carlson test and debunking randi

idunno said:
an astrology reading may look vague but one thing that shouldnt be vague is sun and ascendant meaning.
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That would be nice, but you seem to contradict yourself in the following paragraph.

if you are an aries you aspire to be a pioneer, show your assertyiveness and courage, but if taurus is rising you may become a lazy bastard, a gourmet, a pleasure seeker later on as adulthood settles in.
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You "may become"? What if I don't? Am I, or am I not, a lazy bastard, a gourmet and a pleasure seeker? And what's this "later on" stuff? When does adulthood settle in? If I'm not a lazy bastard at 21 -- and I wasn't; I ran marathons -- will I become one at 30? At 40? At 60? Will I be sitting around in my wheelchair at 90 wishing that I could still run marathons?

That particular sentence is hopelessly vague. It says something about what I might be, but of course, if I'm not, the astrologer can twist the wording to point out that it wasn't absolutely necessary, and of course, that there's always "later on" and perhaps it will be describing me at a later stage.

That's one reason that so many of us suggested the "which of these is right" test vs. the "is this accurate" test. Because there's no wiggle room. But by the same token, most professional astrologers avoid such tests for exactly that reason.
 
idunno said:
i think dr kitten gave me the wrong data, let me check:confused:
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Here you go:
drkitten said:
Updated to reflect one final participant. Had I known there would have been seven from the start, you would all have been named after cardinal sins,.... so be grateful to this last participant.

  • Solomon -- 7th June 1956, Montpelier (France) 17:00
  • Hercules -- 9th October 1972, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK) 10:00
  • Atlas -- 20th December 1981, Montreal (Canada) 15:20
  • Zeus -- 30th March 1952, London (UK) 14:45
  • Achilles -- 15th October 1956, Elmhurst, Illinois (USA) 08:52
  • Mercury -- 4th June 1974, Hayti, Missouri (USA) 10:00
  • Billy Batson -- 18th May 1966, Honolulu, HI (USA) 20:17
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idunno said:
i think dr kitten gave me the wrong data, let me check:confused:
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I don't think so, although that certainly sounds like something I would do. I also asked everyone to make sure their birthdate was correct, and no one wrote me any nasty sarcastic notes -- well, no more sarcastic than usual, anyway.

Thanks for checking, Mojo. I plead "not guilty," my lord.
 
How did you roll it in if it filled with boiling oil?

Oh wait, that's right, you sealed it off with Glad Press and Seal so that gravity couldn't get in.
 
idunno said:
an astrology reading may look vague but one thing that shouldnt be vague is sun and ascendant meaning.
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If this were true, it would be testable. Why don't astrologers have these test results to show?

"NO statistically valid study has ever shown ANY connection, relation or correlation that would give ANY support to ANY part of astrology."

"There is no question about the simple fact that astrology does not work. Nor is there any reason why it should work."

"one study of astrological "time twins" showed that human characteristics are not molded by the influence of the Sun, Moon and planets at the time of birth."

"He found a direct statistical correlation between the planetary positions at the time of a person's birth and that individual's personality and eventual achievement."

"On a TV show on June 7, 1989, magician James Randi offered $100,000 to an astrologer who said he could prove the truth of his claims."
 
idunno - I agree with Dan O; if what you said "an astrology reading may look vague but one thing that shouldnt be vague is sun and ascendant meaning" as true, there would be credible test data to support that claim.

What exactly about it makes it so "accurate", in your opinion?
 
Now I am wondering what date he used for his original reading of mine. And if he was trying to convince me the reading fit me, in the event it was made for someone born several months apart from me.
 
Oualawouzou said:
Now I am wondering what date he used for his original reading of mine. And if he was trying to convince me the reading fit me, in the event it was made for someone born several months apart from me.
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Oh...there is no doubt he was explaining, rehashing, etc. to convince you the reading was "right". Then again, the reading was so general I'd dare say it was "right" for most folks born on this planet.
 
drkitten said:
That would be nice, but you seem to contradict yourself in the following paragraph.



You "may become"? What if I don't? Am I, or am I not, a lazy bastard, a gourmet and a pleasure seeker? And what's this "later on" stuff? When does adulthood settle in? If I'm not a lazy bastard at 21 -- and I wasn't; I ran marathons -- will I become one at 30? At 40? At 60? Will I be sitting around in my wheelchair at 90 wishing that I could still run marathons?

That particular sentence is hopelessly vague. It says something about what I might be, but of course, if I'm not, the astrologer can twist the wording to point out that it wasn't absolutely necessary, and of course, that there's always "later on" and perhaps it will be describing me at a later stage.

That's one reason that so many of us suggested the "which of these is right" test vs. the "is this accurate" test. Because there's no wiggle room. But by the same token, most professional astrologers avoid such tests for exactly that reason.
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I say «might be» because im testing astrology. Im not a die hard believer yet.
Atlas chinese chart was the right one, i probably made a mistake with the data yesterday.
he is a sagitarius-gemini rising, a very dual personality and both signs areopposite so he tends to reflect himself on others as sun is in house of libra. Relationships are very important to him id say the most important thing.
he is a philosopher, sees the big picture, at times full of faith, at others the more logical and skeptical gemini comes up. he looks younger than his age or will, and definetely an extrovert. see you tomorrow:)
 
idunno said:
Yes, usually believers say « Wow ,how accurate. I cant believe it»
Skeptics say.« All wrong mate»
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I think that the bias we are working with here makes believers think that all readings fit, while skeptics think that no reading fits.
 
Shamelessly stolen from vbloke on Uk Skeptics, here's a little bit of info on astrology and how little astrologers actually understand about it.

It should invalidate the astrological methodology, as, despite the claims that it uses the positions of the planets to calculate someones fortunes, it actually uses 2600 year old data.

Let's assume for a minute that astrology actually works. No questions, it just does. Now, when the astrological signs were drawn up originally, it was done around 600BC. Each sign (e.g.: Scorpio) are exactly 30° wide - they are measured eastward along the ecliptic from the vernal equinox, which is the intersection of the elliptic and the celestial equator and is the zero point.
When the system was originally set up, the zero point was in Aries and was called the "first point of Aries".

Aries encompassed the first 30° of the ecliptic, next came Taurus (30° to 60°), Gemini (60° to 90°) and so on...

This scheme ignored the actual stars themselves, but uniformity was more important than fussing about star positions.

Since then, precession has caused the celestial equator to wobble so as to cause the intersection point between it and the ecliptic to move westward along the ecliptic by 36° or a tenth of the way around.

Your birth sign ignores the effect of precession. What a horoscope calls "Aries" is the 30° segment along the ecliptic that is east of the current location of the vernal equinox - but today, most of it is in Pisces. The next 30° segment (called Taurus in the horoscope) is mostly in Aries. The astrological signs are directions in space that no longer correspond to the constellations that bear their names.

Precession causes the position of the sun on the vernal equinox to move as the earth wobbles on its axis - then again, the position of the sun varies on every date (analemma). This means that it is not only the names of the zodiac signs that are now wrong, the names of the tropics are also inaccurate!

This all dates to when the sun is within the constellation of your birth sign. According to astrology (corrected for precession - although these dates will vary slightly from year to year), you may find that you're actually a different birth sign.

If you were born between November 30th and December 17th, you're actually an Ophiuchus.

What happens in astrology is that the sun travels through the traditional 12 signs of the zodiac over the course of the year. Whatever sign the sun is in when you're born is the sign you "are". However, over the past 2,600 years (since the charts were drawn up), the precession of the earth has shifted the ecliptic westwards and now the sun visits the constellation of Ophiuchus during November/December. I very much doubt you'll find a horoscope that takes this into account.

Capricorn: January 20th to February 16th
Aquarius: February 17th to March 11th
Pisces: March 12th to April 18th
Aries: April 19th to May 13th
Taurus: May 14th to June 21st
Gemini: June 22nd to July 20th
Cancer: July 21st to August 10th
Leo: August 11th to September 16th
Virgo: September 17th to October 30th
Libra: October 31st to November 23rd
Scorpio: November 24th to November 29th
Ophiuchus: November 30th to December 17th
Sagittarius: December 18th to January 19th

Western (Zodiacal) astrology relies on the position of the Sun, Moon and planets at the time of your birth to determine your personality. Each planet has a particular "personality" and affects different aspects of your personality.

How this happens is never really explained, why it kicks in at the time of your birth instead of the time of conception is also never really explained either. Is there something in the womb that shields you from the astrological effects?

If it is a "force" that emanates from the astronomical bodies that effects you, then it is an entirely new force unknown to science. We only have four forces to work with - gravity, electromagnetic , the strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force. The last two only work at atomic levels (they keep atoms held together and can only be felt if you're about the size of an atom), so they can't be any use.

Gravity obeys what is called the "inverse square law" - that is, it drops off rapidly the further you get, imagine standing next to a hot radiator - the heat is intense, but you feel it less the further you move away from it. True, the gravity of the planets reaches out for millions of miles, but in the case of Earth, the Sun and Moon overpower the combined gravity of every other planet in the solar system. Even the building you are standing in overpowers the gravity of Jupiter.

The electromagnetic force relies on the planets having an electric charge. Whilst the larger planets (Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune) do, they are too far away for their relatively weak electric fields to affect us. The Sun's electric charge dwarfs the entire electric output of all the planets. It's like comparing a 1.5 volt battery to a power station.

So, this force must be something else. Something that does not diminish by distance and that helps tiny Pluto have the same effect as giant Jupiter.

Astrologers have sometimes said that there is a "quantum force" at work, neatly using Quantum Physics, something that is, let's face it, very complicated and not easily understood unless you have a lot of PhD's.

Here's a quick note though. You might want to note this down for future reference. If something has "quantum" effects, it operates at the sub-atomic scale. Like the strong and weak nuclear force, quantum effects don't work if you're bigger than an atom. A lot of people claim "quantum effects" for all sorts of alternative therapies and products. Quantum effects operate on things so small, even the most powerful electron microscopes in the world cannot see them. Once you get to the size of a thousand thousandth of a millimetre, quantum effects no longer work. Write that down.

So, a "quantum force" would only work if Jupiter was an atomic nucleus and you were an electron.

When the zodiac was originally drawn up in around 600BC, astrologers knew about 6 planets - Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. These were given arbitrary names and characters, as mankind likes to anthropomorphise things. Each planet was known to move around in the sky (the word "planet" actually means "wanderer" in ancient Greek) and appeared to follow the same line across the sky as the Sun and Moon - a line we call the Ecliptic. It is the constellations that lie on this line that we call the zodiac. Every planet passes through the constellations on their journey around the Sun.

So, so far we have six planets, the Moon and Sun and an unknown force. These were considered to affect your personality at the time of your birth.

Hang on, aren't there nine planets?

Not any more - since a vote in 2006, there are now only 8 "proper" planets and a few dwarf planets. All the planets past Jupiter are too far away to be seen properly without telescopes, so the ancients couldn't have known about them. The telescope was invented around 1608 (not by Galileo, as often claimed, but by a Dutch spectacle maker called Hans Lippershey), this means that, whilst these planets obviously must be having an effect on your horoscope, they weren't known about, so they couldn't include them in their calculations.

For a start, this raises an interesting question - these planets had an effect, but couldn't be included in horoscope calculations - why didn't ancient astrologers notice this "extra" influence coming from somewhere? If, as they claim, astrology is a science, this effect should be measurable and quantifiable and the positions and sizes of these planets should be calculable by extrapolating from this extra influence. This never happened.

Uranus was discovered in 1781 by Sir William Herschel. Astrologers never saw it coming. Instead, Uranus was quietly included in their calculations. Suddenly, your horoscope changed to include this massive new planet that had always existed. Does the force that controls astrology only work when it's seen? If we don't know about something, does it have no effect? If so, you could cross a motorway safely, just by closing your eyes and wearing earplugs.

Neptune was discovered in 1846 by collaboration between Urbain Le Verrier, John Couch Adams and Johann Gottfried Galle. See above.

Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh. Pluto is a bit of an anomaly though, it's tiny. Also, it's orbit is what astronomers call "eccentric"; it orbits at an angle to the sun - the other eight planets all lie roughly within the same plane, but Pluto sits at an angle of 17°. It's also the only planet whose orbit takes it inside the orbit of another planet - for a part of it's year, Pluto is closer to the Sun than Neptune, the rest of the time, it's further away. Why does Pluto have the same effect as it's giant neighbour? To put it another way, Neptune is nearly 58 times the volume of Earth, whereas Pluto is smaller than Earth's Moon.

What about Sedna? Eris? The asteroid belt? The Kuiper Belt? Comets? Do these have an effect? Some of the moons of Saturn and Jupiter are larger than Mercury and Pluto! Do they have an effect? Why not? Things are looking a bit dodgy for astrology.

So, that's it for planets - isn't it?

No.

You see, every dot of light in the sky (apart from the planets) is a star. Our sun is a star as well, it just so happens that we're very close to it. Do other stars have planets?

Yes

Since 1989, planets have been found around other stars. In total so far, astronomers have discovered 239 "extrasolar" planets. 239! That's a lot of planets.

Most of these are huge. In our solar system, Jupiter is the king of planets. It is huge - 1321 times the volume of Earth! Most of these extrasolar planets are what are called "Hot Jupiter's" - planets that make Jupiter seem small. Some of them are truly gigantic - measured at up to 11 times the mass of Jupiter. 11 times! That's one big planet.

Astronomers recently discovered a "cold Earth" - a rocky planet around 5 times the mass of Earth orbiting a distant star in our own galaxy. Surely this should affect your horoscope?

If, as astrologers would have us believe, their force does not diminish by distance, then these planets should have a measurable effect on your horoscope. We can't see them directly, so why should they have an effect? Well, we can't see Pluto, Sedna or Eris without very powerful telescopes, but these have been included in horoscopes as having effects, so why not these massive extrasolar planets? You see, these planets haven't been given "traditional" names like our solar system planets, they're called things like 16 Cyg B b, HD 216435 b and 55 Cnc d. What does that tell you about their characteristics?

Astronomers have theorised that most of the stars we can see might have planets. We can only detect them by inferring them from how they effect their parent star, so the process is slow and laborious. There are definitely more than 239 out there.

One day, your horoscope will have to include all these planets, but where will the line be drawn? Theoretically, there could be billions of planets in the observable universe. Your horoscope will be very cluttered and probably the size of the Encyclopaedia Britannica every day to include the effects of all these other planets. Phew.

Is that it?

No.

What happens when a star "dies"? Well, some stars explode violently in a supernova, some expand into red giants and then shrink, slowly cooling over billions of years. What could happen is, if one of these stars had a planetary system, some of these planets could be thrown out of their orbits and sent flying through the universe. A planet without a star. These would be almost impossible to see, but it is almost certain that there are some out there. Would these "wanderers" have an effect as well?

Astrologers want to claim their profession is a science. If so, then they have to play by the rules of science. Their force should have a measurable and predictable effect. We should be able to infer and predict things based on this force. No astrologer ever predicted Uranus, Neptune or Pluto based on their calculations, even though they must have been having an effect by their force acting on us. No astrologer predicted extra solar planets or recently discovered comets based on their calculations of the zodiac. No astrologer will tell you that the planets were named arbitrarily by the ancients, these names are used by astrologers to personify them and give them characteristics. Mars was the god of war - hence it controls aggression. This is because it has a reddish colour in the sky and red is the colour of aggression. What would your horoscope be like if it had been called Diana, the Roman goddess of hunting, or Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of Love?

Uranus, Neptune and Pluto's names were decided by a vote. There was no consideration of their "characters" when they were named. What does this say about their effect on your horoscope?
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Bump. Specifically, I just wanted to ask idunno if he was planning to submit Western horoscopes for the remaining 6 participants or not.
 
If Idunno hasn't already submitted the Western horoscopes to drkitten, here's an idea for a different test with the 6 participants:

- Each participant writes a short description of his/her character, trying to make it as honest and accurate as possible without giving information concerning age or sex (you might ask a spouse/parent/offspring/sibling/best friend to check it over).
- They communicate the descriptions to drkitten, who mixes them up, identifies them with numbers, letters, whatever, and sends them to idunno.
- idunno, using whatever sort of astrology he chooses, tries to match the personality descriptions to the birth dates.

It would be possible to add other participants, or to replace existing ones if they don't want to play along.
 
Michael C said:
If Idunno hasn't already submitted the Western horoscopes to drkitten, here's an idea for a different test with the 6 participants:

- Each participant writes a short description of his/her character, trying to make it as honest and accurate as possible without giving information concerning age or sex (you might ask a spouse/parent/offspring/sibling/best friend to check it over).
- They communicate the descriptions to drkitten, who mixes them up, identifies them with numbers, letters, whatever, and sends them to idunno.
- idunno, using whatever sort of astrology he chooses, tries to match the personality descriptions to the birth dates.

It would be possible to add other participants, or to replace existing ones if they don't want to play along.
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A good idea, but you might want to have, if not a form, at least several specific areas that require description, e.g. hobbies, fashion sense, love life and interpersonal relationships etc. so that the astrologer can make point-to-point comparisons.
 
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