h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Horoscopes are a very stupid thing, don't you think ?

Yep

Cool!
At least I'm not the only one here with this opinion...

Funnily enough, I posted the following on another thread only a few days ago...maybe I had a premonition.

During a period of financial and moral poverty I tried to make a crust by offering computer-generated horoscopes by mail order.

I didn't get enough cheques back to warrant buying the software, so I sent out refunds with the message:

"Due to unforeseen circumstances we have ceased trading."

Hopefully I dented somebody's faith in this life-sapping twaddle.

Interesting.... But how can you make a horoscope with a computer program?

Although the end result is no better than something generated at random, "proper" astrology involves drawing up charts based on calculations about where various celestial bodies were at the time of an individual's birth and comparing them with where they will be during the preiod forecast.

This used to be a hugely complicated business requiring lots of training, one of the reasons why the subject has survived as people assume something difficult must have something in it.

All the calculations can now be done by computer, providing the accurate raw data on which astrologers base their predictions. Computer horoscopes just go a stage further, replacing the human astrologer with a set of rules that link particular aspects of charts to pre-written blocks of text. That allows a "personalised" horoscope to be generated automiatically in a glorified mail-merge.

Can't be any more unreliable than having some guileful old bag doing the same thing. Probably cheaper too.

Now, all that can be done by computer. Some

Wow, sounds very complicated, isn't it?
(I know programing in Pascal and Visual Basic)

I would imagine it is, but there are dozens of competing products. Waste of good programmers really.

[AstroLion dons tin hat, sticks head above parapet]

Computer-generated personal charts are wonderful things. Takes all the hard work out of making a chart, especially when one's sums are just a teeny bit suspect. Problem is that while computers can analyse they cannot synthesise - and that's where a real, live astrologer is needed and what all the study is about.

So you're right - and dead wrong!

Rat-tat-tat! Pchoingg! Ting! (Bullets of curmudgeonly scepticism bounce off Astrolion's tin hat)

You could always test it out:
Find six volunteers from h2g2.
Have their birth data compiled by a third party, so you don't know whose is whose.
Make a forecast for each chart and have a computer do the same.
At the end of the period, give each researcher a copy of all the forecasts.
Let them rank them in order for how close they were to what actually happened to them in that period (1 for closest, 12 for least accurate).
Taking only the scores given to the forecasts that were the "real" ones for each researcher, compare your average score to that of the computer and to the score of 6.5 one would expect in a large trial if there was nothing in astrology at all.

(Throws down the gauntlet)

Rat-tat-tat! Pchoingg! Ting! (Bullets of curmudgeonly scepticism bounce off Astrolion's tin hat)

You could always test it out:
Find six volunteers from h2g2.
Have their birth data compiled by a third party, so you don't know whose is whose.
Make a forecast for each chart and have a computer do the same.
At the end of the period, give each researcher a copy of all the forecasts.
Let them rank them in order for how close they were to what actually happened to them in that period (1 for closest, 12 for least accurate).
Taking only the scores given to the forecasts that were the "real" ones for each researcher, compare your average score to that of the computer and to the score of 6.5 one would expect in a large trial if there was nothing in astrology at all.

(Throws down the gauntlet)

Sorry, won't fall for that one. Besides, it's already been done! It tends not to work, especially in a blind test.

All the subjects have to be scrupulously honest about themselves (difficult in public) and be face-to-face with the astrologer for it to have any chance of succeeding.

All the 'scientific' tests have been tried and astrology tends to fail under such constraints.

But - to misquote Galileo - 'It still works!'

Just knocking the dents out of the hat...

I don't understand how it still works if it doesn't work?

Do astrologers claim to be psychic as well? I thought astrology was meant to be a science, so that it was about studying charts rather than picking up vibes from an individual.

If people have to be face to face, surely the astrologer can then read a person's reactions. Even if they don't realise they're making it up, they might be subconsciously influenced by things that have nothing to do with the stars? If there's a problem with subjects being honest, they could always be observed or monitored in some way.

It's rather like selling someone a dummy mobile phone, then when they come in to complain it doesn't work, asking them to try your number again as they stand opposite you and saying "Well, I can hear you perfectly well!"

Sounds like either it works until you see if it works, or it works if you believe it works.

Must be an old hat you're wearing, if you ask me

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F83178?thread=167951 Hi guys On the above thread I've made a similar challenge:- ie I provide any required personal info, a number of astrologers "do their thang", then I post the results onto the thread to see how alike they are. I've had one person take up the challenge so far...

Just a note to say that I have done a short interpretation of Geoff's chart and sent it to him.

OK...