kwh@bentley.UUCP (KW Heuer) (05/01/86)
In article <415@mcgill-vision.UUCP> mcgill-vision!mouse writes: >In article <719@bentley.UUCP>, kwh@bentley.UUCP (KW Heuer) writes: >> In article <935@cylixd.UUCP> cylixd!dave (Dave Kirby) writes: >>> Is there anything to Biorhythms, or is it just neo-astrology? >> >> I reject it for the same reason that I reject astrology: it's based >> on such an absurd premise. There might be some such cycles in people, >> but I doubt that [...various things...] > >Don't knock astrology quite so hard please. Have you ever had your chart >drawn up by a competent astrologer? I got fed up ... and looked up how to >draw up ... my own [chart] and found a book of interpretations. ... And >now I am convinced. There is something to it. > >The premise of astrology, as I understand it, is not that the positions of >the planets affect certain things here (such as people's lives), but that >they are correlated with things here. There is a large difference! It may >indeed be a cause-effect relationship, though we will need some new >theories to explain it if so; but it also might not. Well, since in my previous posting I compared biorhythms to astrology and explained why I consider *popular* biorhythmology to be just as much bunk as *popular* astrology (the sort of thing that appears in the newspapers, which implies that 1/12 of the population will hit the jackpot today in Vegas), I'll now do the reverse and state that I do not automatically reject either *competent* astrology or biorhythms. In fact, I did mention one obvious correlation (tides), and one interesting possibility (weather). There are also some well-documented effects (the full moon crazies) that are probably psychological in nature. What sort of things do you claim are correlated with planet positions? Are we talking about earthquakes, election results, or what? And how significant are which planets? Can the results be objectively analyzed? Karl W. Z. Heuer (ihnp4!bentley!kwh), The Walking Lint "You're a Taurus, aren't you?" "No, I'm a Klein Bottle."
dhenson@islenet.UUCP (Donald D. Henson) (05/04/86)
From postnews Sun May 4 19:00:48 1986 > . . . > > What sort of things do you claim are correlated with planet positions? Are > we talking about earthquakes, election results, or what? And how significant > are which planets? Can the results be objectively analyzed? > > Karl W. Z. Heuer (ihnp4!bentley!kwh), The Walking Lint > "You're a Taurus, aren't you?" "No, I'm a Klein Bottle." Come on, folks. Surely, you don't believe in that astrology garbage. If you do, you might want to take a look at a report on astrology in the December 5, 1985 issue of "Nature". A Univ of California researcher, Shawn Carlson performed a double-blind (and scientifically valid) test of astrology. His conclusions? "Astrologers who claim they can analyze a person's character and predict a person's life course just by reading the 'stars' are fooling the public and themselves." Let's throw a little science on some of the bs. Don Henson Infosys Consulting
rastaman@ihdev.UUCP (B. Legba) (05/08/86)
In article <782@bentley.UUCP> kwh@bentley.UUCP (KW Heuer) writes: >also some well-documented effects (the full moon crazies) that are probably >psychological in nature. I believe there was a one paragraph article in the May 6 "Chicago Tribune" stating that somebody funded by the NSF found zero correlation between moon phase and aberrant behavior Sorry, I just glanced at the article and didn't pay much attention to the details (who, where, how). ihnp4!ihdev!rastaman "Oh yeah? Well, word on the street is your sister's a Menudo groupie."
colonel@ellie.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) (05/12/86)
> And I do admit to reading the daily horoscopes. Sometimes I think > Patric Walker's keeping tabs on me! :-) I once ported the UNIX ching(6) to CDC's NOS on our university main- frame. For weeks people who tried it asked me, "How does it KNOW?!?" By the way, there's an analogue in the theory of computation: you can compute more things with the help of an uncomputable oracle than you can without it! "Mountain sits on Wind: the Image of FLATULENCE. Thus the monarchs of old were wont to encourage Virtue by con- suming black beans." -- Col. G. L. Sicherman UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel CS: colonel@buffalo-cs BI: csdsicher@sunyabva
kwh@bentley.UUCP (KW Heuer) (05/15/86)
In article <2403@islenet.UUCP> islenet!dhenson (Donald D. Henson) writes: >>What sort of things do you claim are correlated with planet positions? Are >>we talking about earthquakes, election results, or what? And how significant >>are which planets? Can the results be objectively analyzed? >> >>Karl W. Z. Heuer (ihnp4!bentley!kwh), The Walking Lint >>"You're a Taurus, aren't you?" "No, I'm a Klein Bottle." > >Come on, folks. Surely, you don't believe in that astrology garbage. ... >Let's throw a little science on some of the bs. I wish you'd quoted the previous poster instead of me. Did you notice that, except for my signature, each sentence ended with a question mark? I'd said previously said something about (popular) astrology being bunk, and was told that "competent" astrology is not. It's impossible to shoot down a statement like that until you know what claims are being made, so I was asking those questions to clarify the discussion. Consider the following "astrological predictions", in decreasing order of triviality (and probability). I think we all agree that the first is valid and the last is not. "Based on the position of the sun, I predict it will be dark at midnight." "When the sun and moon are aligned next week, there will be a spring tide." "When all the planets line up in [whenever it was], there will be increased geological activity, which might make California fall into the ocean." "Because a planet nearly a light-day away is (relative to viewpoint Earth) is in a constellation that happens to look like an elephant (to the extent that two stars joined by a straight line can be said to look like anything), everyone born in April should invest in a small business this afternoon." Karl W. Z. Heuer (ihnp4!bentley!kwh), The Walking Lint