Re: [Pen-l] Jared Diamond and the New Yorker, part 2

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

Shane Mage wrote:
>>  That's why a statistical test of the sort I outlined ("Take fifty matched
>> pairs--one a lottery winner, one a victim of a fatal automobile accident.
>>  Give birthday/time/place and event day/time place for each to 200
>> professional astrologers [sample size=10,000].  Tell them to identify which
>> was which in each case.  Test the percentage of correct identifications for
>> statistical significance") is the only way in which a complex model--like
>> one that claims for the "stars" (the electromagnetic balance of the solar
>> system) a degree of influence over the course of an individual life--can be
>> "confirmed" or "disconfirmed."

raghu writes:
> This is all well but please get back to us when you have actually done
> such a study and have something to report. When you make such
> extraordinary claims, the burden of proof is on you.
>
> Until then, I am sorry, but astrology does not even merit being in any
> grey area. It is pseudo-science and belongs alongside creationism and
> alchemy.

that's right. I'd like to see an actual astrological prediction that
is so specific that it can actually be tested. I doubt that any
real-world astrologer would be as specific as in the experiment that
Shane proposes. I'd bet if they were forced to make a very specific
kind of prediction (death vs. lottery winning), the astrologers would
be wrong as often as right (just like a flipped coin lands on heads
half the time).
-- 
Jim Devine / "If heart-aches were commercials, we'd all be on TV." -- John Prine
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