Perfect test for Astrology?

Question

Since Astrology claims that a person's personality traits are determined, or at least heavily influenced, by their birthday, you should be able to work it backwards. That is, take a personality test for an individual and use astrological principals to determine their birthday by the combination of traits.

If any astrologer manages to consistently do this, then astrology works and we should all live life by our horoscopes. If not, then astrology is bunk, and we should free up the newspaper space for more comics.

Ah, I forgot my own point. The question is, does anyone see a problem with my logic? Or a reason that this test wouldn't be fair?

P.P.S. I am an Aries.

Answer 1

Absolutely. A competent astrologer, given your correct time, place, year of birth can tell everything about you. If you don't, it's called the art of rectification for persons who don't know their specific birth times. You can rectify (or correct) their charts based on significant events in your life. Also, you can run a progressed chart. Example, if mars aspected your ascendant at the age of 2, depending what sign, house and aspects to ruler I can tell you exactly what happened to you. And astrology does not, oh, ignorant one, claim that a person's personality traits are predetermined. Much depends on the individual's chart. On any given day say 144 million tauruses are born. Certainly, they are not all alike. Newspapers, once again, base their horoscopes presuming eveyone was born at noon. They cannot possibly do a chart for every individual, so they just do the general. Your rising sign would be somewhat more accurate in the newspaper (usually) than your sun sign because it narrows it down a bit. Rather than, say, 144 million people on that day, now maybe only 50 million have say Leo rising that day. And please don't be offended. Ignorance implies a lack of knowledge. Stupidity implies the unwillingness to learn, or admit ignorance about a topic.

*Chain, check out People of the state of NY vs Evangeline Adams for a reality check. She was given a chart of an unknown person as a test of her abilities and read it so accurately and described the person so accurately that all charges against her for "fortune telling" were dismissed, and thereby changed the laws of NY State. By the way, the person she described so accurately that blew the judge's mind away, was one of his own relatives! So before you condemn, or quote stupid sites to debunk, at least have some knowledge yourself to back it up. Perhaps you didn't know Einstein, along with many others, studied astrology? I guess Nostradamus, Plato, Ptolemy, Edgar Cayce, Carl Jung, the Popes, numerous US presidents, European royalty, to name a few were bogus or idiots too????

Answer 2

It's done all the time. It's called Chart Rectification. Some people don't know there exact birth time, and so, using various events from their life, and working backwards, an astrologer can calculate their actual birth time...


But the newspapers should have more comics anyway...

Answer 3

That's interesting but it's not very scientific. As it turns out, "personality traits" are made up of representations of a wide range of planetary aspects between planets, houses, retrogrades, time of birth, and a whole multitude of variables. Your rather absurd premise is similar to those misguided religious zealots who say, "If you're an atheist, then explain how life started in the first place if there was no God to start it." Yours is a small-minded, rather narrow-minded attempt to appear intellectual and knowledgeable while actually being more or less stupid and somewhat pathetic.

Answer 4

interesting theory you have there...you must be a logical person...so you are either a capricorn, taurus or virgo am I right?

oh yeah, also there is more to astrology then just your sun sign, there is also your moon sign, ascendant and your chinese horoscope also plays a role

EDIT: hmmm.... I was wrong then that proves it...astrololgy is fake

Answer 5

This is true... and I believe it can be done. But where's the question?

Answer 6

There have been tests sort of like this.

An expert astrologer draws up your detailed chart based on your accurate natal data. You are given this horoscope, and two others of different people. Would you be able to tell which one is yours? Because if not, what does it mean to say that astrology works? Whenever this test is done, people are not able to do this with any greater probability than pure chance. (i.e. one in three would get it right.)

Possibly the most detailed test of astrology using this type of method, was performed by Shawn Carlson. His paper, “A Double-blind Test of Astrology”, was published in the prestigious peer reviewed scientific journal Nature, in 1985. The interesting thing is that the San Francisco chapter of the National Council for Geocosmic Research recommended the 28 professional astrologers who took part, and (with Carlson), designed the tests. They also predicted, in advance, what they would consider to be a successful test.

Two tests were performed:

Test #1: Astrological charts were prepared for 83 subjects, based on natal data (date, time and place of birth), provided by the subjects. Each subject was given three charts: one chart based on their own natal data, and two charts derived from natal data of other people. Each subject was asked to identify the chart that most correctly described them. In only 28 of the 83 cases, the subject chose their own chart. This is the exact success rate expected for random chance. The astrologers predicted that the subjects would select their own chart more that 50% of the time.

Test #2: 116 subjects completed California Personality Index surveys and provided natal data (date, time and place of birth). One set of natal data and the results of three personality surveys (one of which was for the same person as the natal data) were given to an astrologer who was to interpret the natal data and determine which of the three CPI results belonged to the same subject as the natal data. In only 40 of the 116 cases, the astrologers chose the correct CPI. As with test #1, this is the exact success rate expected for random chance. The astrologers predicted that they would select the correct CPI profiles in more that 50 per cent of the trials.

Conclusion by Carlson:
"We are now in a position to argue a surprisingly strong case against natal astrology as practiced by reputable astrologers. Great pains were taken to insure that the experiment was unbiased and to make sure that astrology was given every reasonable chance to succeed. It failed. Despite the fact that we worked with some of the best astrologers in the country, recommended by the advising astrologers for their expertise in astrology and in their ability to use the CPI, despite the fact that every reasonable suggestion made by advising astrologers was worked into the experiment, despite the fact that the astrologers approved the design and predicted 50% as the "minimum" effect they would expect to see, astrology failed to perform at a level better than chance.

"I have not yet received a serious scientific challenge to the paper. The newsletter of the American Federation of Astrologers Network published a response in January (1986). I was very disappointed to see that it largely consists of personal attacks. Its few substantive criticisms are attributable to ignorance of the experiment, of the CPI, and of basic scientific methodology."

So the astrologers failed their own test. Does this mean they gave up astrology as being useless? Of course not: they are totally closed minded to the possibility that astrology doesn’t work.

Add on: Humans are pattern seeking creatures that have the one thing other animals don't have. That is imagination. We can imagin things do not exist now or ever. However, that makes us also gullible, easy to fool. I do not debate that people like Nostradamus, Plato, Ptolemy, Edgar Cayce, and Carl Jung embrace astrology. That does not make astrology true, it can mean that they were mistaken.
I am aware of a quote that Einstein supposed to have made about astrology. Problem is there is no source is given.

According to Alice Calaprice, Senior Editor at Princeton University Press and an editor on the Einstein Papers project for the press for the past 20 years, this astrology quote, like so many others attributed to Einstein by people in order to gain credibility, is totally bogus. In fact, it is in her edited volume THE EXPANDED QUOTABLE EINSTEIN ... under "Attributed to Einstein," along with hundreds of others just like it, such as "If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts" and "preparing a tax return is more complicated than relativity theory." ... Under astrology, Einstein did say: "The reader should note [Kepler's] remarks on astrology. They show that the inner enemy, conquered and rendered innocuous, was not yet completely dead."

That is why we uses science for separating the truth from lies and delusion.

Add on: I do object to someone calling others idiots or stupid. This is called "Ad hominem" - attacking the arguer and not the argument. This is an attempt to insult rather than encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.