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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
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    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