More on my claim to the JREF $1 Million Paranormal Challenge

[Giordano]

Just to restate the obvious: I suspect that to win the prize using this type of claim, you would need to predict something that is not already in any way accessible to you. Any claim that an unusual number of x (athletes, etc.) were born under the sign of... would be too easily manipulated to show a desired result (either by how one defines athletes, or by how the astrological sign is calculated or interpreted). And as mentioned, there are things (month allowed to enter school) that can further distort this without any dishonesty on the part of the astrologer. Also broad descriptions of individuals based on astrology are prone to a form of conformation bias ("You were born under the sign of Cancer, so you are very intelligent..." "Amazing- I am!").

Can you predict traits of animals based on when they were born? This could make a prospective test easier and quicker.

 

[Agatha]

Until avataress can identify what is paranormal about her claim, I don't think anyone can even begin to think of a protocol.

 

[Psi Baba]

It might be interesting to see the birthdates of people who believe in astrology.

 

[skeptichaggis]

That's rather harsh. People hang around other people and the psychological effects are well-documented. A chap on here known as Groundstrength was sure he could knock people out with light or no contact to the arm via "chi" effects. I've seen intelligent people get involved in groups like this and completely delude themselves. Look at some of the physicists who bought in parapsychology - sometimes more intelligent people are easier to fool as they think they are too smart to be fooled.


Avataress - the problem with defining a target by looking into the past can lead to the Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy^WP where you select your target based on where the bullets went. It's because of (often subconscious) bias like this that things like the "double blind" protocol was invented for medical trials. We can all fools ourselves, often non better.

Your right I was a bit harsh-my bad. Its just when you see,as you point out,otherwise sane and smart folk fall to this tripe it can exasperate you to the point of bad manners. Still wrong of me to be so snidy though.
Your right about smart folk falling for stuff they shouldn't as well. Look at some of the people that fall for scams like"send us 20grand,and when the customs is paid you will get 200grand worth of gold" and stuff. Doctors,lawyers,scientists etc.
Me,I talk to my mom when I visit her grave,difference is i KNOW its for my sake not hers. She is dead and cannot possibly care. Its harsh but that's reality.

 

[Hawk one]

The people who invented astrology may have had every excuse for believing it, but we don't. In order to believe in astrology today it is necessary to deliberately turn away from humanity's greatest achievement - its painstakingly accumulated store of knowledge and understanding - in order to wallow in ignorance and superstition.

More than you think, because the earliset forms, a sort of proto-astrology actually made a fair bit of sense; it was a way to help keeping track of seasons more accurately than merely following the sun or current temperatures, and it was mainly kept track of because being born in certain seasons increased your likelyhood of survival back then (and, I believe, still did for many centuries after that). As such, this proto-astrology was in fact pretty darned clever; I'd even say it was more clever than the full-form astrology.

 

[ben m]

There is, in fact, a standard protocol for would-be astrologers.

a) You are given N cards containing birth date, time, etc., for N volunteers. They can all be about the same age (say, college students, they're easy to find.)

b) You prepare a set of questions. You can ask about anything but not mention or hint at birthdates, times, birth order, etc.. "What's your highest level of achievement in sports? How tall are you? Do you like vegetables? Are you good at math?"

c) You get N survey responses back.

d) You match the survey-answers to the birthdates. "Birth-card #1 indicating athleticism, so I think it belongs to the survey-respondent D, who plays intramural soccer."

Here is a question. How well do you think you would do on this test? If you had 12 birthdates/times, and 12 surveys, how many could you match up accurately? (Remember, you can write the survey questions yourself. If you see "Ooh, card #1 and card #2 differ only by 'artistic ability'" you are free to decide to include a question about artistic ability). A random guesser would get about 1 right. Would you expect to get all 12? 6? 2?

 

[Pup]

I would suggest using Olympic medalists. It will give you a wide variety of athletes from different countries, it's objectively well defined and impossible(?) to predict beforehand.

A simple claim would be something like "a statistically significant number of olympic medalists in the 2016 summer olympic games to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil will have been born at a time and place where Mars was visible above the horizon (or whatever the astrological description is)."

Like it.

 

[theprestige]

Why is getting a challenge claim like pulling an infinite number of rambling, verbose, teeth?

avataress, what's wrong with simply starting with, "here is my paranormal idea, here is how I propose to test it, here's what my test results will look like if my idea is correct, and here's what my test results will look like if my idea is incorrect"?

From there you could get feedback about the quality and practicality of the test you propose, and either conduct the test and report the results, or refine the test based on feedback before conducting it and reporting the results.

Anyway, the past is past. At this point, I think it would be very interesting to see your results from following ben m's test protocol:

There is, in fact, a standard protocol for would-be astrologers.

a) You are given N cards containing birth date, time, etc., for N volunteers. They can all be about the same age (say, college students, they're easy to find.)

b) You prepare a set of questions. You can ask about anything but not mention or hint at birthdates, times, birth order, etc.. "What's your highest level of achievement in sports? How tall are you? Do you like vegetables? Are you good at math?"

c) You get N survey responses back.

d) You match the survey-answers to the birthdates. "Birth-card #1 indicating athleticism, so I think it belongs to the survey-respondent D, who plays intramural soccer."

Here is a question. How well do you think you would do on this test? If you had 12 birthdates/times, and 12 surveys, how many could you match up accurately? (Remember, you can write the survey questions yourself. If you see "Ooh, card #1 and card #2 differ only by 'artistic ability'" you are free to decide to include a question about artistic ability). A random guesser would get about 1 right. Would you expect to get all 12? 6? 2?

Even if you don't perform his test today, I would very much like to see your answer to his question at the end. Will you do that for us?

 

[Loss Leader]

Avataress -

I am sure your interest in astrology is quite fascinating to you. I, however, do not care one bit about it. (I also believe he doesn't UNDERSTAND what I said one bit, although I proved that I understood all he said by the coherency of my rebuttals to what he said!) As I have said, I doubt that a retrospective statistical analysis would be accepted by any skeptic organization as a testable paranormal claim. (I didn't say I wanted to do a "retrospective statistical analysis" if I understand what Loss Leader means by that term, namely trying to prove my case using the exact statistical data that Gauquelin used, which is NOT what I'm proposing although I WOULD be using what's come to be known as "The Mars effect.")

I know of nobody with a math background who might be interested in such a project.

Feel free to divulge the entire contents of my PMs. I learned long ago never to say anything in private that you wouldn't shout from the rooftops.

- Loss Leader

Just to be clear, Avataress has mixed her commentary into my response to her. I've put her commentary in red. The black text is my response.

 

[Donn]

Just to be clear, Avataress has mixed her commentary into my response to her. I've put her commentary in red. The black text is my response.

I saw it immediately. I love how she invents that you don't understand and then moves to complement herself on her own complete understanding. Nice footwork there.

 

[Giordano]

Why is getting a challenge claim like pulling an infinite number of rambling, verbose, teeth?
[snip]

I have wondered this too. The problem provides me a lot of sympathy for the test organizers.

What is so hard about replying to two questions:
1. What is it that you propose to do that is paranormal?
2. What would a positive test result be, and how would it be distinguishable from random chance?

Yes, many people would need help with calculating the necessary statistics, and perhaps in the details of designing a simple, cheap test with good controls. But even the straightforward answers to these two key questions are often difficult to obtain clearly. Perhaps it is because the challengers don't think in such straightforward terms that they have come to believe that they have paranormal abilities. If you are uncertain in advance what a positive result from your "powers" might look like, then it is easier to retroactively conclude that almost any event is a proof of your abilities.

 

[Donn]

Perhaps it is because the challengers don't think in such straightforward terms that they have come to believe that they have paranormal abilities. If you are uncertain in advance what a positive result from your "powers" might look like, then it is easier to retroactively conclude that almost any event is a proof of your abilities.

Yes. Clarity invokes criticality.
"What if? Yes, but. If I? Oh, I forgot. This is different to. That works. I was wrong!"

Criticality calls doubt. Doubt touches emotion. Emotion runs the show: follow the route that feels nice.

 

[Loss Leader]

I have wondered this too. The problem provides me a lot of sympathy for the test organizers.

What is so hard about replying to two questions:
1. What is it that you propose to do that is paranormal?
2. What would a positive test result be, and how would it be distinguishable from random chance?

My understanding is that she proposes to examine a list of celebrities or athletes and prove with statistical significance that they were born when Mars was in some specific place in the sky.

Since Mars wanders and is not consistently dominant in some months, a large enough pool of people born over a several decade span should (by random chance) be fairly random in their Mars position. She proposes to use statistics to show differently.

The problems with this are manyfold:

First, it's already been done. Since the paranormal researcher first published his results, others have attempted to undertake similar studies and have not achieved his results.

Second, the pool of qualifying people is ill-defined. It can be expanded or contracted or otherwise massaged until an effect is teased out. Suppose we were to include all Oscar winners, but Geena Davis does not fit the pattern. One might argue that her Oscar was a fluke, that she didn't deserve it, and that she should be excluded from the group. Or one might wish to throw in Heath Ledger, who should have won in retrospect but some people didn't vote for him because he was dead.

Third, simply submitting some tables with a little math is simply not the type of paranormal challenge any organization is likely to accept. She wants to write a paper using birth information and statistics and have it be accepted as a test of the paranormal.

 

[Wudang]

Yes. Clarity invokes criticality.
"What if? Yes, but. If I? Oh, I forgot. This is different to. That works. I was wrong!"

Criticality calls doubt. Doubt touches emotion. Emotion runs the show: follow the route that feels nice.

Exactly. Read an account of the cold fusion claims of Fleischmann and Pons and their mutual cheering that stopped them even from thinking :"What if we tried this with ordinary water?"
Robert Park's "Voodoo Science" has a nice accessible treatment of events.

 

[fuelair]

Has avataress left the building???

 

[Ladewig]

Has avataress left the building???

After not posting for less than 24 hours?

I am of the opinion that 3-5 days have to go by before questions of thread abandonment be raised.

 

[fromdownunder]

I find this difficult to accept as a claim. For example, if two people are born in exactly the same place, say, 35 minutes apart, how is it possible to predict a future for them?

Well, 50 years later it is easy enough to prove a past. But does Mars or whatever heavenly body moves around, move so quickly that somehow one of them will become famous and one of them will be, well, dead at birth?

But what about all the other people born at roughly the same time in the same place, who did not become famous for whatever reason? What is the control that somehow eliminates non famous people from famous people?

From what I have read so far, avataress is simply trying to predict the past.


Norm

 

[fromdownunder]

I have also always wondered why the moment of birth is important but the 9 months of growth before that is not. Surely the foetus is undergoing all sorts of, uuummm, astrological stuff, before the Doctor smacks his/her bum and actually makes the baby breathe. What if the baby is born at 7 Months, or 10 months (yes, it can and does happen).

Why does that one second event of the first breath become the whole basis of planet alignment having an effect on a person's life? It is a joke!

Norm

 

[marplots]

I have also always wondered why the moment of birth is important but the 9 months of growth before that is not. Surely the foetus is undergoing all sorts of, uuummm, astrological stuff, before the Doctor smacks his/her bum and actually makes the baby breathe. What if the baby is born at 7 Months, or 10 months (yes, it can and does happen).

Why does that one second event of the first breath become the whole basis of planet alignment having an effect on a person's life? It is a joke!

Norm

It's a mystery.

 

[Donn]

It's Astrollogy, after all.