up & down & sideways

[baratron]

Today I am mostly insane. Feeling quite happy until I remember the D00M and ANGzT. So I have been drowning out the noise in my head with VERY LOUD MUSIC.

It'll work until I get a headache.

Also, this is interesting: as one of those people who never fits in astrology, description of the Gemini/Cancer cusp. I'd cut & paste the entire text here with sarcastic comments inserted, except I can't be bothered. Suffice to say that the bits about being intuitive, abstract, having lots of friends, liking food and growling at people who threaten my friends are me, and the bits about wanting to look after relatives, liking team sports and having a tough outer shell are not. In a Barnum statement test, I randomly clicked on several of the cusp sign descriptions. It's true that a lot more of the Gemini/Cancer description applies to me than either Taurus/Gemini or Cancer/Leo, but the same could be said of Capricorn/Aquarius. Hrm.

Has anyone done some sort of blind test where they've taken lines of description as found in astrological profiles, and got people to say if that description applies to them or not; and then compared that with the "actual" profile that people of that astrological sign are supposed to have? Or with the same people's answers to how much of their astrological sign description they think matches them? It's easy to read an astrological profile and say "omg, that's so totally me!" when you're already expecting it to be, or "that couldn't be further from me if you tried" if you don't believe in astrology - but your own prejudices about whether or not you believe affect your willingness to accept ideas as being about you or not. If that makes any sense. Ability to do coherent English, she is gone again.

So, has anyone tried to separate out the ideas and do a blind test, and did they find anything significant?

I think I have the headache from the loud music starting :/

Comments

[nmc.livejournal.com]

I have a fuzzy memory of an astronomy professor saying that such a study had been done, and that the results were that people would accept descriptions that had nothing to do with their actual star charts. As in, you could give a Cancer a Pisces chart, but tell them it was a Pisces chart, and they'd find it just as descriptive as the Cancer chart.

However:

(a) I don't know if he cited authors, title or venue. I certainly don't remember any of them.
(b) That year, I was in one of four states (or some combination thereof): (1) Programming, (2) sleeping, (3) becoming drunk, or (4) drunk.

[evilref.livejournal.com]

Are you thinking of Gauquelin's studies of Mars and Jupiter?

http://www.skepsis.no/english/subject/astrology/studies.html

Also some studies have shown links between the moonphase and human behaviour - and others haven't.


For what it's worth, Jupiter position is known to have an effect on climate, and so on economic conditions, right as the ancients predicted. That is because of something called the sunspot cycle. That might conceivably affect nutrition at critical development stages, especially before the agricultural revolution.

That's quite a small foundation for the great edifice of astrology, though.

The other thing worth bearing in mind with any study that shows birth signs randomly distributed is that the birthrate is not random over the year. There is a peak around the Autumnal Equinox, for example - nine months afte Christmas. So if you pick any random sample of people in any way, you're unlikely to get a random distribution of birth signs.

[nmc.livejournal.com]

Are you thinking of Gauquelin's studies of Mars and Jupiter?

I have honestly no idea. It was something a professor said in one class a long time ago, and most of those brain cells have been sacrificed before the altar of the great God Whiskey.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

Somebody did a blind test where volunteers were shown two magazine-style astrology snippets - one for their own sign and one for another sign - and a made-up one chosen at random. They were asked to say which fit them best. The made-up one came out ahead. The sample was self-selected, though, and it's also arguable that to be a fair test, it should be based on volunteers' complete birth charts rather than just their sign.