131–140 of 188 posts
If astrology people understood science they wouldn’t be astrologists Glad we have something to point to finally as a reference
The problem is all the "scientific" fields that are nearly as high on the bullshit quotient as astrology that we stubbornly continue to defend.
Astrology works on people who really believe in astrology, because they internally reinforce behavior patterns to conform to their astrological predications. To be fair though, most doctors don't perform much better than these astrologers in my experience, and that's with billions of dollars in research, a quarter of a million dollar education and years of rigorous training. It turns out most people are incompetent a…
Obviously astrology does no better than random guessing, that's no surprise. But the fact that astrology had such low levels of agreement is a little interesting to me -- I guess I assumed there was some kind of underlying system to astrology, but I guess not! > Much to my surprise, astrologers had very low agreement with each other on the chart for each person. If astrologers picked charts at random, they would agre…
Obviously disease is caused by a dwarf residing in the belly.
Obviously astrology does no better than random guessing, that's no surprise. But the fact that astrology had such low levels of agreement is a little interesting to me -- I guess I assumed there was some kind of underlying system to astrology, but I guess not! > Much to my surprise, astrologers had very low agreement with each other on the chart for each person. If astrologers picked charts at random, they would agre…
Traditional astrology has an extremely sophisticated system underneath. Modern astrology, not so much.
There's a famous study that found that hockey players are statistically more likely to be born in certain months, due to them being the biggest in their year-groups, which created a self-fulfilling cycles of attention from coaches. Reinterpreted, if you're an Aquarius, you're 50% more likely than an Aries to get into the NHL[1]. So, I guess I do sometimes believe in astrology, it's just very rarely better than random…
I had a thought that astrology may have had some merits in older societies in climates where weather and daylight patters have distinct variations throughout the year (i.e tropical excluded zones), with effect on agriculture and daily activities, and so how and what small child were exposed in specific several months of their life (diet, activity, temperatures, daylight, ...) have had noticable effect on their behavi…
The comments here are extremely unhelpful. We get it, you think astrology is stupid and anyone that thinks it works is an idiot worth ostracizing. Now can we get on with comments actually diving deeper into the actual study in the OP?
The inter-astrologer agreement being low strongly indicates that there's not even a systematic basis for how conclusions are reached. I would have expected more bland agreement -- this person does X, which is something that Leos do, so they are a Leo. And they're just fooled by confirmation bias and base rate fallacies. "Yes they are a Leo!" -> I'm a genius, "No, they're a Taurus" -> Oh, it is so unusual to see a Taurus act that way!
But this failure feels deeper; people have adapted to the fact that astrology doesn't work by adding ever more complex epicycles to their personal theory of astrology until it has completely diverged from their peers.
The comments here are extremely unhelpful. We get it, you think astrology is stupid and anyone that thinks it works is an idiot worth ostracizing. Now can we get on with comments actually diving deeper into the actual study in the OP?
Ok let's dive in: The actual study in the OP says: Astrology is stupid and anyone that thinks it works is an idiot worth ostracizing.
In terms of predicting the future, no. But probably most people do it to feel better about their lives. It may work from that point of view. You could compare it to finding a religion or seeing a shrink.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Astrology works Citation needed. Even agreement between the astrologers was low, which is a strong argument that it doesn't work even if you believe in it. That is, the patterns "predicted" by astrology simply do not exist; individuals cannot reliably reinforce their behavior based on expected behavior because there is no agreement on what the expected behavior is. > most doctors don't perform much better than thes…
People who are really into astrology absolutely make an effort to conform to their sign, choose who to have significant relationships because of it and decide to do things based on how well it conforms to their belief about their astrological nature. That will become patently obvious to you if you spend a decent amount of time around people who are really into astrology. That's different from astrologers failing to m…
In the ten minutes he was gone, they looked up his sign and his girlfriend decided they were not compatible and literally dumped him when he got back. I guess with the lens of time, maybe there was more going on, but at the time it seemed like this was solely based on the advice of the astrology website. I was flabbergasted and have had a very negative opinion on astrology ever since.
Astrology works on people who really believe in astrology, because they internally reinforce behavior patterns to conform to their astrological predications. To be fair though, most doctors don't perform much better than these astrologers in my experience, and that's with billions of dollars in research, a quarter of a million dollar education and years of rigorous training. It turns out most people are incompetent a…
> Astrology works Citation needed. Even agreement between the astrologers was low, which is a strong argument that it doesn't work even if you believe in it. That is, the patterns "predicted" by astrology simply do not exist; individuals cannot reliably reinforce their behavior based on expected behavior because there is no agreement on what the expected behavior is. > most doctors don't perform much better than thes…
https://medium.com/doctoryak/challenging-sciences-status-quo...
“There was interest and support from a few but most of my work was rejected for publication and even accepted papers were significantly delayed. I was met with constant criticism that my conclusions were premature and not well supported. When the work was presented, my results were disputed and disbelieved, not on the basis of science but because they simply could not be true. It was often said that no one was able to replicate my results. This was untrue but became part of the folklore of the period. I was told that the bacteria were either contaminants or harmless commensals”.