werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) (05/10/86)
> Don't knock astrology quite so hard please. Have you ever had your > chart drawn up by a competent astrologer? I got fed up with the flaming > on both sides of the astrology issue and looked up how to draw up the > chart and drew up my own and found a book of interpretations. Then I > read not only the sections indicated by my chart but some others as > well. And now I am convinced. There is something to it. I know of a study done where 12 people each had their horoscope done by 3 separate professional astrologers. This was then combined with a 4th horoscope compiled by randomly selected sentences from a newspaper horoscope column (all 12 signs over the course of 10 days). Not only did the three professional individual horoscopes not resemble each other any more than the resembled the random sentences (as done by keyword statistical analysis), but 9 of the 12 subjects, when asked which horoscope best fit their personality and life, picked the random sentences. I beleive that this study seriously casts doubt on the believability of astrology. It is fun, though, to read the columns, especially on the rare day where it actually coincides with my life ... -- Craig Werner !philabs!aecom!werner (1935-14E Eastchester Rd., Bronx NY 10461, 212-931-2517) "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity."
gwyn@brl-smoke.UUCP (05/16/86)
In article <2484@aecom.UUCP> werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) writes: > Not only did the three professional individual horoscopes not >resemble each other any more than the resembled the random sentences >(as done by keyword statistical analysis), but 9 of the 12 subjects, when >asked which horoscope best fit their personality and life, picked the >random sentences. > I beleive that this study seriously casts doubt on the believability >of astrology. Assuming that proper experimental techniques were used, it lends some credibility to the hypothesis "professional individual horoscopes are less satisying than averaged general newspaper horoscopes". A sample of 12 individuals is too few for this experiment.