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Randi`s poor tests

Just two - first, your link doesn't work (have you checked the spelling perchance?), and second, Mr Marks might care to answer some of the questions instead of avoiding them all the time. He accuses skeptics of all sorts of fallacies, then goes on to commit them blatantly himself!

The response is simple: If astrology works, get Mr marks to apply for the JREF $1,000,000 Paranormal Challenge, and prove it beyond all doubt. It's all absolutely fair and perfectly above board, so what has he got to lose? The application form and conditions are readily available via the main page of this site.

So when will do you think we expect to see Bob Marks application? Soon? I'm betting he won't, and will have a plethora of excuses why not! ;) :)
 
Yeah, it's pretty useless. Right at the beginning he states that skeptics should just ask for proof - as we have been doing. But while he goes through and attempts to refute people's arguments (mostly by claiming that the claim the person is debunking was never made, although I have seen all of those claims made by internet astrologers), he never actually supplies any proof. Which pretty much makes his rebuttle useless. Where is the proof?

Woodwater, you keep posting stuff and asking for comments. What's YOUR opinion? What did YOU think of the article?
 
Woodwater...

You are just another joker from some board that cannot deal with the 'what is reality'....just another 'AmyWilson' wannabee

Prove us all wrong...

Trouble is...I know full well you wont..

You've been marked as an idiot troll...

You have the option to prove everyone wrong...or not...

Your choice...

DB
 
Now we come to James, the Amazing, Randi, a gentleman who truly lives up to his name. Mr. Randi, for those few of you who may still not be familiar with his work, has made exposure of fraud and stupidity his calling in life. He certainly has found no shortage of material. Randi is to be commended for his efforts to remind us all how easy it is to be fooled. He did a demonstration once with a bunch of college students. They were told that an “astrologer” was preparing a personal horoscope for each of them and that they were to evaluate it. Most of the students said that the “horoscope” fit them to a tee, even those who said that they didn’t believe in astrology. They were then asked to change “readings” with the person next to them. Of course, most were surprised to find out that they all had the same “reading”.

Doesn’t this “disprove” astrology? Not at all. Suppose each student were given a standard, accepted psychological test instead, and then given these same “horoscope readings” and told that these were the test results. Wouldn’t their answers have been the same? Would this have “disproved” a standard, accepted psychological test? Of course not. What Randi demonstrated here, as he has done so often, is that people are gullible and easily fooled. The results say nothing about the validity of astrology. Other researchers are not so careful. There was an article in in the July 1995 edition of Skeptical Inquirer magazine a few years back titled “Did the Moon Sink the Titanic”. The author, Richard L. Branham, Jr; examined the dates of several disasters at sea and found that the sign position of the Moon showed no correlation at all. Unfortunately for the author, no astrologer (at least to my knowledge) ever claimed that it did. Another strawman fallacy. Had the author taken the time to study some astrology, he would not have bothered to do the study
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I assume this is what your refering to. I agree with the author, this doesn't disprove astrology, but was this Randi intent? I doubt it, as this author says "people are gullible and easily fooled".

Show me a test that has been contucted to actually test the validity of astrology.
 
Proving that astrology does not work is difficult, as most cases of proving a negative are. The experiments of Randi to which the author refers, are not provided as evidence of astrology not working, but are instead shown as evidence for alternate theories that have been put forth by critics of astrology.
 
De_Bunk said:
Woodwater...

You are just another joker from some board that cannot deal with the 'what is reality'....just another 'AmyWilson' wannabee

Prove us all wrong...

Trouble is...I know full well you wont..

You've been marked as an idiot troll...

You have the option to prove everyone wrong...or not...

Your choice...

DB
Click to expand...

my friend
i couldnt care less what you think. you cant see me and youll never seeme,thats the advantage of nternet:)
 
Bob Waters: Notice again how Sandbek, like Franknoi, avoids the questions: “Does astrology work?” and “How may it be tested?” in order to indulge in ad hominums.
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Notice again how Bob Waters does not answer the question: "How may it be tested?" The whole counterargument that Bob Waters makes could have been simply avoided if he just provided evidence that astrology works. Stop whining about how your critics are attacking you unfairly and show the evidence.

Dr. Sandbek:They actually believe that the names the Greeks arbitrarily gave to the planets mean something. How foolish.

Bob Waters: First of all, how do you know that the names were given arbitrarily? Could it be that the ancient Greeks observed an effect first and gave the name later?
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I guess that could have happened. Of course, if we had the tiniest bit of evidence that the Greeks (or other ancients) observed the effect before naming the planets, then it would be much easier to believe. That is Skeptico's point here: http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/03/the_astrology_c.html

------

So, Woodwater, how's chances of looking at any really good evidence for astrology? Can you provide links to peer-reviewed studies showing that astrology works?
 
woodwater said:
my friend
i couldnt care less what you think. you cant see me and youll never seeme,thats the advantage of nternet:)
Click to expand...

And woodwater thereby firmly establishes that he is nothing more than a troll.

Unfortunately, we'll need to go on a few more pages before we can post recipes, so...

Woodwater, have you considered that the link doesn't even say Randi's test was bad, just that it didn't prove astrology wrong? What it did show was that people's gut instinct about whether a horoscope applies to them is an inaccurate measure of its accuracy.

Now, Randi never claimed he could prove astrology wrong. The reason is that proving a negative is really a very difficult tasks. For example, prove that there are not little green fairies under your bed that disappear whenever you look under it.

What Randi did claim is that no one can prove astrology is real. If you challenged me to prove that there ARE little green fairies under your bed that disappeared every time anyone looked under it, I would have a difficult task indeed...
 
woodwater have a look at this link http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/astrology.html
James Randi is not the only expert who has issues with astrology.
In the link you posted the author seems to be stating that because there are frauds that dosen't mean the real thing does not exist - if you accept this then....I am a Nigerian prince and my father just died intestate.
 
From the article:

All the long range forces we know in the universe get weaker as objects get farther apart. But, as you might expect in an Earth-centered system made thousands of years ago, astrological influences do not depend on distance at all.
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Why would you expect that?

It's drivel.

:)
 
But, as you might expect in an Earth-centered system made thousands of years ago, astrological influences do not depend on distance at all.
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Actually, this is not entirely true. Distance does matter, because they don't include any of the (what, hundreds?) planets found outside our own solar system.

Yet, Pluto's influence is as great as Mars'. :rolleyes:

It's not just drivel. It's yet another example of Astrological double-thinking.
 
Ersby said:
From the article:

All the long range forces we know in the universe get weaker as objects get farther apart. But, as you might expect in an Earth-centered system made thousands of years ago, astrological influences do not depend on distance at all.
Click to expand...


Why would you expect that?
Click to expand...
Because the people who originally came up with the idea were just making stuff up, and they didn't know about the inverse square law.
 
I think a reasonably logical argument for this is that the influences were mapped by early astrologers "as is", thus they did not take distance into account. Much like ancient star maps simply list apparant magnitudes, and such observations are, of course, no less valid just because we now know that due to different distances, the actual magnitudes are different.

Hans
 
woodwater said:
Hi
go to this link. He refers to Randi`s work at the end.Comments?

http://www.bobmarksastrologer.com/skeptics.htm

:)
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Nobody claims that this type of demonstration disproves astrology.
What is shows is that subjective validation gives no reliable evidence of validity.
Yet pseudoscientists rely heavily on subjective validation (personal demonstrations and testimonials from satisfied customers) to support and advertise their services.
 
They were told that an “astrologer” was preparing a personal horoscope for each of them and that they were to evaluate it. Most of the students said that the “horoscope” fit them to a tee, even those who said that they didn’t believe in astrology. They were then asked to change “readings” with the person next to them. Of course, most were surprised to find out that they all had the same “reading”.

Doesn’t this “disprove” astrology? Not at all. Suppose each student were given a standard, accepted psychological test instead, and then given these same “horoscope readings” and told that these were the test results. Wouldn’t their answers have been the same? Would this have “disproved” a standard, accepted psychological test? Of course not. What Randi demonstrated here, as he has done so often, is that people are gullible and easily fooled. The results say nothing about the validity of astrology.
Click to expand...
As I remember the test, the purpose was to show how people are willing to accept horoscopes even though they are not made specially for them, and that the fact that people regard horoscopes as very precise does not validate them. Randi never claimed that this test disproved astrology.

They were then asked to change “readings” with the person next to them.
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Nope, it was the person behind them. This guy is totally unreliable. ;)
 
It's not a test, and Randi has never claimed that it disproves astrology. It's a demonstration, and a very effective one.

A similar test would consist of astrologers making up horoscopes for the entire group, then giving people all the horoscopes and asking them to pick out their own. These sorts of tests also give similar results, as no one can pick out their own horoscope. Of course these never "disprove" astrology either, because the astrologers just claim that whoever made up the horoscopes wasn't a very good astrologer and that horoscopes are never cut and dried anyhow.
 
Opportunity Knocks

Strider1974 said:
I am a Nigerian prince and my father just died intestate.
Click to expand...

I wonder if I may be so bold, do you need any help trying to get the money out of the country?

For a small percentage I would be delighted to give you my bank details!

It's not like an opportunity like this comes around very often.
 
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