It seems like it is a big business
2006-08-07 14:50:10 · 7 answers · asked by Dan L 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
The evidence says: Fiction.
Fortune telling is an easy thing to test. Either the predictions come true or they don't. It's that simple. It doesn't take a Ph.D. in theoretical physics to test it.
All it takes is competent scientific testing methods and basic integrity in interpreting the results.
If fortune telling of any kind was valid, after all these many, many thousands of years, by now there would be so much documented, undeniable evidence of it that there would be no need to ask such a question any more than having to ask if the effectiveness of polio vaccine is fact or fiction. It's easy to prove one way or the other.
But the fact is that no matter how many people believe in it, it still fails to pass any attempts to test and verify that it works and it's not for lack of trying.
There has been a $1 million prize available for several years to anyone on Earth who could prove ANY kind of fortune telling or psychic powers were real, but all who tried have failed. No one has ever come close.
http://www.randi.org/research/index.html
It's interesting to note that some of the world's most famous 'psychics' have been offered the prize if they could prove even once that the powers they claim to have were real. They consistently decline the offer and the very few who actually did take up the challenge had their 'powers' totally disappear in a controlled scientific setting designed to test their powers once and for all. I wonder why.
I think the matter is sufficiently resolved by now. It's been put to the test for centuries. It just plain doesn't work to any extent that gives it any measurable value whatsoever.
How many more times will it have to be tested before we can conclude it simply doesn't work or, if it does, it works so infrequently as to be treacherously unreliable and indistinguishable from random chance?
This question is in the wrong category anyway.
2006-08-08 06:15:52 · answer #1 · answered by Jay T 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's fiction. Anything that tells you that your destiny is fixed, is a hoax. And, yes, it's a big rip-off, which is why you only see "palm readings" on the poor side of town -- people hope for a "lucky break". Similar to why people gamble.
2006-08-07 15:13:55 · answer #2 · answered by Joya 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is a fraud, using stage magic tricks and what is called 'cold reading' to deceive grief stricken people into thinking that their departed loved ones have given instructions as to disposition of properties or advice for investments. It is one of the lowest crimes I can think of, taking advantage of credulous people at their weakest point.
2006-08-07 15:14:48 · answer #3 · answered by cdf-rom 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
neither. we cannot say that spiritual things are fiction, yet we cannot say things that science can proof a fact. But why need fortune telling?
2006-08-07 15:43:30 · answer #4 · answered by Santos Lucipher 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
fiction...Only God know the future. Anyone else who claims to see into the future is a fraud.
2006-08-07 14:55:09 · answer #5 · answered by danjean79 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
technically, it's based off of obvious reasoning, past happenings, and paranoid-ness. but yes, it's fiction.
(best answer plz?)
2006-08-07 15:01:57 · answer #6 · answered by macaroni280 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
first of all ur question shud be in astrology n not astronomy...astrology is a way of cheating people! never believe what an astrologer says...
2006-08-08 00:24:55 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋