Elucidator, if a test was designed with input and approval from the parties being tested (astrologers), and they fail it, doesn’t that carry more weight than other tests? Some of the examples given you fall in this category. My explanation for the expectations vs. opposite results is wishful thinking vs. reality. How do you explain it?
Let me try this just one more time: I am not engaged in a debate… I have long since recognized the impracticality of proof, and have no real interest in that line of thinking. I investigated/pursued this thing for my own reasons and for my own satisfaction.
The OP asked if anyone who had practiced was willing to speak about his experience. I answered, and perhaps that was a mistake. What else would you have me do, except to abandon my own judgement in favor of yours? Thanks, but no thanks.
If you have an honest question about that experience, I will give you an honest answer. I don’t need your approval or your permission, and I don’t need to convince you. Believe what you will.
Why would I? I’ve already stated, repeatedly, that I think such experiments are futile. I would be equally suspicious of an experiment that “proved” me right, I mistrust my own biases as thoroughly as I mistrust yours.
You seem to believe that I would happily accept the* bona fides * of anyone willing to confess to being an astologer, after all, who would admit such a thing if they were not guilty? 'Struth, I know very few, and quite a long time ago. For the most part, they wildly exaggerate the significance of astrology, they attempt to fit to situations where it simply doesn’t apply. They are “believers”, and I shrink from them.
How, then, can I trust an experiment that depends on them? I can’t, any more than you can. But you are willing to accept the negative as proven. Why? You didn’t trust the judgement of astrologers before they proved you right, but now you do? Now, you are entirely willing to accept their self-selection as a sample when you know D for diddly-squat about them, except that they apparently believe something you regard as nonsense. Not much of a recommendation, is it?
Thank you for admitting you were wasting our time when you asked for those scientific studies.
Why would I trust a study biased in favor of my opinion any more than a study biased against it? Have you noticed how often when people set out to prove what they already believe, they succeed?
(Boy, that “Randi wannabe” thing really put a burr under yer saddle, eh, hoss?)
Here’s a clew for you, “hoss”-if you say something with the intention of pissing people off…it tends to piss people off.
Now you know-and knowing is half the battle.
I will take guidance from your example of open-handed generosity and quiet respect for opinions that differ from your own.
That has to be one of the funniest things I have ever read on the SDMB. Thanks, elucidator…I’m going to laugh for days.
Funny - in some of the studies I linked to astrologers designed and participated in a study to set out to prove that astrology works - and they failed miserably.
People often “prove” what they want to prove when they can use wonky methodology to massage the data, but if they’re held to rigorous standards then all of a sudden they fail to show what they thought they could.
As always, I bask in the warm sunshine of your affectionate respect.
Hmmm. I think we have a new excuse to add to the list.
An experiment is designed with input from those who claim to be astrologers. Since no test yet exists to separate “real” astrologers from pretenders, we’re pretty much at the mercy of those who claim to be the real thing.
The test subjects, who also claim to be astrologers, claim to be able to perform under the conditions. Yet they fail. They could have been replaced with random coin tosses with similar results.
To some people, this strongly suggests that the theory being tested, astrology, has no merit.
But to Elucidator, the results just mean that they weren’t real astrologers, but fakes, so the test is meaningless.
Hmmm.
Some statements by Elucidator follow. Each paragraph is from a different post in this thread.
So if persons with identical horoscopes go into the same professions and live the same lives, that proves astrology? And if they don’t, that’s because of individual differences? So astrology is always right, even if it’s wrong?
We do have the means to test it. Waenara gave you a list of tests in post #166, just for starters. They contradict every statement you made in the group above.
Do you wonder where they got them? You may have noticed that I have no faith at all in such experiments, I’ve mentioned it more than once. Do you wonder how many astrologers were approached and refused? Idle speculation, of course, but I would be interested in knowing that.
For my two bits, any astrologer who thought such a thing could be proved to an extent that would convert an audience of resolute skeptics is too dumb to make his own oatmeal, never mind interpeting a chart.
You have no faith in ANY experiments, but you have faith in a theory that has no scientific support?
I have abiding faith in my own judgement and intelligence, which you do not share. So be it.
Congrats to everybody in this thread who has been fighting ignorance despite ignorance fighting back.
Of course, no matter how long this board goes on, we’ll still have 9/11 conspiracy mongers, supporters of seances, astrology, and various other True Believers. Epistemology isn’t a consideration for some, and proper research methodology is only something that those egg-heads who aren’t concerned with truthieness care about. Ignorance will always fight back, but at least any guests or people who were on the fence before reading this thread, will know how absurd “astrology” is, and what sorts of logical contortions its apologists have to engage in, when they bother to appeal to logic at all.
Just think, the posters who have done the heavy lifting in this thread may actually have helped someone get enough information to not waste their money on a “reading” when they could use it on a gym membership or something.
Good job folks. Those of you who have been interested in fighting ignorance have provided a nice bit of information with actual studies debunking these silly claims, and I, personally, would like to thank you. You’ve made me aware of research that I was previously unaware of.
As I do in yours for me.
Right there is the root of your problem. You think your judgment and intelligence is enough to determine the fact of the matter; a scientist knows his is not. Hence the need for empirical evidence gleaned through experimentation independent of one’s judgment or intelligence.
Right, it’s “Facts be damned, I know what I know.” That’s faith, pure and simple. I also want to thank Czarcasm and Waenara for fighting ignorance with the best of them. 'luci’s a smart guy and I wondered what would happen in this thread. I shouldn’t be as surprised as I was that cognitive dissonance would prove to be such a strong obstacle to knowledge. A lesson for us all: No one is too smart to be fooled by their own mind.
Elucidator, the wise thing to do would be to admit defeat. I know you wanted to avoid a debate, but you made positive assertions about whether science could investigate astrology and what it would find if it did. Those assertions were wrong. I don’t blame you for continuing to believe in astrology; personal experience is a strong convincer, and we don’t generally choose what evidence we find compelling. But you should have the grace to accept that you said some things that turned out to be false, and to admit it.
Not quite, though I take your point. I trust my judgement to determine my opinion on the matter, the facts of the matter are beyond my ken. Perhaps if you had walked the same road, you would not have done as I’ve done. But the realm of light is seldom expanded by a man afraid to step into shadow.
Alan, a couple of things. First and foremost, if I have given you the impression that I am in possession of facts, I apologize. I am not, this is and will remain entirely subjective. (Have I mentioned that already? Yes, I’m pretty sure I did…) The OP asked for someone who had experience to relay that experience. From the very first (and please review if you doubt me) I declared my intentions. I did not say that astrology was the magic abacus, that explains all things past, present and future. I said I saw more there than I could reasonably explain away. And that is an anomaly, something that should not be there, is.
If you will review, you will note that I outlined my experimental parameters, and freely admit that they are impractical. Tough break for me, but there it is. But then I am offered…nay, confronted with…studies that don’t meet those criteria, and the stern insistence that I surrender in the face of them. Did I not, for instance, say that sun sign studies could only be conducted on a massive scale, otherwise they were doomed? Why then am I obliged to accept such as proof? Why does the other guy get to make all the rules?
And perhaps it would be graceful to lie about what I believe. Its not the word I would use.