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

[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.