Astrology: Wrong but still predictive?

[Jimmy Snyder]

Carl Sagan brought this up in his Cosmos series 20 years ago.

How time flies. It was 30 years ago.

 

[Evo]

How time flies. It was 30 years ago.

Good gawd. I watched the original on PBS, then bought the VHS set when it came out around $150.00

The Japanese samurai crabs are my favorite part.

 

[Jack21222]

Unintended consequences: That invalidates any tests that falsified the claim.

There aren't any tests that support the claim, so it doesn't particularly matter how many tests that falsified the claim were invalidated.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

There aren't any tests that support the claim, so it doesn't particularly matter how many tests that falsified the claim were invalidated.

You are talking about science, not perception.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Post 48 - 55 were merged with this thread.

How time flies. It was 30 years ago.

Jeez, your post is a little late. Why did you wait so long?

Just out of curiosity, have modern astrologers allowed for this? Perhaps the tests linked in the astrology thread, which do not appear to be conclusive, also allowed for this.

 

[russ_watters]

It appears that at some time a conscious decision was made to attach astrological dates to the seasons instead of the stars:

Tropical astrology is based on the idea that early astrologers (mid-to-late first millennium BCE) defined the star signs according to the seasons in which the sun rose in them; it wishes to preserve the seasonal associations of those star signs by laying out new horoscopes against a first-millennium sky. For tropical astrologers therefore it is irrelevant that the solsticial points (tropics) have drifted from one constellation to another over the millennia, due to the precession of the equinoxes. The underlying philosophy remains unchanged in spite of precession, because it is based on the Earth's (and therefore our) relationship to the sun, not to the stars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_astrology

The logic seems flimsy to me, but hey - it alwyas did anyway!

 

[nismaratwork]

I think that he is saying that when a child is "just" too young to get into elementary school, (s)he gets an additional year to mature before joining the process. Not an unremarkable result.

In Texas, parents sometimes hold back their kids academically in elementary schools to keep their High School football eligibility open as long as possible. Sick!

I read about that (Texas) issue once, and sort of passed over it... it's real?! I can't say that I'm really shocked, but... ugh... hold them back, then hope they get into a sport that's TONS of fun... and knocks your head around like a tether-ball!

Great... that's just great. When did we all suddenly need to be famous, super-rich, and THE BEST? When did people stop being OK with just being a good person, with your own set of talents and abilities?! I get flash-cards, or keeping a kid you think is going to have a hard time in school back a bit. I DON'T see the point of choosing a SPORT for your infant. Wow.

russ: You're right... I kept asking some... "experts" on the subject... I can't say that and not throw-up a bit in my mouth, sorry. Anyway, you're right for pretty much everyone except specific other Zodiacs (Chinese, some Japanese, etc)... and really... as you say... WHERE IS THE LOGIC?!

Oh no, I'm a different magical star-being now... oooh, stop it no... *snooooooore*

 

[SpeedOfDark]

The idea that the stars and planets affect peoples lives in the classical sense is plain lunacy of course.

You said it yourself, did you not? There is no correlation, it's just not there there isn't even a reason that a connect would be present and so there is no reason to even start a study.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

You said it yourself, did you not? There is no correlation, it's just not there there isn't even a reason that a connect would be present and so there is no reason to even start a study.

We are not addressing the question of causation. We are considering the potential for incidental correlation in that the positions of the stars and planets can serve as a clock - could there be time-dependent patterns for personality traits due to unrecognized but explicable influences, that have been observed over the ages but incorrectly attributed to the stars?

 

[nismaratwork]

We are not addressing the question of causation. We are considering the potential for incidental correlation in that the positions of the stars and planets can serve as a clock - could there be time-dependent patterns for personality traits due to unrecognized but explicable influences, that have been observed over the ages but incorrectly attributed to the stars?

I think this one might be bound in the human experience just a bit too much to separate objectively. After all, these constellations only take their forms and meaning from their appearance from Earth, at this (I admit, long by human standards) time. I'm not sure what's being postulated; is there some human element involved with belief that influences birth? I think the answer is that if there is, it's noise amidst the many other reasons people 'time' pregnancy, such as avoiding holidays, birthdays, or hitting a given month or sign out of belief.

At this point, it might not be possible to conduct a meaningful examination without undue cost, and with no real hypothesis...?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I think this one might be bound in the human experience just a bit too much to separate objectively. After all, these constellations only take their forms and meaning from their appearance from Earth, at this (I admit, long by human standards) time. I'm not sure what's being postulated; is there some human element involved with belief that influences birth? I think the answer is that if there is, it's noise amidst the many other reasons people 'time' pregnancy, such as avoiding holidays, birthdays, or hitting a given month or sign out of belief.

At this point, it might not be possible to conduct a meaningful examination without undue cost, and with no real hypothesis...?

Perhaps you can comment on this point. It seems to me that we have learned that no quantitative statements can be made about this claim because there is no accepted personality test that can be used for comparison. It follows, therefore, that no study would be useful.

Correlations between CPI scales and related external criteria tend to fall in the .2 to .5 ranges. This degree of correlation is typical for much of personality research. Extremely high correlations are not likely to be found for personality measures because the scales typically try to assess rather broad behavioral tendencies. [3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Psychological_Inventory#cite_note-Gough-2

Note that that the CPI [California Personality Inventory] was used in the study linked by Gokul, on page 2 [3?] of this thread.

Late edit: qualitative changed to quantitative [sorry about that]

 

[nismaratwork]

Perhaps you can comment on this point. It seems to me that we have learned that no qualitative statements can be made about this claim because there is no accepted personality test that can be used for comparison. It follows, therefore, that no study would be useful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Psychological_Inventory#cite_note-Gough-2

Note that that the CPI [California Personality Inventory] was used in the study linked by Gokul, on page 2 of this thread.

I can, but at the risk of going off on multiple tangents: in my experience the accuracy of all matters psychological increases from nebulous -> specific as you move along the scale of attempting to find a "normal", and rather attempting only to isolate what is abnormal by definition of clinical significance. In the same way that a neurologist is likely to have a set of views that are... uncertain... compared to those of a neurosurgeon, it's really hard to get a read on the content of a single person's... personality.

Again, because it's the best way to do it: look at Gabrielle Giffords: she's going to rehab, where one of the major issues they'll test for is how much of her former "self" (personality) she retains, if any, or all of it. Remember however, that this is arguably the hardest thing to quantify, yet for people who knew her before this event it's going to be easy to tell if it's still Rep. Giffords in there.

We're talking about an involved process involving the baseline as perceived by friends, and family, as well as her contact with a large network of volunteers and public officials. Most people don't offer a clear baseline as the result of any single test, or even series of tests. Sure, you can rapidly rule out or in some things relating to personality DISORDERS using tools such the the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), or even Rorschach Inkblots. Those same tools are not so useful as windows into the "soul" however, and developing any such tool is by its very nature a departure from science.

I'm a real bastard when it comes to psychology and neurology: there's the medicine side, and the science side... and too many people like to see bleed between the two. Well, they're not sciences, they're collections of knowledge and experience, and art... they are not open to the scientific method as of yet. fMRI and MEG begin to give us the broad "Phrenological" hints as to what is going on in our brains, but they're a LONG way from allowing a scientific personality test to exist.

Given that, it's my view that there is no valid test to apply that isn't open to so many known and unknown biases as to be worthless. Given the accuracy, you'd need to do this MANY times, and observe statistical deviations, if there are any notable ones. I suppose what I'm saying is: Psychology is at it's best when it's really ABNORMAL psychology, or the psychopathology of illness... it stinks at inventories of personality as the term is casually used.

If you can't test a hypothesis, it remains a conjecture at best although given the scope of the claim I would say the evidence is painfully insufficient.

edit: NP re: your edit; As you can see I got off on those tangents anyway...

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Given that, it's my view that there is no valid test to apply that isn't open to so many known and unknown biases as to be worthless. Given the accuracy, you'd need to do this MANY times, and observe statistical deviations, if there are any notable ones. I suppose what I'm saying is: Psychology is at it's best when it's really ABNORMAL psychology, or the psychopathology of illness... it stinks at inventories of personality as the term is casually used.

If you can't test a hypothesis, it remains a conjecture at best although given the scope of the claim I would say the evidence is painfully insufficient.

edit: NP re: your edit; As you can see I got off on those tangents anyway...

Note that the point is not to assert that the conjecture is true, rather than it can't be falsified at this time. Consequently, it is not possible to "debunk" astrological claims about personality. Consequently, it would be crackpottery to do so.

Again, just for clarification, this is in regards to incidental correlation, but not causation. We all agree there is no reason to believe the planets and stars could influence our personalities.

 

[nismaratwork]

Note that the point is not to assert that the conjecture is true, rather than it can't be falsified at this time. Consequently, it is not possible to "debunk" astrological claims about personality. Consequently, it would be crackpottery to do so.

If the methods used to debunk astrology depend on the fiction of "personality measurements", then yes: it is currently beyond our capacity to falsify and would crackpottery to claim to have done so.

 

[SpeedOfDark]

We are not addressing the question of causation. We are considering the potential for incidental correlation in that the positions of the stars and planets can serve as a clock - could there be time-dependent patterns for personality traits due to unrecognized but explicable influences, that have been observed over the ages but incorrectly attributed to the stars?

If you think about the people who attributed to the sun, stars, and time you'd understand that it's bogus. Scholars have not been making these links and claims they've been refuting them. Mystics, mislead youth, and bored mothers listen to this stuff. It's not real, I know you really want to be a skeptic but there's no skepticism in this case it's total bogus and all who claim intelligence know this. There isn't a chapter in psychology, personality of people depending on birthday.

I know you guys have been ridiculing me about being a "cynic" and not a skeptic, and that's because there is things to be skeptical about and there is things that are already know to be a crock. Also, you can never be TO SKEPTICAL

 

[nismaratwork]

If you think about the people who attributed to the sun, stars, and time you'd understand that it's bogus. Scholars have not been making these links and claims they've been refuting them. Mystics, mislead youth, and bored mothers listen to this stuff. It's not real, I know you really want to be a skeptic but there's no skepticism in this case it's total bogus and all who claim intelligence know this. There isn't a chapter in psychology, personality of people depending on birthday.

I know you guys have been ridiculing me about being a "cynic" and not a skeptic, and that's because there is things to be skeptical about and there is things that are already know to be a crock. Also, you can never be TO SKEPTICAL

You know what's real and what isn't: so... what's real?

By the way, do you understand the difference between trying to explain a concept like: you're a cynic who thinks he's a skeptic... and RIDICULE? You seem to make a lot of these threads you post in about you... and other threads.

What in your post adheres to the scientific method, which is at the core of Skepticism? You're making an outrageous claim: that you have such a lock on reality that you don't need to examine anything beyond what you have already... support it.