Can we see some evidence of this? I know of many skeptics who have studied the books written by experts in astrology.
And this would of course be documented somewhere? I mean, there would be an independent record of the prediction published in a predated journal or similar. And the death certificate is public record. So this would be easily verifiable.
Or is this yet another astrology story that seems to be based entirely on anecdote?
A business man flew to India to conclude some contracts. He went to the local Guru and announced: “I will be here for a couple of weeks, in that time I want you to teach me enlightenment.” The Guru simply said “OK, come back when you can.”
When the business man returned the Guru asked him to lie down on the ground. The Guru then staked the businessman to the ground spreadeagle, built a fire, put a piece of leather over the belly of the staked out business man, then dropped a few of the red hot embers on the leather. The business man yelled and twisted and bumped and squirmed until he had thrown all the embers off. Outraged he demanded to know why the Guru had treated him so. The Guru replied “when you want enlightenment as much as you wanted those embers off your belly, come back.”
When you really want to know about spiritual things, you will learn. And not a moment sooner.
Love
Leroy
Another businesman flew to India and said to the guru “Y’know, you can keep your alleged enlightenment, I prefer my version that involves science and engineering and actual light bulbs. So, where do you want me to install the electric heater? It’ll do a better, cleaner, safer job of heating this place than that ember-producing fire of yours.”
It’s unfortunate, but the percentage of women that are susceptible to pseudoscientific claims seems to be higher than the percentage of men that are susceptible to pseudoscientific claims.
I wonder, why is that?
Wow, what perfect timing. Coincidence you say. Ha! I think not! Have you looked at the stars lately??? 
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Any chance you could give us a recapitulation of his recapitulation. Nienhuys’s writing style makes my eyes bleed.
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Agreed, at least as a practical matter. (Given unlimited resources and an army of obsessed researchers, you could follow up on every claim and side claim they could come up with.) But you can still test for specific claims.
In the research I’ve been doing the last couple of days, the study by Shawn Carlson (link, link ) and published in Nature in 1985 seems to be considered as a pretty definitive blow to astrology. Did you include that study in your course? Can you point me to any other well done studies?
Now that I think about it I should change my qualified agreement with Kimstu to full blown agreement. Astrology as a whole is just too squishy a thing to nail down. There are as many flavors of astrology as there are astrologers, and they’re always changing the rules.
Women believe in their intuitive skills more than men. They are generally more compassionate and understanding. Less quick to judge the worth of someone by their beliefs, and, best of all, they are far more opened minded than men.
Actually, there IS a slight correlation between star signs and personalities. The reason is, people who believe in astrology will start to act in a manner consistent with their star sign so that astrological predictions become a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy. This is referring to generalised qualities of star signs BTW, not weekly predictions.
Assuming the premise was true (that women are more susceptible to pseudoscience), one could just as easily blame disparities in the western education system, i.e. a tendency to discourage girls from critical thinking.
Personally, I’m inclined to think women are less susceptible and more likely to embrace hard-headed practicality, since this offers the evolutionary advantage of helping their children survive. The men can run off and waste time worshipping idols, but if the women don’t take care of the mundane housework and child rearing, it ain’t gettin’ done.
I’ll grant you this, but before I’m ready to equate correlation with causation, in the absence of some plausible mechanism, the correlation has to be damned good!
Every time I let go of the rock, it drops. Clearly something going on there. One-hundred percent correlation (except for those pesky birds - what’s up with them?!).
With astrology, on the other hand, its proponents are hard-pressed to come up with even a weak correlation. Couple that with the absence of a mechanism, and you’ve got a problem.
Women are nurturers, they grow and raise babies. They are more sensitive to emotions, and emotions are the path to spirituality.
As least that’s what I believe.
Basically we believe in what we are taught, which is not necessarily the truth. Your religion, or lack of it, is determined by the country you are born in and/or your parents.
US public schools have been purged of all religion and are now turning out atheists by the hundreds, even 40 years ago this was not the case.
Truth and reality lie on a higher plane than the culturation process of any society. In order to reach them one must climb the latter of all knowledge.
Love
Leroy
For the record, my dad and mom are 91 and 87 respectively. They went to high school in Calvert, Texas just northwest of Bryan-College Station, home of Texas A&M, and Marlin, Texas, just southeast of Waco, home of Baylor University and all things Baptist. In other words they were raised in very conservative territory. Neither one remembers ever having any kind of formal daily prayer or having to say the pledge of allegiance for that matter (while they may be old they are not forgetful), but that generation managed to turn out pretty well, and not many athiests in the bunch.
Isaac Asimov wrote a guest column for PENTHOUSE in the early 80s (sorry, no online cite) where he mentioned an experiment where the records of a sampling of army volunteers (this was some years after the draft was ended) were examined and exactly as many were born under Venus as under Mars. No mention about how one subgroup performed vs. the other subgroup or if economic necessity made them join, but basically as a determinant for one’s personality and interests goes, a likelihood for joining the armed forces at all is pretty fundamental, I’d think.
I live in Oklahoma, not to far from Waco. In our school, we saluted the flag every morning and had an opening prayer, usually very short. We also pledged allegience to the flag at assemblies and nearly always said a short prayer.
I can understand there would be differences in the school administrators beliefs and programs. I know that all the other schools in my city pledged and prayed. I don’t believe just the lack of these things cause atheists. Evolution is now taught as reality instead of theory, and many other teachings directed at making spiritualism look like superstitution are also taught.
As the children grow older and start learning on their own they will discover the difference between reality and theory. At least most of them, and they will not be happy they have been mislead.
Love
Leroy
Hundreds out of the millions that go through the US school system every year is not very many.
Nevertheless I would bet that the % of admitted atheists in the US is smaller now than it was 40 years ago (1960s).
And I might remind you that it was the founding farthers’ wishes that enshrined the separation of church and state in your constitution. Remember that when your soldiers are fighting theocracies elsewhere in the world.
When was this? Are you part of the same generation as my parents?
Evolution, like gravity, is both a fact and a theory. This has been discussed in dozens of threads on these boards.
I find it odd, but not surprising, that someone who rejects evolution with all the evidence behind it, accepts astrology with absolutely no evidence behind it.
Well, he’s been disillusioned ever since that high-school biology teacher strapped him down and sprinkled red-hot embers on his belly.
There was a time in my life when I really really really wanted to learn astrology, OBEs, runes, tarotry, religion, magick, ouija, etc. In fact I was on a quest to learn these things for a good 20 years. And I truly believed in them the whole time. Really, I did. I had no doubt. I was one of the least critical thinkers you’d ever want to meet.
Guess what conclusion I was eventually forced to draw?
My dad, who’s 85, went to a polytechnic public high school in Baltimore. He recalls with a chuckle how he and his fellow classmates (mostly Catholic) would start the day with their Jewish teacher reading some inspiring verse from the King James Version bible. The experience didn’t make him an Atheist, but the emptiness and absurdity of it wasn’t lost on anybody.
Krokodil: Wouldn’t the emptiness and absurdity of it depend at least in part on which Testament said inspiring verses were drawn from?