posted September 22, 2009 04:19 PM         

Just coz I can't mix my chemicals well in my chemicals class doesn't mean that science is dumb.
Just coz I can't understand a book's complexity doesn't mean that the book is dumb.

posted September 22, 2009 04:36 PM         

I once was doing a synastry reading and while I was doing it I became increasedly confused. Nothing fit. Everything was off, it didn`t describe the connection, not a little bit.

And then a bit later I realized I had used the wrong birthyear. LOL

posted September 22, 2009 04:39 PM         

It's probably the Forer Effect.

The Forer effect (also called personal validation fallacy or the Barnum Effect after P. T. Barnum's observation that "we've got something for everyone") is the observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. This effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, and some types of personality tests.

A related and more generic phenomenon effect is that of subjective validation.[1] Subjective validation occurs when two unrelated or even random events are perceived to be related because a belief, expectancy, or hypothesis demands a relationship. Thus people seek a correspondence between their perception of their personality and the contents of a horoscope.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Forer's demonstration
* 2 Variables influencing the effect
* 3 See also
* 4 References
* 5 External links

[edit] Forer's demonstration
Ambox content.png
This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. WikiProject Psychology or the Psychology Portal may be able to help recruit one. (November 2008)

In 1948, psychologist Bertram R. Forer gave a personality test to his students. Afterward, he told his students they were each receiving a unique personality analysis that was based on the test's results and to rate their analysis on a scale of 0 (very poor) to 5 (excellent) on how well it applied to themselves. In reality, each received the same analysis:
“ You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic. ”

On average, the rating was 4.26, but only after the ratings were turned in was it revealed that each student had received identical copies assembled by Forer from various horoscopes.[2] As can been seen from the profile, there are a number of statements that could apply equally to anyone. These statements later became known as Barnum statements after P.T. Barnum, who used them in his performances, allegedly stating "there is a sucker born every minute". This, if he said it, would be reference to the fact that Barnum statements can gull people into thinking they have been accurately assessed by the speaker or test when in fact the outcome could apply to anyone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect

A lot of times I wonder if people can relate to their zodiac sign (depending on the system) and house placements (depending on the system) because of the Forer Effect.

Many phony psychic readers trick people with the Forer effect.

Raymond

------------------
"Nothing matters absolutely;
the truth is it only matters relatively"

posted September 22, 2009 04:42 PM         

quote:

---

I agree with Unmoved. The astrology analysis wasn't bad, just "not applicable." Someone out there with a similar chart probably feels an "uncanny" connection to the one with whom they share that synastry

---

Yeah, well duh. But the person it was for felt an uncanny connection and that is so messed up. It is such a wake up call, but no one wants to see it because then it makes everything they've invested time into a lie.

posted September 22, 2009 04:46 PM         

TY. That actually makes some sense! Not like all teh other BS answers I got that just glossed over the subject to further denial. I hate when people can't be honest when faced with a real issue. Bury the head in the sand does not work in my book.

So, what does this mean as far as astrology? If people think everything fits, then what is the point, really?

posted September 22, 2009 04:47 PM         

quote:

---

But the person it was for felt an uncanny connection and that is so messed up.

---

Yeah... that's questionable. That would have made me a hellava lot skeptical too, of the person who agreed with the analysis.

posted September 22, 2009 04:56 PM         

Yes, I was very upset! It really threw me for a loop, obviously.

Aerial,

That's a good point. Maybe they did just want to identify witht he reading.

posted September 22, 2009 05:02 PM         

I have felt that way too actually.

back in springof 2008, I was starting to doubt mainstream Astrology. I wonder if I was actually hurting people and not hurting them as an astrologer, fooling them to believe that a pseudoscience can give them insight. It really bothered me a lot. This occured during transiting Saturn square my Saturn too!

I was watching a lot of youtube videos about skepticism in regards to Astrology. I ended up arguing with some skeptics on youtube. They are some very condescending people too, but they made me take a look at myself and made wonder if I am gullible or am I delusional because I do Astrology.

Eventually, I came around though. I started being a skeptic of tropical zodiac sign placements for people born in the Southern Hemisphere.

I also felt that only hard aspects are good for looking at events.

I felt that mainstream Astrology was outdated by the astronomical discoveries of the transneptunian objects,centaurs,and asteroids as well as deep space objects and extrasolar planets.

Now I want a more geometrical,harmonic based system like Cosmobiology and Theodor Landscheidt's golden section aspects. I like multidimensional coordinates - not just ecliptic longitude, but also right ascension and declinations which are the coordinates that astronomers use to locate celestial objects. I also consider the nodes of objects, realizing that the moon isn't the only object that has nodes. I am thinking of heliocentric astrology too.

Now, I am strongly questioning house systems because they are based on interpretation errors of Ptolemy's writings. I am concerned that house systems,Placidus and Koch are useless for very high latitude locations. I am strongly considering using whole sign house system which is the original house system.

I value critical thinking. I have Saturn contraparallel Mercury-Venus parallel (Saturn oppose Mercury-Venus in declination longitude equivalent chart). I do value mystical thinking too I have Mercury-Venus-Neptune parallel (Mercury-Venus-Neptune conjunction in declination longitude equivalent chart)

My Saturn oppose/contraparallel Neptune indicates the conflict in me in regards to critical thinking versus mystical thinking.

I was a skeptic of Astrology until 1998 at the age of almost 27.

Raymond

------------------
"Nothing matters absolutely;
the truth is it only matters relatively"

posted September 22, 2009 05:23 PM         

I don't think anyone is burying their head in the sand, just thinking what Aerial managed to say so eloquently.

It wasn't the reading that was bad, it was that person's perception of how it applied to their relationship. It's quite possible they heard what they wanted to hear and so agreed with it. Or maybe they didn't want to publically call out the person that read for them as a fraud (which is what they might have been thinking if the reading was truly "off" for them), so they did the polite thing and said "Oh yeah, that makes sense!" while secretly rolling their eyes.

We won't ever know what was in that person's head...

posted September 22, 2009 06:00 PM         

The chart works the same way. That's why we often see patterns being repeated in many ways. I think it's also the reason why you can interpret the same chart using different techniques (or sometimes house systems) and come out with the same synthesized or synoptic reading.

posted September 22, 2009 07:04 PM         

Let's face it astrologers are not scientists and statisticians. I tried my luck on the billionaire's section and it was a lot of work. I learned much from doing it. Chances are some dates could be off. i would need to contact the individual directly. Also, there are no double blind tests as in experiments. We are taking someone else's word that they put in valid research to find these answers and I must believe that someone is going to be wrong. Search astrology debunk or false, etc. and see the arguments.

posted September 22, 2009 07:53 PM         

Speaking of which, the reason there was money in writing college essays is because colleges have a d-base that allows them to find plagiarized works, even from other essays sometimes, so original work is needed, which is why people like me got paid to come up with something original (which was then polished by someone else and sold). However, academia does NOT have the same system in place to catch THEIR plagiarizing. Save for the medical journals, which JUST instituted the same watchdog programs and look what they instantly found:
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000156

And so much more I could add.

The point being is that if you believe in something, the mind WILL find a way to make it work.

However, that doesn't mean that therefore nothing is real. Despite all kinds of kookiness that has been, and currently is (but not yet labeled as such) in medical science, they still produce a lot that is effective.

I've had electricians who despite being paid good money could not fix the problem only to have some guy without even a GED identify the problem right off the bat and fix it for less than $10.

Computer tech support from India...enough said.

But despite all this crap that pervades EVERYTHING, it doesn't invalidate it. And that's exactly how I see astrology.

But all in all, if I had to name my preferred school of philosophy, it would be absurdism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism

However, that doesn't mean that astrology can't prove useful, just like Tarot cards, a vision quest, a psychotherapist (I see psychology as a pseudoscience, btw, and no, I'm not a Scientologists, and consider Scientology a cure worse than the disease when it comes to psychological BS & exploitation), ink blots, and even just creative works. Or listening to songs while stoned. These give you the mental tools to help you discover yourself. Granted, that means it's not all that great for objectivity, but even so, they can give your intuition the tools to work with on figuring someone else out.

And that said, I've used astrology by computer to come up with accurate charts, and just to test it, have put in the wrong info and the program give a very different, and not very good, reading, so I do believe there's at least a little objectivity to it.

And btw, another test I did...after reading old books about prophetic visions at the library that weren't anywhere close to true, including those based on science rather than mysticism (yet another reason I doubt science--as opposed to the scientific method, btw), I decided to look at magazines that made predictions by scientists. It was ALL EQUALLY bad. If anything, TIME's political and economic analysts were even worse than Mountain Astrologer.

Btw, a test someone else did was have a chimp randomly pick answers (pointing, picking up, etc), and found that he beat the top experts in the field, save for a couple, and even then he was close. That is...it's ALL ultimately BS.

And statisticians...I'm not even going to go there right now.

posted September 22, 2009 08:20 PM         

And now.. people need to do their homework!!

Geez, sometimes, people are just so fast to conclude that the whole astrology is junk just coz they see some wrong descriptions. Well, just by looking at a random chart, can anyone see how many aspects are there? Actually, there are many many aspects (and underlying aspects) in a chart, and then how each aspect manifests can actually be affected by other aspects. So, aside of good analyzing skills, symbolic/psychological knowledge and intuition, the reader of the chart actually has to be as aware of this complexity as possible, which is not easy.
Also, a professional astrologer would normally look at the aspects and tells what's their most common manifestation, which means that he might be able to do a spot on reading about certain aspects in most of the time, but still fail a few times due to different/rarer manifestations of these aspects.

But well, when someone asks for other people's opinions/readings, they might notice (if they themselves have some astrology/symbolic knowledge) that people do tend to say what are the most obvious manifestations of certain aspects, yet it doesn't mean that they are talking rubbish - it's just these aspects in different cases can end up manifesting in a different way, even if other people's opinions/readings does symbolically fit these aspects (which only people who has some astrology knowledge can understand this).