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Astrology Readings.

The astrologer doesn't have to get everything right, just enough right to make a statistically significant difference. The reading only needs to be slightly more accurate than readings which are of someone else entirely to be the one picked out, and the hit rate only needs to be significantly greater than that expected by chance (easily calculated), not 100%. So the astrologer would have to be very bad indeed - completely useless, in fact - to do no better than chance.
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You can be completely useless and get away with it. Don't you worry. :):):):)
 
You're right here. I should have been more clear. We don't claim to know why something happened and then make the evidence we find fit our conclusion. We test hypotheses, and if the results don't prove them out, we discard those hypotheses and try new ones.
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That is how Astrology ought to work. In theory.

I predict given what I know about this or that object this or that result. We then see if it bears out in practice.

If it doesn't, it is evident my initial assumption is baseless.
 
But you've never provided a mechanism for HOW or WHY heavenly bodies would influence minor characteristics of our lives. It doesn't make sense.
 
But you've never provided a mechanism for HOW or WHY heavenly bodies would influence minor characteristics of our lives. It doesn't make sense.
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And you've never provided a mechanism for how the Earth goes round the Sun even though the Earth is so far away from the Sun?

All you can do is give it a name.
 
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SlayerofCliffracers said:
You can be completely useless and get away with it.
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Obviously. Confirmation bias and the Forer effect can be relied on to persuade the credulous that you're amazingly accurate however useless you (and/or astrology) really are. But the test protocol we're discussing is designed to exclude them. You'll only get a positive result if you and astrology are not useless.
 
To get this straight... you don't know how or why the earth goes round the sun?
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Nobody knows why the earth goes round the Sun silly. They just pretend to know, just because they know the rules for exactly how it does so and can give the process a name called Gravity. ;););)

Obviously. Confirmation bias and the Forer effect can be relied on to persuade the credulous that you're amazingly accurate however useless you (and/or astrology) really are. But the test protocol we're discussing is designed to exclude them. You'll only get a positive result if you and astrology are not useless.
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Exactly and it gets far more interesting does it not.

Because the above still applies even if Astrology itself is valid. The Forer effect and Confirmation Bias could still destroy Astrology even if it were initially valid, by making it difficult to tell true and false apart.
 
Hokulele said:
I would suggest not worrying about the mechanism until there is any evidence of an effect.
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Based on how s/he described her/his methods in the post above mine, s/he could create mounds of pseudo-experimental evidence without ever indicating how any of it could be caused by the stars.
 
prewitt81 said:
Based on how s/he described her/his methods in the post above mine, s/he could create mounds of pseudo-experimental evidence without ever indicating how any of it could be caused by the stars.
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From the post you were responding to, it doesn't sound like SoC has even gotten that far. There seems to be far more "Why was I wrong?" rather than "Why am I right?" Until whatever process SoC is using comes up with a reliable "I am right", any discussion of why or why not is useless. See the various VisionFromFeeling threads for a lovely example of the uselessness of discussing theory before results.

Please don't think that I believe the question you are asking is wrong, it is just the wrong time for it. It allows SoC to distract people from the issue of his/her demonstrable lack of results.
 
Hokulele said:
From the post you were responding to, it doesn't sound like SoC has even gotten that far. There seems to be far more "Why was I wrong?" rather than "Why am I right?" Until whatever process SoC is using comes up with a reliable "I am right", any discussion of why or why not is useless. See the various VisionFromFeeling threads for a lovely example of the uselessness of discussing theory before results.

Please don't think that I believe the question you are asking is wrong, it is just the wrong time for it. It allows SoC to distract people from the issue of his/her demonstrable lack of results.
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That makes sense. Good point.
 
SlayerofCliffracers said:
The Forer effect and Confirmation Bias could still destroy Astrology even if it were initially valid, by making it difficult to tell true and false apart.
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The Forer Effect and confirmation bias would exaggerate the perceived accuracy of astrology if it was valid, and account for that perceived accuracy completely if it is not valid.

Are you suggesting that they might also have led people to think there are correlations which don't really exist, whilst failing to notice correlations that do really exist? I suppose that's just about possible, though I would have thought any genuine correlation would have been picked up on over the millenia. But any such previously unnoticed correlation should have been identified in studies such as the recent time twins study: http://www.humanists.110mb.com/leisure/astrology.html/odyframe.htm
 
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