Okay, I'm up for it.

[avevale_intelligencer]

But let's do this properly if we're going to do it at all. I'm a big fan of the scientific method. *adopts big old sh*t-eating grin copyright Simon Baker as Patrick Jane*

For this trick I will require the assistance of a volunteer from the studio audience. The volunteer should have a friend who is (a) an amateur astrologer (since I can't afford to pay for twelve professional jobbies), (b) completely unacquainted with me, and (c) willing to put in a fair amount of effort for no reward other than a possible sighting of the rare Greater Red-Faced Nyrond, or possibly a (partial, and scientifically invalid) vindication of astrology.

If such a person offers him- or herself, my assistant, the dashing and handsome catsittingstill, if she is willing, will select twelve birth dates and times, one of which is mine, the other eleven being randomly selected from a variety of months, years, days and times. The volunteer will then ask the friend to cast a birth chart for each date (classical astrology only; twelve signs, no waiting) and write down a description of the person charted, which the friend will then send to me without the date, chart or any other identifying marks. I will publish the twelve descriptions unedited and in full, and both I and my entire flist (or whoever's still reading) will pick the one that in our individual opinions best describes me.

After everyone who's going to has weighed in, the friend will reveal the correct description, and either I will look like a credulous buffoon (sorry, more like a credulous buffoon than I do already), or (if a significant number of guesses are correct; not sure what a significant number would be in this case) Cat will admit in this journal that on this occasion the experiment was successful, doubtless through pure random coincidence.

It's an awful lot of work to ask of somebody I don't know, but this way I can avoid any suggestion of personal bias. I'm told it's been done "time and again," so once more can't hurt.

Anyone interested, or shall we continue with the moving on process?

Comments

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I'm definitely interested. I've heard of it being done, with two astrologers one of whom is given the date/time and produces a description, and the other is then given the description and asked to derive the date/time (or a set of them, it's not going to be a 1:1 correspondance), and it was reported that the results were statistically significant that it wasn't chance. However, I don't have a reference nor did I have access to the raw data, it would be very interesting to see it done.

Unfortunately, I don't know any experienced astrologers. Or at least I don't know that I know any. I can however ask around in areas where there may well be people who know some. (And if ones are found and they do want money, I'm happy to contribute in order to get the data. Research is not usually free, after all.)

(My feeling is that the best ones are tapping into something. What, I don't know (some kind of universal information field?), and I doubt that it's anything as simple as actual positions of non-terrestrial bodies, that is (I think) likely to just be a way of focussing the mind like (I think) Tarot and other forms of divination.)

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

(My feeling is that the best ones are tapping into something. What, I don't know (some kind of universal information field?), and I doubt that it's anything as simple as actual positions of non-terrestrial bodies, that is (I think) likely to just be a way of focussing the mind like (I think) Tarot and other forms of divination.)
Yes, I think there's at least some of that going on. Even if every bit of information the system produces about the subject is accurate, Tarot and similar use a lot of intuition to pick out which bits are significant (in the sense of "important to the question being asked" rather than the statistical meaning.)

I'd be interested to see a detailed astrological analysis done by computer rather than by human - I expect the process is mechanical enough that that could be done, couldn't it?

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

That would be very helpful, if you could. Thank you.

[vampirdaddy.livejournal.com]

See the references in my 2nd comment to the "Closing thoughts ..." post - where massive tests did not yield any correlation at all.
I'd be interested in the studies you found/heard of - do you have any links?

[keristor.livejournal.com]

However, I don't have a reference nor did I have access to the raw data

Links? It was either in a book or an article and I don't remember which, and it didn't have references to anything to which I had access at the time (as I recall it did have references to something published, but not being a member of the British Library I couldn't get hold of it).

And without access to the raw data and methods I'm not going to believe either side, which is why I'm interested in doing such an experiment (unlike ones with subatomic particles this one can be tested "at home").

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Before starting on this sort of thing, which isn't in the least scientific for any number of reasons (such trials should be blind and should contain far more examples) just look at the Wikipedia page on Astrology and Research.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology#Research

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Or, perhaps, Bad Astronomy

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

The Wiki page, though, is loaded with citations to various studies, both con and, a few, pro.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

No, because that piece immediately makes the bogus assumption(s) that Zander was pointing out in the first place, i.e. that the mechanism *behind* the (alleged) efficacy of astrology is (a) something to do with the stars & planets themselves (rather than, as Zander posits, simply being accidentally correlated with the positions of the stars in a way that makes them a convenient set of reference points), and (b) due to one of the 4 fundamental forces we already know about (c) operating in a way that's intuitively obvious, at least to the extent that the size of effect will be in proportion to the size of the force applied. Those of us who know a thing or two about software know that selectively applied one-bit changes can have dramatic effects where deleting a whole file has very little; Similar things are known to happen in the field of genetics, and may also apply in epigenetics - which is my bet for where we're most likely to find "time of the year" influences on adult personality, aptitudes, health etc. (I would also expect those effects to be somewhat scrambled by modern living with respect to the past, when we had fewer ways to cheat the cycles of hot/cold, light/dark, long-day/short-day, summer food/winter food, etc.)

It's also very snarky in tone, which of course just makes it needlessly uncomfortable to read for anyone who doesn't already agree with its conclusions. Basically, it's not so much preaching to the converted as preaching to the uncoverted in a style that's designed primarily to make the converted chuckle, rather than actually shed any light on the issue. It's also thereby exactly the kind of thing that - back in my younger, more astrology-agnostic days - would have made me want to side with the astrologers just 'cos they appeared to be nicer people, interested in actually helping ignorant people like me understand things rather than making us feel small.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

You have put your finger on what appears to be becoming the major raison d'être of my blogging life. Not to say the bête noire. Thank you.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

"Four fundamental forces that we already know about"????

Such as?

The whole point was that proper scientific studies have been done that have nothing at all to do with assumptions about planetary positions. Such as the studies of people born in the same place at approximately the same time that have shown no personality correlation!

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Uh, usually by the "four forces" people mean:

The nuclear strong force
The nuclear weak force
The electromagnetic force
The gravitational force.

I had thought the second and third were suspected to be the same, leaving three fundamental forces, but I am doubtless behind the times.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Yup, and those were the ones name-checked in the linked article, in a whole preamble that basically boils down to "none of the following list of ideas of how this could work actually *do* work... So therefore it can't work." Which is just crappy logic.

As a refutation of Astrology *as a whole*, the point lil_shepherd makes - basically, "there is no evidence of an effect that needs an explanation (and therefore there is no need to waste time working out whether Astrology, in any form, provides such an explanation)" is perfectly valid - assuming the data do in fact back it up, which I haven't checked - and would stand *stronger* if it was allowed to stand alone, rather than muddying the waters with rather less relevant waffle about the strength of gravity, etc., which are only relevant to demolishing various specific theories of *how* Astrology might work. (As soon as you knock one such theory down, it just invites people to create another. There's no end to the game of "yeah, but what if there's something we *don't know*...?", which is why (a) science shouldn't waste it's time on it, and equally (b) science shouldn't ever claim to finally settled matters in areas where in fact it has simply taken the prudent (Occamic) path of leaving them alone until such time as they start to look worthy of further investigation.)

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

None of which have any relevance to the subject at hand.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Exactly my point. =:o}

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

"The whole point was that proper scientific studies have been done that have nothing at all to do with assumptions about planetary positions. Such as the studies of people born in the same place at approximately the same time that have shown no personality correlation!"

That may have been *your* whole point, but it didn't come across to me as being the whole point of the article. (Basically, if that was the point you wanted to make - and I hope so, 'cos it's a damn good and highly pertinent one! =:o} - then citing that particular article wasn't the best way to do so.)

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

The point of that article are the citations.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Ah. You didn't make that clear.

[EDIT:] My bad. filkerdave didn't make that clear. (I confused your post with his.)

[EDIT AGAIN:] ...Or maybe you did? I was critiquing the "Bad Astronomy" piece. The Wikipedia article OTOH is excellent.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, Paul. I think I misunderstood your original post, and when I tend to refer to Wikipedia it is because the good articles contain decent summaries while citing the original work. My bad.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Same reasons I like Wikipedia. =:o}

No probs. [HIGH FIVE]

[tig-b.livejournal.com]

As a statistician, I seem to have two options here:
offer to be the AA who is completely unacquainted with you; or
offer advice on designing the test.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

I'd suggest option (b). Given that you have at least met Zan and read some of his journal, I'd say you're disqualified for the "completely unaquainted" role.

A good breakdown on things like how big the sample sizes need to be, etc., and *why*, would be educational for several of us, I think. (I have a vague grasp of the principles, but have never practiced the art for real, and have probably forgotten or completely mixed up far more than I remember - let alone remember *accurately*. =:o} )

[tig-b.livejournal.com]

But if I wear black glasses with a false nose I could do a.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Only if you remember not to wear the same black glasses and false nose in a supposedly unrelated paper. =:o}

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, since you know who I am, you can find my birthdate, which might be said to bias your handling of the data. This may not be in the least scientific, but if I'm going to do it I want it to be as unbiased as possible. But thank you for offering.

As for advice in designing the test, that would be very welcome. I thought I'd done as much as I could to make it honest, but I have no skills in this area.

[tig-b.livejournal.com]

As said before, you need a much larger sample - which probably means money?

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Ah. The thing is, I'm only interested in doing it myself. I don't believe that a test with a single subject cannot be conducted in a scientifically proper manner. It may not give results that would convince the scientific establishment, but I'm really not that bothered what they think. They apparently have stacks of negative results already, so I would have to poll like the population of Japan to amass enough evidence just to get their attention.

I'll base my opinion on the result of my single test, and everyone else can do as they please. But if I've missed a trick with regard to removing as much bias as possible from the procedure, I'd be glad if you'd let me know.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Seconded (or whatever) on option (b), I would also like to know more about sample sizes, amount of confidence, etc.

[inamac.livejournal.com]

The actual process of drawing up a natal chart is pretty mechanical (even more so these days given any number of internet sites that provide the necessary data without having to page through the infinitesimally small print of the standard ephemeris (I seem to have misplaced mine)), so you could always do the basic spade work yourself.

The problem comes with 'interpretation' of the results - which largely depends on the particular astrologer whose interpretations you are using and is therefore somewhat less 'accurate' that the Myers-Briggs test (and, indeed, than an efficient Tarot reading). All of these personality evaluation methods have their uses in psychology - but I wouldn't regard any of them as more than a means to an end.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I think it should be a basic principle of this exercise that I have as little to do with the process as possible.

If the particular astrologer is interpreting the charts without reference to any other data about the subjects, then that should give reasonably self-consistent readings. That's about the best I can hope for.

I am honestly looking for a truth here. If neither I nor the people who know me best can pick me out of an astrological line-up that's been honestly prepared by an unbiased source, then I will know that there really is nothing to it in a way that no set of statistics can tell me. If, on the other hand, it works, I don't expect to convince anyone else, but I'll know that it works for me, as Cat said--that the marks of the astrological influences are there and are detectable among all the other stuff that makes up my, er, make-up.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

To get anything like a proper result you need to repeat the experiment at least a hundred times with different subjects and different data, and, even then, conformation bias may well come the way the results are interpreted.

It is the repetition of the experiment, to eliminate the false positives that are statistically inevitable, that would make it even remotely convincing.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

[EDIT TO CORRECT FATAL OMISSION OF A NEGATION - Oops!]

Note that Zander's aim isn't [THAT'S THE EDIT] to establish in the eyes of the world that astrology works (or doesn't, or that the jury is still quite rightly out) *in general*. As I read it, this is a focussed test to see, basically, does astrology (in the form picked for the test, 'cos of course there are many) work *for Zander*.

That said, you're right that to be a valid test, a single trial is insufficient, but in this case the way to multiply the data points available so we can filter real results from the noise isn't to test 100 different people, but to test Zander 100 times (or at least, as many times as we feasibly can).

Suggestion: We do three tests this year. If people are stil interested, we do three more this time next year, and so on - make it an annual event. Then maybe by about 2030 we'd be able not only to say "is Zander significantly Astrologically Correlated?", but even make a first pass at "is Zander becoming more or less Astrologically Correlated over time?" =:o}

N.B. Test conditions would have to be as near identical as possible each time. Could be tricky if the unacquainted astrologer and Zander happen to be introduced to each other somewhere down the line, at one of those big all-night parties he loves to frequent... =;o}

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I was worried there for a moment. :)

I'm certainly up for repeated tests if people think it's worth the effort (and if enough complaisant astrologers can be found), but in that case the information from my chart would have to be kept from me to avoid me learning from it, if you see what I mean, which would mean they all would. And I can't help thinking it's a bit of a swiz if I don't get to read the results. Besides, if I die before 2030, we'll never know.

So I think on the whole I'd rather just do it the once and let that be it.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Actually, thinking about it, there's no way we'd be able to use the same astrologer each time. Even if we somehow foxed them into thinking we were testing different subjects each time, they might notice that one date (Zander's real birth date) kept cropping up again and again. Even if they didn't notice consciously, the coincidence might be picked up subliminally and bias their thinking.

So to multiply the results up for a single test subject, you have to use multiple astrologers [EDIT: who don't know each other, or at least don't know they're involved in same test as each other]. IMHO. Critique of my logic is invited.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

All true. I can't see any obvious flaws in that.

Scientists don't research astrology much because there is no proper theory about how it could work, and what research has been done suggests it isn't valid, (and there is no academic or financial profit in doing the research.)

Most other people don't know enough to design valid tests that would pass peer review (I'm sure I don't) and, even then, some results will turn out to be outliers or unrepeatable, and many astrologers deny the validity of any such tests!

[keristor.livejournal.com]

"Scientists don't research astrology much because there is no proper theory about how it could work"

Is that how they choose? I thought they observed things (like the splitting of light through a prism) and then came up with theories about why they happened. As far as I know there were no theories which suggested how a prism or rainbow worked before it was noticed that the light was split.

On the other hand the "there's money in it" argument does seem to describe how a lot of them work (and why they come up with such divergent results, depending who pays them)...

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I think the argument is that because extensive studies have shown no correlation between time of birth and personality, there's no phenomenon to observe, so nothing to theorise about. There were plenty of rainbows around before Sir Isaac.

Those of us who believe we have observed the phenomenon acting on ourselves and others constitute (individually) too small a sample to be significant, and (collectively) a bunch of people biasing each other and invalidating the results.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I would be honored to choose an appropriate number of false dates / times and provide them, along with a true one.

However, I think that it should not be the people on Zander's friends list who evaluate the match, as many of us know no more of him than what he has chosen to say online. This will obviously be only part of Zander's personality.

In my opinion, it should be someone who knows Zander well, face to face. A family member, perhaps, or someone who has been a close friend for years, preferably decades. Zander and this friend should evaluate the predictions without consulting with each other.

Also I grant lil_shepard's warning that the number will not be large enough to be statistically significant, but I'm nevertheless interested in trying. I am quite curious how it will come out.

As a refinement, rather than choosing one "right" one, I suggest Zander and his co-evaluator give each prediction a "percent right"--an evaluation of how many of the stated traits actually apply. I am very curious to know what the score distribution will be.

If the highest score belongs to the prediction written for the correct time and date, I will cheerfully admit that this trial gave a correct result.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Thank you. That's all I ask.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I would also suggest it would be a good idea if the friend you choose as co-evaluator know as little as possible about astrology him or her self.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

And I meant to add that if the highest score does not go to the correct chart, I will cheerfully regard astrology as convincingly disproved, and you won't hear me mention it again outside fiction.

Call ne cynical

[thrutch.livejournal.com]

I am certain that a lot of "in person" astrologers use cold reading - either consciously or unconsciously. You also have, in this internet age, to find honest astrologers.

Let us imagine that you contact Jake, diviner of deep blue celestial mysteries, and say I want a natal chart for a friend who was born this day in June 1883 or whenever is believable. They will then ask the name of said friend so the chart can be "personalised".

The cheat will then go to one of the numerous astrology programs for the mechanical part, the chart, and may spend 10 minutes going through genealogical sites and the web looking for biographical information. Your google-fu does not have to be very strong to recognise possible investigations like this.

That said, cheats do tend to be over confident so you would likely get a fair result.

On the other hand you might get a smart one who says "Sorry about this but the information you've given me doesn't match the natal chart for this day. Are you sure about the biographical detail you gave me and the date, time and place of birth?"

Just thinking ...