertel’s view), though replication with larger samples are required for proof. However, Ertel’s and my view are much more rigid. Nature and the scientific community have accepted Carlson’s decisive conclusion without question for nearly 25 years. Because this conclusion suited their beliefs, no one other than Professor Hans Eysenck questioned the sample size in relation to the conclusion. Now, sceptics are going to have to back track and claim that the sample is too small for this to be anything other than a statistical blip. How can these people be right now when they were so wrong then?
You may find it surprising that my report took a middle line. I am not into defending astrology on the back of spin doctoring. Astrology does not need that. And it’s better that you know the flaws rather than I present you with a perfect test peer reviewed in Nature only to have you find the flaws later. However, I have crunched the numbers and it is irrefutable that the astrologers were rating the incorrect matches low and the correct high to a statistically significant level. As you know, astrologers vary and some will have performed well and others would have dragged down the trend. But the overall trend as evidenced by the upward slope on both graphs suggests they performed well in a difficult job. Of course, I can’t persuade you from believing this to be a fluke result, but until we get replication or you can cite a better one, this is the best test of the practice of astrologers.
Robert, how about you publish your statistical analysis–what tests you did (all of them, not just on this) and their results, how you determined what was required to demonstrate statistical significance for this sample. I know a methods wonk who’d love to come take a look at it.
You evidently misunderstand my use of the word “conceit“, then (meaning 3 — or 2 if you’ll accept the archaic). I use it to describe an unfalsifiable belief, though I feel I have sufficient evidence for believing so, insofar as everything that is known to exist, has evidence supporting its existence. This specific conceit, that anything “true” is provably so, is unfalsifiable insofar as one cannot disprove it. You would have to prove something to be true without showing any evidence for it. That way lies using solely logic to prove the existence of things with no evidence. It opens the way for people to say things like that they’ve proven God’s existence by such nonsense logic as the argument from imagined perfection.
If you think that my admitting my one unfalsifiable belief shows me to be conceited (by the other meaning of the word), then you’re welcome to do so. But it is nothing but invective, and while I have disdain for your beliefs, I have tried to avoid such invective about your person. You open the door to likewise mistreatment by me.
At that, you mistake my specific example for a claim that I understand your PRNG. I have mentioned innumerable times that I don’t understand the nuances of your PRNG as well as you or your compatriots. And you are essentially saying astrology as a field is wholly unfalsifiable, and based on insufficient data, if you claim that there does not exist a large enough dataset from which you can pull the specific conjunctions that you claim are necessary before you can infer any specific traits. Either there’s sufficient data to make the claims you’re making, or there’s insufficient data and you’re just pulling the correlations out of your ass. Which is it?
Hi Stephanie,
I would much appreciate getting someone to check the data as I have a few magazines have shown interest in publishing and it has to be watertight to be published.
My methods of calculations using my tables and graphs are all out there and easy to check. Here’s Ertel’s methods for working out the p-values:
I’m not terribly much of a math wonk myself, so I’m holding out hope that Stephanie can have her friend take a peek at this. I’m most immediately drawn to say that generally, when performing experiments, the methodology of examining the data must be drawn up before obtaining the data, lest biases in massaging it out after the fact end up creeping in, favoring one or the other.
Regardless, even if there’s a statistically significant ramp wherein the astrologers more often pick the more correct charts, I’m also immediately struck by how lenient the test is — all the astrologers have to do is pick correctly half the time, whereas chance suggests 1/3 of the time. None of the numbers, even given statistically significant deltas, approach half.
I would think that any astrologer worth their salt would get results much higher than that. Not that I’m attempting to raise the bar — if you’d like to say “50% right is proof astrologers are often very right”, more power to you. I just think that’s a gross overstatement of their case.
Apologies for taking this several-days break — I just don’t see how you folks manage to not burn out on arguing so vehemently, and with so much vigor and venom, for as long as you have managed! Don’t you stop to breathe? Or do charts for your clients?
HI Jason,
I assume you are talking about the ranking test where the astrologer’s performance was only marginally statistically significant according to Ertel. I agree that on a level playing field, the astrologers should have performed better based on my own expectation of astrology. Of course a consultation is not the same as a blind test, but testing consultation satisfaction is not an objective measure for a scientific experiment.
I have outlined why the astrologers were impaired in the test of separating and ranking. The main difficulty was the similarity of the group in both age and mostly being students at the same University (and possibly similar courses as I once read they were mostly psychology students but cannot find any reference to this). This results in similar charts and makes the choices harder. The CPI had limits and when you combine these two problems, it is no wonder that the subjects were unable to identify their own CPIs any better than chance. Frankly, if the ranking test was the only one, I would say the experiment was inconclusive.
However, the rating test overcomes some of the problems of homogeneity. If 3 CPIs are almost identical and all match the horoscope well, the astrologer can give all three a high rank. In one case, an astrologer ranked his or her third choice as 7/10. While this reduces the significance, it is a fairer and more accurate measure than ranking, where the correct chart could come as third choice through no fault of the astrologer. So the performance on the rating test is measured by the upward trend and the statistical significance (subject to your friend checking).
What we are all looking for at this stage is not so much how successful or effective astrology is but whether there is any effect at all as evidenced by statistical significance in an imperfect experiment. The next stage would be to find the astrologers who performed best and then retest in less disadvantaged conditions to refine the potential for the effect. Believe me, there are outstanding astrologers and really bad astrologers who may be considered ‘reputable’. However, Carlson has refused to share the raw data so this development is not possible.
You’re absolutely right. This is always applicable in quantitative tests and generally required in qualitative tests – where there are more unexpected variables. This test had never been done like this before so there were no precedents. But still, Jason this is a good point. So you can imagine why I found it hypocritical that Carlson accused Ertel of analyzing the data “after the fact” (Skeptico). However, Carlson did not follow his own methodology (the analysis of that 1st/2nd choices as his criteria) which he clearly set out before the experiment, by analyzing the data separately. Yet, Ertel did follow Carlson’s protocol. Please figure that one out for me.
This whole dialogue is very valuable to me as you help me test and refine my arguments before publishing. I hope I don’t argue with venom. I get frustrated with dishonesty or those who assert that astrology is rubbish but refuse to back it up or get into a discussion. None of you have shown this weakness or prejudice. Previously I have found that the most abusive arguers have the weakest arguments and their anger comes from some unrelated experience.
Geoffrey Dean argues extremely well and is very polite. His weakness is that he will never concede (for reasons best known to him) – this means he digs himself into a hole which IMO has lost him and his baggage a lot credibility.
I don’t understand what exactly you’re trying to say, Robert. Again, I’m not a math-y guy, and scientific studies involving statistics usually fly over my head, but I am very good at reading and understanding people’s arguments, and that’s usually what I get from reading Carlson’s test, and Ertel’s commentary, and Skeptico’s tearing-apart of Ertel’s commentary, and your reiteration of Ertel’s commentary without accounting for the issues Skeptico brought up. All of this is dancing around the fact that regardless of whether the Carlson study DISproves astrology, it certainly doesn’t PROVE it, and thus the null hypothesis holds.
So, I’m not sure what you’re saying here — at the same time as saying that the study is flawed in that astrologers are expected to be able to use the CPI in conjunction with their natal charts to determine which person is which, you’re also saying that there was homogeneity in the CPIs (your evidence for this?), which would lead astrologers to not be able to guess as accurately. So you’re saying the scales are tipped against the astrologers, and that since Carlson was unwilling to share the raw data for whatever reason (and you’ve not shown this to be the case, since you’re saying Ertel is using the same data), therefore we should assume that the rating test is skewed.
All of this is smokescreen around the fact that, even if the Carlson study does NOT stand, that is NOT positive evidence for astrology. And in 400+ comments, despite innumerable requests, no positive evidence is forthcoming. In fact, you’ve demanded that we find a single study DISproving that astrology works, then proceeded to try to tear apart that study as though that was the only evidence against it. No, the evidence AGAINST astrology is the lack of evidence FOR any sort of correlation.
So, if you believe that there’s any sort of correlation between the heavens and our fates, how did you come to that conclusion, if not via selection bias after employing the PRNG to create horoscopes for people and selecting those parts of the charts that seemed to fit best? And how did the originators of astrology determine what planet does what? How can you say that single-aspect studies are doomed to failure, while your fellow astrologers make single-aspect references all over the place, and use single-aspect formations in their charts? How did the originators of astrology discover these effects, if they are so subtle and difficult to fully predict, and if they are not capable of making predictions outright?
I will state something outright, and though it’s an opinion, it is a very well-evidenced one from the arguments in this thread and elsewhere, and from the tactics employed by those with a vested interest in astrology being real. There is nothing to your entire field of study but sympathetic magic and very old mythology, dressed up slightly for the modern age; you can’t prove it’s real because it’s not. I would welcome you to prove otherwise, to change my mind, but you’re more interested in trying to debunk the debunkings than to prove your field to be true. This is nothing but smokescreen and bluster, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing.
Hi Jason,
I saw your posting on Skeptico requesting support. Please could you spell my last name Currey and not Currie. I don’t think it is helpful that you portray our discussion as a fight where you might be outnumbered by astrologers. I know there have been other astrologer contributors, but I feel like I have been making the case you put to Skeptico (with 1 post from Ken) alone with three or four of you putting the counter arguments. We started from a point where you could be converted if someone was able to answer your questions. As I said, I don’t think ‘conversion’ is possible or healthy unless you are prepared to do some empirical study of astrology, but seeing our dialogue as a fight gives everyone the impression that it doesn’t matter what evidence I present, you are going to fight it all the way as you have done with every point.
1. Not unsurprisingly, Skeptico’s answer did not add anything to this discussion. Both you and Skeptico do not understand the Carlson test. I admit it is fairly complex and took me a few re-reads to understand it, but I have explained a lot of it here that is not published elsewhere. Like you, Skeptico was supportive of it in earlier posts and now that the evidence supports astrology, Skeptico is trying to diss it (using arguments from my article). Are you backtracking as well? Since Skeptico hasn’t read Ertel’s analysis, Skeptico (whoever he or she is) has not exactly ‘torn it apart’. If you want to persist on this line, state Skeptico’s best argument.
2. Flawed Fatal Flaw or Flawed ne Fundamentally Flawed. (You’re a programmer – you can understand that.) Most experiments in the social sciences have flaws. Stephanie mentioned that earlier.
3. Evidence for homogeneity of the subject sample is that 70% were students of a similar age at the same particular university, Berkeley who had responded to classroom announcements and postings. Also anyone who had had a birth chart prepared or who had strong views on astrology (for or against) were eliminated. Evidence for homogeneity came from the fact that the subjects could not identify their own CPIs (though you could argue against this).
4. I have said that I believe that the astrologers could have performed better had they had a level playing field. I get the impression that you want me to say that the data was skewed, so you can exaggerate this to claim that the whole test is not valid which would be a false assumption.
5. “ … those with a vested interest in astrology ..” is restating what is a psychogenic fallacy or circumstantial ad hominem. It does not improve your argument. Do you think the senior members of CSICOP (CSI) like Paul Kurtz who publish sceptical material don’t have a vested interest in keeping people like you in a state of paranoia? It is the merits of the argument on which we should focus.
All of these points have been made before. I will address the rest of your comments in another post.
Robert, if you didn’t want to be part of a fight, you had the option of getting off your high horse before coming in here telling Jason he didn’t know what he was talking about. You also had the option of taking his post as a whole instead of trying to pick at little parts of it that were never meant to stand on their own. And the option of not trying to drag his wife into this. You set the terms; you can live with the description.
That said, I do apologize to you for making you wait. This is a bad time of year for getting chunks of time and attention from people well-versed in methods and statistical analysis, however, so you may be waiting a bit longer. If you don’t appear to notice when a response is posted, I’ll ask Jason to notify you, assuming you’ve given him a working email address.
Stephanie, as you well know, I have not made anything of Jason’s wife or his ex-wife. Jason brought her into a public debate on the web as an argument to support his knowledge and experience of astrology. If she was around, I was hoping she could add to the debate. I have never actually met anyone who has studied astrology and subsequently believes there is nothing in it – so I was interested in that as well. When Jason informed us that they were no longer together, I dropped the subject and I would think that you might have the good sense to do so as well.
Robert, check your reading comprehension. They’re quite thoroughly married.
But if you’d rather talk about other things you’ve done here that haven’t contributed to a collegial atmosphere, we can go back to the discussion of mechanism. Not only did you repeatedly try to take Jason’s comments about it out of context, but you did so when you claimed you could offer explanations for mechanism. I’m still not remotely unhappy with the description of this as a fight–based solely on your actions (i.e., ignoring the context of the other astrologers in the thread, as you appear to wish to do).
Phil Plait made two good points in his excellent recent address “Don’t be a Dick”. First, this is not a war – and we are not fighting. Second, in chess you must be prepared to sacrifice pieces to win the game. By accepting the possibility of a scientific basis to some parts astrology, your whole rational world-view does not come tumbling down. Astrologer’s extravagant claims and their many untested techniques are still wide open to criticism. If you try to fight every bit of evidence, you lose credibility when dealing with real bigotry and those who deny scientific evidence that conflict with fixed belief systems. Knowledge is not a matter of taste and preference like ice-cream flavours.
Here’s my take on the discussion of your critique on astrology so far:
1. Astrologers do not know all the mechanisms behind astrology or even if there is a causal effect. The tidal forces involving the Sun and the Moon (and possibly Venus and Mars) have a universally accepted causal effect on the oceanic and terrestrial tides (Earth tide). However, this only covers natural astrology. There are hypotheses for mechanisms that address natal and other branches of astrology, but while some show persuasive correlations these are unproven as causal for most of astrological practice.
2. A lack of a mechanism is no justification to dismiss a field provided there is evidence. There are many instances in the history of science (the Compass, Semmelweisz, Wegener) where rejecting evidence without a mechanism has proved to be misguided prejudice.
3. There is as yet no scientific evidence to show that astrology as practiced by astrologers is purely chance. The best tests that have been cited here include one phantom experiment where the claims are reported without the supporting evidence, a meta-analysis of tests that are fatally flawed or favourable to astrology (no one has yet cited any evidence to the contrary) and a test that supports astrology (which you are now debunking).
4. In the field of astrology, there are many more fatally flawed tests than real evidence. The reason is that testing astrology scientifically is difficult but not impossible. There are procedural difficulties in obtaining accurate, objective data, in isolating variables, in replication, in experimenter bias and in presenting and analyzing qualitative data in a quantitative way. In addition the budget is low and most astrologers are more motivated by the study and application of astrology than in providing scientific proof.
5. However, there is solid evidence that supports astrology. The first piece of evidence that I have presented is the one Jason cited as the best test of astrology: the Carlson Double-Blind experiments. Of the individual tests that Carlson claimed were valid and from which he drew his negative conclusion, the evidence now shows that astrologers were able to rank and rate birth charts with Psychological Profiles in a blind test at a significant level p=0.037 and p=0.054 respectively. Now, I can provide stronger evidence that supports astrology with a lower (more significant) probability values and with much larger sample groups (one shows N > 3000). One of these tests has been replicated by sceptical groups in three countries. The test shows a correlation between the planets at birth and eminence within a profession. If you would like to review the evidence and other arguments, please go to http://www.astrologer.com/tests/basisofastrology.htm which I am currently updating. You will see that at the end that I too am critical of the practice of astrology.
So we have evidence in favour of astrology and none against. I would be happy to continue to debate the evidence so far or cite more tests or change the subject to what you feel is the strongest argument against astrology. You have mentioned a few points, pick your best and state your case as clearly as possible without the additional wind, diversions, fallacies and unfounded beliefs.
Alternatively, Jason you could rewrite the article along the following lines: Though there is no known mechanism for most of astrology, there appears to be some evidence that supports astrological practice and data. Then rather than attack astrology per se, you can criticize the practice of most astrologers. You can show how some fail to take an empirical approach to their subject or use unjustifiable or contradictory data. If you want to be effective hit the real targets.
Robert, please, please go familiarize yourself with the concept of the null hypothesis. It’s been used more than once in this discussion. You should really know what it is, particularly if you want to continue discussing what counts as evidence. For that matter, can you explain the purpose of a meta-analysis yet, or are you going to continue to wave one or two studies that you think somehow prove astrology despite their flaws while ignoring the mass of studies that don’t favor astrology–based on their flaws?
“as you well know, I have not made anything of Jason’s wife or his ex-wife.”
Was this error the result of an astrological chart?
Stephanie, you seem to be under the impression that patronising comments about terms with which I am familiar is an argument. Would you mind sharing with us your qualifications as a statistician that you believe that entitles you to take this superior line?
To make your points, you need to state your case.
1. I don’t have an issue with the technique of Meta-Analysis and am aware of its advantages in comparing studies. However, please explain why a meta-analysis of tests that are either fatally flawed, irrelevant to my case (i.e. addressing sun sign astrology), outdated (according to Dean) or incorrectly analysed (as in the Carlson case) is valid? Meta-Analysis cannot overcome GIGO. What makes you so inclined to believe the data (other than it supports your beliefs) when you cannot cite any of the tests on which it is based?
2. Ertel did not address the null hypothesis, though he did say that the results are insufficient to deem astrology as empirically verified due to the sample size, but that they were replicable significant results by two methods of assessment. However, by Carlson’s and Nature’s standards the sample was large enough to “argue a strong case against natal astrology”. I am not claiming this as irrefutable proof of astrology, but whichever way you want to play it, it is evidence and statistically significant (unless your stats expert can prove otherwise).
Robert, your familiarity with these terms is no more than passing. My case is that every comment you make about meta-analysis shows that you don’t actually understand it and every comment you make about what does or does not prove astrology ignores the very ideas of the null hypothesis and the burden of proof.
Take your “fatally flawed” assertion. It might carry any weight at all if you hadn’t spent a fair-sized post talking about why the Carlson test was both fatally flawed and supported astrology. I have told you many times that all studies are flawed. This doesn’t mean you get to only throw out the ones that you don’t think support you. It simply doesn’t. That’s not how evidence works (and doing it as blatantly as you are isn’t going to get you anything but a distrustful audience)–any more than arguing that one line of evidence is neither necessary nor sufficient will allow you to say that it isn’t a line of evidence.
How many times do I need to say this? You’re telling me you understand all the terms, but you don’t seem to get the big picture.
Stephanie, you’re still not stating your case. You need to form an argument which is not based on your uninformed opinions of what you think I know or don’t know. This is quibbling and space-filling because you have no argument, no specifics and no experiment to cite that supports your case.
I will deal with the only specific you made in your last post. Please quote me the post (number and date) when I stated that the Carlson test was fatally flawed – flawed yes but not fatally flawed. If I did say that I was mistaken and I am sorry for confusing everyone. If I didn’t, please could you retract that comment.
Clearly, we have reached a time when Jason and you can put forward your next strongest argument as to why astrology should be dismissed.
Robert, I’m saying what George said right after me. If your understanding of the standards of evidence is other than how you’ve presented it here, feel free to explain why you’ve been arguing the way you have.
Also, feel free to make a case for why the flaws of Carlson, which you claimed at great length, aren’t fatal when the flaws of other studies are. I’m saying you have presented many more claims of flaws for Carlson than you have for the studies you claim to be fatally flawed, which should put Carlson in the same category.
Robert,
We have been through this over and over. I have spent time reading your case for astrology at the link you provided in post #413.
It all amounts to one conclusion. There is no positive case for astrology. Just 2500 years of humans trying to explain things beyond their control using the heavens, a bunch of studies that astrologers can wave away or stretch to fit their bias, and no good evidence that extraterrestrial planets have any effect outside of the earth sciences.
Your case rests only on the assertion that astrology has not suffered a fatal blow. Not that it can be proven true, not that it has a wealth of evidence, not that there is a mechanism that we just don’t yet understand; it just has not been proven categorically false. This is why you are banging your head against a brick wall here. Jason, Stephanie, Glendon, Sinned; none of us are going to give any subject an endorsement based on the argument that we can’t prove a negative.
That is the centerpiece of the null hypothesis. If the only thing an argument has going for it is a lack of understanding, be it God, astrology, autism causing vaccines or the like, it is prudent and fair to assume that there is nothing to it.
Skeptics value information, understanding, and analysis. The credulous value superstition, myth, and faith.
I would postulate that both of us are “fighting” a “losing battle”, there will be no “Waterloo” in this forum.
You have succeeded only in showing that each individual argument that Jason has offered is not a death knell for astrology. No single argument of Darwin’s could stand as proof of evolution. It is the preponderance of the evidence that matters.
I agree with you that Jason has not disproved astrology. What he has done, faced with proving a negative, is laid bare a succinct case for choosing the null hypothesis.
If you would like my number one issue with astrology, it is that we have no proof of any causal effect on human life in relation to astrology, yet as undetectable as it is by science, people 2500 years ago could detect it. Astrologers can still now detect it. Yet when skeptics ask for some causal link between people and the heavens, astrologers always fall back and say it’s not quite that easy. They do a rain dance…the water never comes.
Jesus fucking christ, this fucking trainwreck is still going on?
Robert –
Astrology should be dismissed, because their is absolutely zero fucking evidence that it is legit and rather a lot of evidence to suggest it is complete and utter fucking bullshit. Zip. Nothing.
End of fucking story.
You can play all the games you want to play, pull all the bullshit out of your ass that you like – it will not change anything.
Rebranding something or creating a variant on something that has been shown to be bullshit, doesn’t mean that we should suddenly decide that “hey, there might be something to that.” What it means is that it is up to those making the extraordinary claim that this something is legit, to prove they’re new variation actually works. That is how science works. That is how being a skeptic works. If you think you have something that works, fuckingwell prove it.
If you can’t prove it, then folks are going to assume it is bullshit.
George, I am inclined to agree that compared to the hard sciences there should have been better scientific evidence for astrology in the last 300 years (even though there are sound reasons). In the previous two to three thousand years, there was no scientific method, so evidence was based on observation and experience rather than experimentation. Though I value this subjective evidence, I realise that only objective evidence is acceptable to your world-view.
Please could you confirm that your “number one issue” is evidence of a correlation between planetary movements and life and events on Earth rather than proof of a causal effect (mechanism)? Correlation is a separate issue to causation.
Robert,
I conceded long ago that I would be happy with a strong corollary argument. It would have to be lengthy and supported, but I would accept any evidence that doesn’t rest on coincidence, non-related pattern correlation, and faith. I would also request that you allow others to scrutinize your examples without the regular charge of “explaining away” or “circumnavigation” that always comes when someone has a rational explanation that contradicts your example.
As a brief example, and one that likely betrays my ignorance of astrology: if Saturn, lets say, is always in “retrograde” in the fall- I would not consider the statement “Saturn in retrograde is a sign of political change” when the fall is statistically the most common season for modern Western elections. They may coincide, but they are certainly linked by a mere coincidence of timing.
Just as in Darwin’s example, the evidence must be overwhelmingly in favor of your hypothesis, as I am sure you must agree. I am quite open to very strong subjective evidence, I just need to have it “beyond a reasonable doubt”- a request I do not believe is too much to ask.
I am likely the easiest of skeptics in this discussion to sway; I am the least informed and the most intrigued. Yet just as with Stephanie, Jason, Sinned, Glendon and others-I require more than magic, manipulation, and mind-tricks.
George, I am tied up right now. I will get back to you asap.
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@Robert Currey #407:
You didn’t read Carlson’s paper carefully enough. As I just wrote, Carlson didn’t change his methodology – Ertel reported incorrectly on this. Carlson did exactly what he said he would do, and astrology failed.
#409
Since you clearly misunderstood what Carlson’s methodology actually was, I’m on firm ground in stating that I understand it better than you do,
In your fevered imagination only. The evidence still does not support astrology (Ertel’s data mining notwithstanding) and I’ve never tried to “diss” it.
First, George, I know I should be getting back to you first, but Skeptico has brought up something that is part of a wider debate.
Skeptico (or is it Alex?), I take it that we can agree that Carlson wrote the following:
As we know, Carlson then analysed the choices separately and then he, unsucessfully, attempted to analyse them together.
OK – you claim that:
1. Carlson’s use of “or” means that Carlson’s protocols were to check first and second choices separately.
2. This is supported by Carlson’s comment that the chance result would be the correct choice one third of the time. (I trust we can agree that the words “scientific hypothesis” is nonsensical and confusing in this experiment). Also, I didn’t see this in your argument so I took the liberty of throwing in your only valid point to save time.
3. A couple of statisticians advised you there is no reason that the combined first and second choice should necessarily be a better test than showing them separately.
I claim the following directly from Carlson’s article in Nature:
1. Your point 1 is wrong. The astrologers were asked to select two CPIs no ties allowed. The or is there because the astrologers could not pick the correct CPI as both first and second choices. It is physically impossible – so the “or” has to be there whichever way you play it.
2. To balance your point 2, which is admittedly good. Why did Carlson write “… will fall in the first or second choice 66 per cent of the time” – and then analyse them separately where the chance result is 33% of the time? And why did he use “or” when he was clearly referring to the combination of both items merged?
3. How else can we see if the astrologers could select the correct CPI profile as either first or second choice at a higher than expected rate unless you look at both sets of data?
4. As Ken points out, why did Carlson analyse the third place (albeit incorrectly) if he did not consider the combined first and second choice as key to the experiment?
Other points to consider:
1. At the time of the experiment, Carlson was a physics undergraduate. I have seen no evidence to suggest that he had had any experience in statistical methodology in the social sciences. He may have understood quantitative analysis, but this kind of data also requires qualitative analysis. Are you claiming that Carlson’s statistical methods are better than Ertel’s? I would be interested in hearing from a statistician who works in the social sciences claiming that the piecemeal approach is superior to an integrated analysis. Ertel has a great reputation for this kind of work. As you know, he is known for debunking astrological ‘evidence’ as much as he is known for verifying it. He explains his methodology with references. Can you provide a link to support your claim of an alternative statistical analysis?
2. You claim that “Ertel data mined the study to try to find a way, any way possible, that the data could show astrology passing the test. “ This works both ways. Why was there a delay of over 2 years between Carlson’s completion of the experiment and publication in Nature? This was unusual. Could it be that this because the stats needed to be ‘reassessed’ and dressed up in a way that favoured the sceptical conclusion?
3. The subject group had a high level of homogeneity resulting in similar CPIs. An analysis of the full set of data helped to address the likelihood of a mismatch due to similarity rather than incorrect astrological analysis.
4. No one, including astrologers and psychologists knew what was going to happen in this type of test. Evidence should not be ignored on the basis of whether it was part of experimenter’s faulty and contradictory protocols or not. No one complains when Geoffrey Dean debunks an astrology sun sign data to show artifacts because this was not part of the original protocols. Should Fleming have discarded the petri dish containing Staphylococcus plate culture contaminated with a mould from which he extracted penicillin becuase it had no connection with the original experiment?
5. Carlson’s protocols only apply to the ranking test and not to the rating test, where the astrologers performed better and showed statistically significant results of p=0.037.
My impression is that you dislike astrology very much – perhaps more than your love of science. So it is understandable you find it distasteful and possibly disturbing that the experiment that you have promoted and which is considered the best astrology experiment available using nationally known astrologers with sample sizes over 100, now shows evidence that the astrologers were able to perform to a statistically significant level.
So it is natural that you would be very critical of Ertel’s report even before you had read it. Now that you are reading through it, we can all assume that you can be relied on to come up with a stronger case to justify your initial reaction. At the moment, if this is your best argument for ignoring Ertel’s evidence, then you have a problem as it is a very weak argument. You can argue ad nauseam on every point. It is quibbling and it is not convincing.
Carlson’s analysis of the data was faulty and so was his conclusion. Carlson summed up his experiment “We are now in a position to argue a surprisingly strong case against natal astrology as practised by reputable astrologers”?
Do you agree with his conclusion based on this experiment alone? If you still accept it and it turns out that Ertel’s statistics are correct, can we assume that you will accept the reverse is true?
Boy, this has been fun! How about next time we jump on the Klu Klux Klan and tell them why their way of thinking is screwed up. 🙂
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t27028/
Phew, James! KKK (=today’s Nazis?) … you came very close to invoking Godwin’s Law
I knew the principle behind it, I just never knew that there was a name for it.
That is the second thing I learned from this thread.
[…] on from part 1, and from recent discussions where skeptics have been kindly encouraging astrologers to raise their standards, I offer this […]
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[…] Reading: If it smells like Funk, it must be astrology The Concepts of Modern Astrology …as above, so below… Astronomical Pseudo-Science: A […]
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“Not only did you repeatedly try to take Jason’s comments about it out of context, but you did so when you claimed you could offer explanations for mechanism. I’m still not remotely unhappy with the description of this as a fight–based solely on your actions (i.e., ignoring the context of the other astrologers in the thread, as you appear to wish to do).”
How much is realistic?
Don’t take Jamie Funk’s comments as representing all astrologers. Funk is an idiot who dismisses academic historical research on the subject and treats his brand of astrology like a religion. He is not an honest person in my opinion and has not done the hard work and technical research that is necessary to intelligently address the subject in an honest manner. Unfortunately there is a lot of BS and mis-information out there.
I don’t, Curtis. In fact, I sort of expect that the loudest proponents of a particular unevidenced field of study are in fact attempting to bluster their way out of their particular positions as defenders of that lack of evidence.
That said, I suspect, given your URL, that you believe yourself a better defender of the field. Perhaps you’d like to give more positive evidence, which other astrologers in this thread have failed to do?
I could suggest a course of action if there is anyone so inclined (I’m too busy with software development to take this one on now). One of many problems is that much of what is said as effects is not easily nailed down in a way that can be falsified, so a scientific proof will have to address this issue. For this area, the realm of the concrete particular is more desirable than spiritual / psychological astrology to avoid subjectivity as much as possible.
As to causes, even if a correlation could be proved it still would not necessarily rise to the level of efficient causation, but more along the lines of material causes (see Aristotle’s 4 causes) at best. One issue that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere here (I confess I don’t have a lot of time and haven’t read everything here), is that not all charts were said to be equally telling (chrematistikos) according to Vettius Valens (he was an astrologer from the Hellenistic era who was roughly a contemporary of Ptolemy). What Valens said is that some nativities were more “fated” than others and these charts one can more easily “read” and that some charts fall into a category that are more difficult to discern because they are less “telling” (without getting into the technicalities of how that is determined here). I just highlight this issue because these charts are the best cases in which I can imagine any sort of proof because if it is true that some charts are more readable than others, then it is also the case that these are the cases that can prove whether there is anything going on or not.
Picking a chart and simply reading it is not the way to go about doing this because there are no boundaries set for truth or falsification that can be measured and the key is measurement. Science has had a long battle distinguishing the measurement and the measured from Heisenberg to Plato…
There are also a number of assumptions that would have to be dismissed such as life being random or completely under one’s control. It is not logical to expect everyone to suddenly wake up at 3 am in Chicago and suddenly have a craving for studying calculus for example. By this I mean that certain patterns would be expected to begin with, so a baseline of what is “random chance” would have to be established to determine the norm.
Let me suggest that given that a chart with angular trigon lords and with the lot of spirit in the 10th sign from fortune, that when the zodiacal releasing reaches the 10th sign from fortune (if it does so in their lifetime) that they will reach their peak effectiveness and culmination of their actions (sometimes called fame). Obviously we would have to define “famous” in some way. I have done a few case studies such as what happens with actors (such as John Travolta who reached his peak and he was known for Pulp Fiction (1994), Saturday Night Fever and Grease(1977) when in his 10th from fortune period). George W. Bush reached his peak period starting in 1998 shortly before becoming president. Hitler reached his 10th from fortune period and the next day the Nazi’s won 108 seats in congress. Einstein was also in his 10th from fortune period when reaching peak fame. With more clearly defined rules, there is more hope for falsification which also allows for real verification.
I am a software engineer and have a background in classical philosophy, statistics, mathematics, astronomy and the history of science.
PS – Your CSS for this page could use a setting of 1280px width for the tag that is your main content so that the graphics stay banked to either side of your main content area at the top. For those with large monitors, the page layout looks a bit messy, but narrowing the browser window banks the images back in place so that they aren’t jumbled on top of each other.
I will reply in a follow-up post, not the least reason being that this thread is long enough as it stands, and any adequate reply to your suggestion will be naturally quite long. It will link here (and you should see the link if you’re subscribed to this post).
[…] undying zombie astrology thread has attracted another latecomer to the party, this time Curtis Manwaring of Astrology X-Files, an […]
[…] paradoxically more subtle and more accurate than horary astrologers’ — will of course claim their special knowledge, while offering no evidence for their claims but for the statistically insignificant hits they […]
[…] no reason for that. The fact is, there’s absolutely no reason to consult an astrologer about any nonsense that they themselves proffer without evidence and continue to cling to, despite evidence to the contrary. They should not be consulted pretty […]