Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!microsoft!uw-beaver!cornell!vax135!ariel!houti!hogpc!houxm!hocda!spanky!burl!duke!unc!tim From: tim@unc.UUCP Newsgroups: net.misc Subject: Re: The Earth-Centered Universe Message-ID: <5567@unc.UUCP> Date: Fri, 15-Jul-83 17:11:45 EDT Article-I.D.: unc.5567 Posted: Fri Jul 15 17:11:45 1983 Date-Received: Tue, 19-Jul-83 18:00:59 EDT References: ihuxx.470, <5517@unc.UUCP> ihuxb.270 Lines: 130 Here is a response to an article of mine. It was written by Allen England. What "astrological phenomena" are you talking about? Scientists deride astrology because it pretends to be a science when it is little more than pseudo-religious mumbo jumbo! As I said originally, I am not interested in defending astrologers. However, a lot of scientists display an appalling lack of fairness when they speak of astrology. There is a lot of loose talk against it. Allen here is guilty of this as well. How is it that astrology pretends to be a science? Are you saying that it pretends to be a science because it claims to deliver information? Are you saying, then, that science has a monopoly on information gathering? If your answer to either of the latter questions is no, then I don't understand what you are saying, and I would appreciate clarification. I will assume that you answer both in the affirmative for the purposes of this discussion; even if this is not the case with you, I know it is with many people on the net. To give science a monopoly on truth is to be dogmatic and close- minded. Science is a model, a particular way of gathering and organizing data. It is entirely possible that this model has inherent limitations. I don't know of any, but that hardly means that none can exist. To claim otherwise is to put yourself on the same level as the Bible-thumpers. By the way, some clarification is in order for those of you who have only been exposed to newspaper horoscopes and other simplistic forms of sun-sign astrology. All these are prima facie nonsense -- when they are not too general to be considered useful at all, they are too specific to apply to all their subjects. Dividing the population into twelve groups this way is obvious bull. The sort of astrology performed by professional astrological consultants is by no means on the same level of gibberish. It may be nonsense, but it is definitely not prima facie nonsense. Do it yourself (it isn't that hard, with the right books) and see. I do not know of a single phenomena [sic -- read phenomenon] that can be explained using astrology. I would welcome evidence of such things. Just because something can not be disproved does not justify believing in it. That was the argument used by Sagan in "Cosmos". Who says that astrology cannot be disproved? The fundamental assertion of astrology is that trained astrologers can derive useful information about an individual from a complete astrological chart. This is a testable assertion. Consider the following experimental design. A random sample of people is selected. Complete astrological information about each is computed. The astrological data is presented to a team of trained astrologers -- selection of this team might be a bit difficult, but the astrological professional organizations could help. They examine this, doing additional calculation if they desire, and then perform interviews with each of the subjects. During these interviews, any mention of age, birthdate, or birthplace is forbidden. All persons in the sample should be about the same age, to prevent identification by means of long-lived aspects between the outer planets (which last decades). After the interviews, the astrologers attempt to match horoscopes to subjects. This is not a complete experimental design; we need to do this several times with several samples. In addition, at least one trial should be a control trial, in which the interview step is omitted. The experimental results will follow from statistical analysis of the matching. If the team performs at levels significantly better than chance would allow, with the standard significance levels of psychological research, then we could say that there was some evidence for the fundamental assertion. Otherwise, we could say that we had failed to achieve results that contradict the null hypothesis. If the same experiment is performed with several teams of astrologers and the null hypothesis is not contradicted in any case, we can say that astrology is bullshit, or that all our astrologers are incompetent. If a large enough sample of astrologers is taken, and the null hypothesis is not contradicted, then the chances of anyone finding any competent astrologer are too remote to be of consequence, which is basically the same thing as saying that astrology is not useful, thus contradicting the fundamental assertion of astrology and "disproving" it. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the thing, you can't prove that there are NO competent astrologers, but you don't really need to go that far to have a practical disproof. If the null hypothesis is contradicted in any case, it may be that the astrologers in the other cases are incompetent, but that this team is competent. Further experiments with the sucessful teams can determine this. It is important that care is taken here; Rhine used this method to get falsely inflated results. He had "rounds" of subjects; if you did well enough in the first round, you went on to the second, and so on, until he had a set of people which had done well in every round. These were held up as examples, but if you took into account the size of the initial sample things were not very impressive -- the "luck" of the core group was really just what you would expect from chance with a sample that big. Once the problem is recognized, though, there are ways to prevent it legitimately. So, the fundamental assertion of astrology is testable; there may be some kinks in the detailed design right now, but the overall design seems workable. Now who's going to pay for it? How many funding organizations do you know of that would underwrite such a study? How many psychology professors who, even if by some chance they were open-minded enough to be interested in it, would lay their careers and reputations on the line by suggesting such a thing? (Remember, psychologists have even more reason than astronomers to resent astrology.) The simple fact is that no such study has been done, and that due to prejudices in the scientific world it may never be done. If you won't let someone try to get evidence, it is hardly fair to castigate him for not having any. That is what I object to, that blatant unfairness. My own opinion on the matter is that we should not reject astrology out of hand on the basis of the lack of evidence, since after all the thing is testable and no tests have been done. This is not an "invisible fairies under the chair" matter, in which the assertion is untestable. Both those who accept astrology and those who reject it usually do so on grounds that I find unacceptable; not having any strong opinion on the matter, I choose not to throw in with either camp, and try to bring the two closer. ______________________________________ The overworked keyboard of Tim Maroney duke!unc!tim (USENET) tim.unc@udel-relay (ARPA) The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill