Why would the subjects have to born in the same month?
Christine - this is already beginning to sound like a very unscientific experiment! Have you ever read a natal chart interpretation? I've never seen any professional astrologer say anything like that. I've heard James Randi saying things like that in his self-designed experiments to demonstrate the point that anyone can give a "cold reading" if they are vague enough.
You are narrowing your definition of "professional astrologers" to exclude the majority of people who receive money for astrological readings. But no mind. I was asking specifically if you or some other professional astrologer could pass the test I laid out, not some other test.
The scientific part of the experiment is not in the reading. It's in the simple fact that ten people need to pick from ten readings. The experiment could easily be done with random gibberish, and the scientific results would be that random gibberish does not tell us anything useful about test subjects.
But isn't that exactly what the astrologers would be trying to prove? - that there is a difference between a Taurus and a Gemini? If the skeptics start laying down rules like you can only have subjects born in the same month, then that immediately makes the experiment wieghted. You would have to pick 10 subjects at random.
I don't see how it possibly makes the experiment weighted. I am asking if someone could tell the difference between ten Tauruses. I explained why an experiment with people of different sun signs is not valid unless you are willing to have your readings edited.
Exactly, and if astrology is valid, then these differences should be shown in a horoscope.
These differences exist whether astrology is valid or invalid. So any test that includes persons born in different times of the year is not a scientific test for the validity of astrology, unless, as I said, you are willing to have your readings edited to remove time-of-year subjective information.
ooh no, no editing! Everything has to open and honest. We are trying to do science here, or at least as near to science as we can get.
What's unscientific about editing? Consider this possibility: a reading begins "You were born April 23, 1959..." and the person who was born April 23, 1959 picks his reading. Is the test less scientific if I edit that statement out?
If anyone is serious about designing an experiement like this, you would have to narrow down the criteria a little as to what sort of thing you are looking for in the horoscopes. It would have to be traits that both the astrologer and the skeptics agreed on beforehand, and preferably ones which were not vague, like "you love snow". For example ,physical appearance, career, number of marriages, number of children and health. The criteria would have to be areas of life that the skeptics wouldn't say were too vague afterwards.
There is nothing vague about the test I proposed, which is why I proposed it. You either get 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 matches.
But yours is a completely different test, but fine also. We could give an astrologer ten birth dates (which in this case would not all have to be of the same sign) and then have him make picks from a multiple choice list.
For example: number of children (0, 1., 1, 3, 4, 5 or more)
Career: (information technology, health care, teaching, etc.) This would be a pretty long list but it must be fixed in advance.
Height
Weight
Number of marriages (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or more)
Now unfortunately it can get tricky. We would have to deal with things like a teacher of information technology for example. And what about a women who has had 14 miscarriages and no children? And some men do not know how many children they have! But if the astrologer is will to accept these limitations we would give each subject the test and we would agree on how to deal with things like the teacher of information technology. The easiest way is to pick one primary career and stick to it. But then the astrologer cannot whine that his pick of information technology was correct when the subject himself primarily describes himself as a teacher!
I think that the results from just testing one astrologer with 10 subjects would not show much. I think that a good astrologer could probably get 7 or more correct picks, in an experiment which was designed fairly. But to make the experiment more valid, I think you would have to have 10 astrologers having 10 subjects each, i.e. 100 subjects. And having 10 astrologers would give the different types of astrology all a good crack at the challenge, for example, Tropical, Sidereal, Vedic, the different house systems (3 or 4 that I know of) etc.
There is no point whatsoever in doing this. Say tropical is useless and Vedic is great. How would you ever sort it out? This is a test you might run
ten different times on
ten different systems but that's a different issue. I want ONE astrologer to pass his own test.
The chance of getting 7 of 10 on a test like this by chance alone is less than one in a 100,000, sothis would be a major victory for an astrologer and it would certainly get people's attention, especially if he could do it more than once.
By the way, would this be part of the $1million challenge?
Similar tests have been used in the million dollar challenge. I have no association with the JREF. If you or an astrologer you know wants to apply for the challenge we can write a protocol for you which would be acceptable to the JREF. There are many other other issues we have to look at first, most notably the requirement for a media presence.
Although I know a bit about astrology I do not practice it. There are some very competent astrologers who have written books, but I don't know if they would even want to take part in an experiment like this.
So the short answer is that you know you yourself could not pass the test. Many astrologers have agreed to take such tests, and ALL OF THEM failed. Every single one. NO EXCEPTIONS. Most scientists no longer bother, and most smart astrologers know that they will fail and hence work very hard at NOT being tested. I consider this very strong evidence that astrology does not work. All this is aside from questions like tropicial vs. sidereal.
If there is an exception, it was Gauquelin, who as I mentioned, cheated, probably unconsciously. The cheating was so complex and so subtle that it took years to figure out how he did it. Unfortunately he continues to use the same invalid methods to argue for other astrological effects.
