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How could a feng shui test be devised?

arthwollipot said:
Well, for a start they make a claim that there is "energy" or "chi" which can be affected by the placement of furniture.
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Some so-called practitioners make such outrageous claims.

Others understand the metaphoric use of language and the sense that fengshui is no more than the systematic application of common sense, with regards to the use of space.

Granted, it does accommodate superstition, and perhaps for that reason it should be regarded with suspicion, yet it is no more wooish then any other mnemonic device.

As a method, it falsifiably yields some esthetically beautiful spaces.
 
The only way I can think of to test it is to have a feng shui expert recommend the best and worst way the furniture should be set up in say 10 houses, and then set 5 of them up the best way and 5 the worst way. The occupants of the houses (who obviously aren't told which is which) should then keep a diary recording their feelings and every single piece of good or bad luck they have for, say, a year. The feng shui expert should then read the diaries and determine which houses are which. If he's right significantly more often than chance, he's passed the test.
 
Pixel42 said:
The only way I can think of to test it is to have a feng shui expert recommend the best and worst way the furniture should be set up in say 10 houses, and then set 5 of them up the best way and 5 the worst way. The occupants of the houses (who obviously aren't told which is which) should then keep a diary recording their feelings and every single piece of good or bad luck they have for, say, a year. The feng shui expert should then read the diaries and determine which houses are which. If he's right significantly more often than chance, he's passed the test.
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Sounds good on the face of it, but it takes too long, it's too subjective, and the possibility of the subjects finding out which house is which over a year is too great. It needs to be simple and cheap.
 
There's also too much wiggle room, for a few reasons.
A person in a 'positive' house who has one problem occur, may then decide that this means they are in a 'negative' house and focus on all the bad things that happen. Or vice versa. Or they could just be naturally optimistic/pessimistic.

The feng shui person may then claim that they got the house type wrong because the negative/positive energy has been created by that person, and nothing to do with the feng shui. Because all these things work together to influence a person's life, dontcha know. ;)
 
The mechanism (Chi energy etc) is bunk, but it isn't a supernatural claim to say that the arrangement of things in a house strongly can effect quality of life.

Efficiency experts suggest that you keep areas for different activities separate. For some people, trying to do their work while sitting on their bed will mess up both working and sleeping habits. Feng Shui makes similar suggestions about separation.

Sometimes, woo makes accurate prescriptions for the wrong reasons.
See: The Physician and the Priest

Would a test of Feng Shui be considered a success if the furniture rearrangement improved quality of life, but not for the reasons the practitioner cited?

Here's a test. Have 20 families fill out a survey on quality of life.
10 of them have their homes rearranged by a Feng Shui practitioner.
10 of them have their homes rearranged by some random dude.
They fill out the survey again, one year later.

If the surveys (multiple choice style) from Feng Shui houses outperform those from the random dude, then there is a real effect (sample size may need tweaking).

This doesn't guarantee that Feng Shui didn't just stumble onto some good psychological, ergonomic and efficiency tricks and wrap them in woo, so it wouldn't qualify for the MDC, but it would clarify whether there is a benefit to hiring a practitioner.
 
Cavemonster, that's still too complicated, subjective and prone to discovery or error.

Compare it to a possible test of TT. We could have a bunch of people randomly treated or not treated with TT, then ask them how they feel a year later, and it would have all the drawbacks of the long Feng Shui test.

In contrast, Linda Rosza boiled down the TT-ers claims to a single, simple one: to be able to detect a "human energy field." Sure, they said that the end desire was healthier subjects, but if the basis for their claim to improve health was based on 100% faulty logic, the claim of healing falls thru (or into the placebo realm) without having to test it thru a complicated procedure.

So she devised a test of "human energy field detection," something all participants said they could do 100% of the time, and got an objective, quantifiable result which was nearly identical to chance.

I agree that we need to nail down a testable Feng Shui claim first before we can devise a test, and maybe that's the hardest part.
 
Timothy said:
First, one would have to state, in rigorous and unambiguous terms, the claims a practitioner makes.
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Who has made a claim, and when, and where?

If a specific claimant does not exist, then why is this being discussed in the MDC forum?
 
leonAzul said:
Who has made a claim, and when, and where?

If a specific claimant does not exist, then why is this being discussed in the MDC forum?
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Here's one example--"Fens Shui and Money: A Nine Week Program for Creating Wealth." There are many more to be found. People are making claims about FS and charging money for books and services.

eta: check out page xviii at above link for examples of miraculous life changes and cures due to FS.
 
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leonAzul said:
As a method, it falsifiably yields some esthetically beautiful spaces.
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Yes. I agree that it is a reliable codified system of aesthetics. Living in an aesthetically pleasing space may have a positive impact on a person's reported quality of life. This is why I think that the protocol as described wouldn't work.

What you'd need to do is have 10 feng shuiers and 10 qualified interior decorators arrange the interiors of the house, so that both are working on a baseline of aesthetic... ness.
 
Nowhere near good enough for the MDC, but for a bit of fun, how about having a feng shui expert set up a poker table with one of the seats placed somewhere (and facing the direction) that gives financial good fortune (I believe the P&T episode had some of the experts arranging furniture to improve financial luck), then have a group of people play Poker. Have the players change seats every 10 hands. The person in the lucky seat should consistently be winning.
 
It depends upon what 'chi' supposedly is, and what it can do. I don't know if the following could count as an actual Challenge test as deciding upon the basis for a protocol is a collaborative project. However, if you're just looking for an idea...

I would suggest decorating three identical rooms. One would be decorated in the most positive way possible according to feng shui, one would be decorated in the most negative way possible. The other would be decorated by someone who didn't know jack about feng shui.

Twenty planted seeds in flower pots would be introduced into each of the three rooms by an individual who is unaware of which rooms are which, and there would be specifics on how much to water the seeds, where to place them, what the temperature of the water should be, what time of day to water the plants, etc. All this should be recorded on video.

After one month, all the plants would be measured. The ones in the positive room should be taller, the ones in the negative room should be dying, and the ones in the nothing-room should match some kind of a baseline, which would have to be created in advance.

The baseline test should involve hundreds of plants in dozens of rooms under all different kinds of conditions, though still subjected to identical care instructions.

With this test, if you developed a baseline that stated the average plant in an average room will grow to be five inches tall in one month, you would be able to tell if the twenty plants in the positive room had grown higher than that average and if the ones in the negative room had suffered, and if the ones in the neutral room hit the baseline.

~Remie
 
It has been said before but obviously bears repeating: A test depends entirely upon the claim made.



@RemieV: I like your idea. But I would ask the feng shui expert to decorate all three rooms.
If he could create a "positve" setting, he should easily be able to create a "negative" setting - and of course something "neutral".
This shouldn't even be that hard to test, right?
 
GzuzKryzt said:
@RemieV: I like your idea. But I would ask the feng shui expert to decorate all three rooms.
If he could create a "positve" setting, he should easily be able to create a "negative" setting - and of course something "neutral".
This shouldn't even be that hard to test, right?
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But it might be hard to keep biases out. What if the person watering the plants knows which room and waters one set better than another?

And the plant idea, while pretty good for a study, doesn't meet the requirements for a challenge (subjectivity, time, etc.)

The poker idea is interesting, but it, too, needs to have defined in advance of what is "consistently winning" and it could be too easily biased by expert poker players consciously or otherwise. There's a certain skill to poker playing (so I've been told).

How about three rooms (positive, neg, neutral), where a coin is tossed in each and a record kept of results during multiple trials? Objective, not subjective! This requires a statement that Feng Shui can affect the outcome of coin flips, but since claims have been made for almost any influence you can think of, coin tosses don't seem much like a stretch.
 
Well,

When I moved my velvet Elvis next to my velvet doberman, and put the velvet Jesus opposite them, instead of in the same row, I received an unexpected check in the mail.
 
I feel that this thread is blocking the positive chi from the north, and should be moved elsewhere...

Chris
 
Every time I try to think of a test, my mind keeps coming up with:

"Repeatedly banging your shins on a misplaced coffee table probably really IS a bit bad for you health."
 
Sherman Bay said:
But it might be hard to keep biases out. What if the person watering the plants knows which room and waters one set better than another?
...
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Remove the persons from the equation. Use blinding or double blinding. Same amounts of nourishment for every plant.

I pretty much assumed the "chi" also affects plants.

If only we had a claim by a feng shuiist...could you ask your friend to join us, Sherman Bay?
 
Sherman Bay said:
But it might be hard to keep biases out. What if the person watering the plants knows which room and waters one set better than another?

And the plant idea, while pretty good for a study, doesn't meet the requirements for a challenge (subjectivity, time, etc.)

The poker idea is interesting, but it, too, needs to have defined in advance of what is "consistently winning" and it could be too easily biased by expert poker players consciously or otherwise. There's a certain skill to poker playing (so I've been told).

How about three rooms (positive, neg, neutral), where a coin is tossed in each and a record kept of results during multiple trials? Objective, not subjective! This requires a statement that Feng Shui can affect the outcome of coin flips, but since claims have been made for almost any influence you can think of, coin tosses don't seem much like a stretch.
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RemieV said:
Twenty planted seeds in flower pots would be introduced into each of the three rooms by an individual who is unaware of which rooms are which, and there would be specifics on how much to water the seeds, where to place them, what the temperature of the water should be, what time of day to water the plants, etc. All this should be recorded on video.
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Firstly, the issue of whether or not the individual who was watering the plants would know about feng shui or not was specified in the original idea.

Also, getting 'heads' or 'tails' on a coin toss is neither a positive nor a negative event, so I do not see how feng shui would affect it.

The card playing test could test three card poker, which is utter chance.

~Remie
 
There is only one area of life in which feng shui is effective,birth control.The woman drags the wardrobe in front of the bedroom door so the man can't get in.
 
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