I agree with your point as a scientific test of Astrology's claims and I'm sure John would also. It was not presented as a definitive test of all of astrology, but as evidence that people believe lots of things for poor reasons. I thought of it more as an expose on how people relate to the information found in astrology readings and the language form used. The people were not wrong about seeing themselves in the descriptions because Western astrology uses language that seems more specific than it actually is. As you probably already know, we all have a reasoning flaw called "shaping" influencing our perceptions. We over focus on what fits and ignore what doesn't unconsciously. At least this is the contention of Robert Gilovitch at Cornell who wrote How We Know What Isn't So, The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life.
I think John Stossel is at least as aware as you or I about the limits of what we can conclude from infotainment pieces on TV. You sure aren't the first to call him a fraud although I didn't feel as though he misrepresented anything in this piece. I found the ego stroke factor to be just as present in MMY's astrologer that I spent some time with. Joitish may have more potential to be tested on specific predictions, since they seem to focus more on a person's life events rather than personality. I don't doubt that an intuitive astrologer can't be a good therapist using the system as a prop, but I do doubt the basic premises of the system and haven't seen any tests that convince me otherwise. The show Bullshit with Penn and Teller had an interesting version of this test where 10 astrologers tried to choose who matched the charts they drew with the actual people. I can't remember how that turned out... --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "curtisdeltablues" > <curtisdeltablues@> wrote: > > > > I totally enjoyed that ride! Great stuff. Did you see the show > where > > John Stossel gave a hundred people the same Western astrology > > chart and most of the people thought it was perfectly right on > > for the specifics of their life and personality? Even after > > her revealed they all got the same chart of a serial killer > > many couldn't be dissuaded that it was right on and amazingly > > accurate. > > FWIW, that wasn't even a remotely adequate test > of astrology. If anything, it was a test of the > astrologer, who flunked big-time (she was a Hollywood > celebrity astrologer and seems to have thought the > chart Stossel gave her was his own, so she made the > analysis very flattering); and of the ego needs of > the people to whom he gave the copies of the chart. > > Regardless of whether serious astrology has any > merit, this test was a joke, and Stossel is a fraud > for pretending otherwise. >
