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

[Shane Mage <shmage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On May 9, 2009, at 9:43 PM, Jim Devine wrote:

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.

What an amalgam!--and none of them is a "pseudo-science."

--creationism is an anti-science, pure obscurantism.

--alchemy is an obsolete science whose experimental discoveries and methodological techniques have been assimilated into the modern branches of physical science, chemistry and physics.

--astrology is an ancient traditional practice claiming to be a science; whose putative status as a science cannot, from a scientific viewpoint, either be justified by anecdotal evidence or dismissed a priori out of mere distaste for its conceptual premise (that the changing electromagnetic balance of the solar system has some influence upon the terrestrial biosphere) or revulsion at the vulgarized mishmash which the media offers as "astrology."   

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.

But the experiment (which is not at all impractical, just very expensive) does not ask for any specific "prediction."  It merely asks for a probabilistic choice--which horoscope is more likely to correlate with which event.  If astrological methodology has any validity then astrologers applying that methodology will make the right choice significantly more often than the wrong one.  If it doesn't, then they won't.

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).

Any experimenter will make that bet--its called a null hypothesis.

Shane Mage

This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it

always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,

kindling in measures and going out in measures."

Herakleitos of Ephesos

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