Hi folks, I was watching Penn and Tellers Bull**** on Showtime and they were doing a show on Astronomy. They had a teacher with two classes and he did a "test" with them.
Basically, he told them, based on little information, that some new computer software could write up a full personality profile that should be quite accurate. After everyone privately read their "personal" profiles that were handed out, it was revealed that they had all been given the exact same personality profile that was quite generic.
They were pretty amazed that the "reading" would SEEM to reflect their own traits so well.
At that point Penn said, (paraphrasing from memory) "This test was created by the genius known as The Amazing Randi in 1993."
While it is a great test, I had it done on ME by my own teacher in a community college here in Michigan in 1982!
Anyone have any information on this seeming error?
I sure wish I could recall the name of the teacher, but alas, I can not. I know the class was about Mass Media and was mostly fluff...
Interestingly while he was very skeptical about the horoscope cold reading thing, he seemed to buy into the idea that the word sex was written, intentionally, all over commercials and ads. /shrug
Basically, he told them, based on little information, that some new computer software could write up a full personality profile that should be quite accurate. After everyone privately read their "personal" profiles that were handed out, it was revealed that they had all been given the exact same personality profile that was quite generic.
They were pretty amazed that the "reading" would SEEM to reflect their own traits so well.
At that point Penn said, (paraphrasing from memory) "This test was created by the genius known as The Amazing Randi in 1993."
While it is a great test, I had it done on ME by my own teacher in a community college here in Michigan in 1982!
Anyone have any information on this seeming error?
I sure wish I could recall the name of the teacher, but alas, I can not. I know the class was about Mass Media and was mostly fluff...
Interestingly while he was very skeptical about the horoscope cold reading thing, he seemed to buy into the idea that the word sex was written, intentionally, all over commercials and ads. /shrug
