Everyone here is requested to suggest names of famous individuals
who's lives, time and date of births are well known to everyone.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster prophesied to me that you will fail.
Does that really matter? Please suggest few dates authentic ones.
1. February 12, 1809 @ 6:54 am - Abraham Lincoln
(Src: http://www.bemyastrologer.com/darwinlincoln.html,
http://www.astrotheme.com/portraits/x6EJFeT5h4gj.htm)
Now, how would anyone know the exact minute of Lincoln's birth? The doctor
looked at his pocket watch? Wasn't he just a bit busy, and his hands a bit
messy to be handling a watch? Same with the father, perhaps, though usually
doctors told them to wait outside. Though in a Midwest winter that might be
difficult.
And how do we know for sure that the watch used was accurate?
And in 1809 every town had its own time; there were no time zones until
much later when railway timetables required it. So was it log cabin
standard time? And how did whoever wrote it down check the accuracy of
their watch? And did the astrologer allow for this?
The best way to avoid crackpot fakery is to come up with time/date/place of
people who are not named or identified in any way, and have a double-blind
test in which the identies are kept secret until the casting is done.
Surely, if the astrology works, it can tell us which ones had become
senators, university professors, lawyers, ditch diggers, axe murderers, etc
just from their horoscopes.
Try that first, let us know how it turns out.
--
Mike Dworetsky
(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)
I don't think this is what we are here for. This is talk.origins. We
do evolution, mainly.
Having said that, what data do you require - date, geographical
location, time of day? And what prediction do you hope to be able to
produce?
Indeed, would you predict that every child born on a particular day in
one Maternity Hospital will have similar life events? Rarely
including dying almost immediately, so the clue is "rarely" (with
developed-world medicine)?
Postdictions ae easy, and not worth spit. Sort of like astrology.
Boikat
I asked these same question to an astrologer (Not naming him). He
replied back in every second the over all positions in the chart
change and results are different for different individuals. I have
heard about a method where by one first corrects the birth chart
before predicting.
Sure. I will give you the birth dates of two people, and then you do
your analysis. I will even give you the genders.
1. Male,September 11, 1917
2. Female, December 8, 1542
Wrong. If you know the names, you would be heavily biased. All you need
is the dates. I supplied two birth dates in my previous post.
No. Problem.
Time of birth is also required. There will be question asked about
these two individuals, which will be needed to correct their birth
charts.
How it could be biased? Vedic writings are fixed and we are talking
100% about past which also cannot change. I am not going to write
anything on my own. I am only going to write what is already written
as it is.
"Ganesh J. Acharya" <ganeshj...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:ef889e74-0a43-4280...@l32g2000prn.googlegroups.com:
I've got one for you:
11 November 1954, 6:01 PM Eastern Standard Time
Don't forget to correct for time zones!
-- Steven L.
> ... Surely, if the astrology works, it can tell us which
> ones had become senators, university professors, lawyers,
> ditch diggers, axe murderers, etc just from their horoscopes.
>
> Try that first, let us know how it turns out.
>
Anyone with an Internet connection can look up any date on Wikipedia
and see who was born on that date.
But not the time of day, this duffus is asking for the time of day.
Mitchell Coffey
1. Sarrat, The Philippines.
2. Linlithgow, Scotland.
Mitchell Coffey
Ah-ha! :o)
and at 12:51 local time (assuming Mitchell and I mean the same
person)
Studies have been done on Western astrology. Here's how it must work:
1. Astrologer is given biographies of *non-famous people, and then
must predict birth dates (and locations, if he thinks it is
appropriate).
2. He might be given a list of dates and locations, and is offered a
chance to match them to the biographies.
Or,
1. He is given locations and dates, and must make predictions about
life events or personality traits,
2. then must make matches.
They never do better than random chance.
The problem with your scenario is that 8whatever astrology would
predict can be made to fit after the fact. Believers will look at
horoscopes and say "Yes, that's me! It predicted my day exactly!" But
*whatever is said, the believer will think it fits him or her.
The same results will show up with your Vedic version. In fact, I will
make a prediction of my own:
if a properly designed study has already been done on Vedic astrology,
then the results show no difference between astrological expertise and
random chance.
Kermit
Here are places to start:
http://www.astrosociety.org/education/astro/act3/astrology3.html#defense
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology
Kermit
First go find a good encylopedia and look up "postdiction."
If the persons are already dead, and well known, then the
atrologers are highly likely to have already looked at them
and worked out a "chart" that perfectly "fortells" exactly what
that person's life was. This is worthless, since it does not
test how well astrology works, but rather, how much trivia
the average astrologer already knows. "Ooh, Marylin Monroe,
I've done her chart, and it says she should be a famous
actress with a tragic end. See?"
Here's another test. Two people born at the same time, in
neighbouring rooms in the same hospital: Astrology says
they should have similar lives and be similar people, yes?
Surely you can turn up a few hundred such cases and
wow us with how similar they are. And surely you *can't*
find any such cases where the people had very different
lives.
Socks
No: I was referring to one of the other internationally know Filipinos
born in Sarrat on September 11, 1917...
Mitchell
Truly Amazing!
Jayant V. Narlikar, Sudhakar Kunte, Narendra Dabholkar and Prakash
Ghatpande: A statistical test of astrology. CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 96,
NO. 5, 10 MARCH 2009:
"Statistical analysis of the results showed a success rate marginally
less than what would be achieved by tossing a coin."
So you are almost right, they were in fact a bit worse than random
chance.
How could you have known the outcome of a study you had not read?????
Why, you, you MUST be a deity!!
All Hail Kermit, who intuits the marvels of the world!
(bows excessively to computer screen and gets "the look" from his boss
who just entered unexpectedly through the door - damn it)
Yeah, you see, that's called faking.
The questions asked to "correct" the chart are part of what is
called a cold reading. Look it up.
If astrology functioned on a level that was so sensitive that
neighbouring births only a few minutes apart were very
different, then it could not have any utility. Nobody had
that level of accuracy until very recently. And your average
doofus astrologer still does not. Most of them can just
about count their own legs.
Socks
There was a talk on www.ted.com that had a test like this.
Each member of a test group was given "their" astrology
forecast for the day, and asked to say how well it fit.
Most of them said it fit very well. Then it was revealed
that everybody in the test group got the exact same
predictions. Hmm...
Socks
A friend of mine used to give his (astronomy) students that same test
the first day of class, with the same results. One other result of
note was that it made them furious and after he did it three or so
times his department made him stop.
Mitchell Coffey
But, as someone has already pointed out, Wikipedia can.
Look, if we tell you somebody famous, you can just look up their
biography and pretend to "discover" that it was "predicted" by Vedic
astrology. That doesn't convince anybody - unless, maybe, you can
explain how the calculation is done. Before.
If you want to test Vedic astrology for /yourself/, you don't need our
contribution.
But what can you do with: August 5th, 1862; Leicester, England?
(Nobody else help.)
But they can easily come up with birth times down to the minute...
second, even. So can I.
Mitchell Coffey
I wonder: Does vedic astrology correct for the precession of Earth's axis?
If not, the summer constellations, for example, would be much different,
say 2.000 years ago, than now.
One full period of precession is 'only' 26.000 years.
So a little over 2.000 year ago you would be one constellations off (if
not corrected).
Regards,
Erwin Moller
--
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to
make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the
other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious
deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult."
-- C.A.R. Hoare
How do you define the time of birth with a resolution of one second?
Is it the time any part of the baby first comes in contact with air?
Or it comes out the convex hull of the mother geometric shape?
Or is it the time all parts of the baby except the umbilical cord come
out? Or when the placenta comes out?
> I have
> heard about a method where by one first corrects the birth chart
> before predicting.
How?
Post this on alt.astrology or something, this is talk.origins.
--D.
And the "theory" of evolution.
See the replies to Ganeshs' reply to my post, fool. Besides, there's
no hockus pockus involved in the ToE, dispite the claims of anti-
evolution morons.
Boikat
Exactly, fuck-wit, you *decide* if they are appropriate, and if, by
pure coincidence, there's some "match", you declare validation. That
works for the ignorant rubes, but not for anyone with a functioning
brain.
Boikat
Theory is an important scientific concept; it does not carry in
science the layman's meaning of wild-ass guess or even the detective
novelist's meaning of preliminary solution to the problem. A
scientific theory is much closer to the detective novelist's concept,
perhaps very close right before a correct arrest.
This thread may be unpleasant for you, you fraudulant piece of shit. I
suggest you shut up about it.
--
Will in New Haven
> On Aug 31, 3:29 pm, "Ganesh J. Acharya" <ganeshjacha...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Since this subject has often come up, I finally thought of finding out
> > details about it here itself. I have often went into lengthily
> > discussions both with believers and non believers. So, lets take up
> > Birth Dates of 10 famous people who are no more and who's lives have
> > been known and lets take an authentic Vedic Astrological writings and
> > check them up here it self. Lets see how much of the writings match
> > and how much does not.
>
> Everyone here is requested to suggest names of famous individuals
> who's lives, time and date of births are well known to everyone.
Wrong newsgroup.
--
http://desertphile.org
Desertphile's Desert Soliloquy. WARNING: view with plenty of water
"Why aren't resurrections from the dead noteworthy?" -- Jim Rutz
> Since this subject has often come up, I finally thought of finding out
> details about it here itself. I have often went into lengthily
> discussions both with believers and non believers. So, lets take up
> Birth Dates of 10 famous people who are no more and who's lives have
> been known and lets take an authentic Vedic Astrological writings and
> check them up here it self. Lets see how much of the writings match
> and how much does not.
Yeah. Ah, you go and do that....... be sure to go away until
you're done. Bye.
>
>
> "Ganesh J. Acharya" <ganeshj...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:ef889e74-0a43-4280...@l32g2000prn.googlegroups.com:
>
> > On Aug 31, 5:27 pm, Klaus Hellnick <khelSPAMln...@sbcglobal.net>
> > wrote:
> > > On 8/31/2010 5:38 AM, Ganesh J. Acharya wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Aug 31, 3:29 pm, "Ganesh J. Acharya"<ganeshjacha...@gmail.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >> Since this subject has often come up, I finally thought of finding out
> > > >> details about it here itself. I have often went into lengthily
> > > >> discussions both with believers and non believers. So, lets take up
> > > >> Birth Dates of 10 famous people who are no more and who's lives have
> > > >> been known and lets take an authentic Vedic Astrological writings and
> > > >> check them up here it self. Lets see how much of the writings match
> > > >> and how much does not.
> > >
> > > > Everyone here is requested to suggest names of famous individuals
> > > > who's lives, time and date of births are well known to everyone.
> > >
> > > Wrong. If you know the names, you would be heavily biased. All you need
> > > is the dates. I supplied two birth dates in my previous post.
> >
> > No. Problem.
> >
> > Time of birth is also required. There will be question asked about
> > these two individuals, which will be needed to correct their birth
> > charts.
> I've got one for you:
>
> 11 November 1954, 6:01 PM Eastern Standard Time
>
> Don't forget to correct for time zones!
You need to post latitude and longitude for the correct house
system.
That's no good. Google took 0.15 of a second to find the name.
> On 8/31/2010 5:38 AM, Ganesh J. Acharya wrote:
> > On Aug 31, 3:29 pm, "Ganesh J. Acharya"<ganeshjacha...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >> Since this subject has often come up, I finally thought of finding out
> >> details about it here itself. I have often went into lengthily
> >> discussions both with believers and non believers. So, lets take up
> >> Birth Dates of 10 famous people who are no more and who's lives have
> >> been known and lets take an authentic Vedic Astrological writings and
> >> check them up here it self. Lets see how much of the writings match
> >> and how much does not.
> >
> > Everyone here is requested to suggest names of famous individuals
> > who's lives, time and date of births are well known to everyone.
> Wrong. If you know the names, you would be heavily biased. All you need
> is the dates. I supplied two birth dates in my previous post.
Excellent. The clown will now bitch and complain that the names
are required BEFORE the "writings" are made. He will make up a
excuse for why.
> On Aug 31, 5:27 pm, Klaus Hellnick <khelSPAMln...@sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
> > On 8/31/2010 5:38 AM, Ganesh J. Acharya wrote:
> >
> > > On Aug 31, 3:29 pm, "Ganesh J. Acharya"<ganeshjacha...@gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >> Since this subject has often come up, I finally thought of finding out
> > >> details about it here itself. I have often went into lengthily
> > >> discussions both with believers and non believers. So, lets take up
> > >> Birth Dates of 10 famous people who are no more and who's lives have
> > >> been known and lets take an authentic Vedic Astrological writings and
> > >> check them up here it self. Lets see how much of the writings match
> > >> and how much does not.
> >
> > > Everyone here is requested to suggest names of famous individuals
> > > who's lives, time and date of births are well known to everyone.
> >
> > Wrong. If you know the names, you would be heavily biased. All you need
> > is the dates. I supplied two birth dates in my previous post.
> No. Problem.
>
> Time of birth is also required. There will be question asked about
> these two individuals, which will be needed to correct their birth
> charts.
Chart recitification doesn't work. It just means you get to waffle
on your guesses.
> Ganesh J. Acharya wrote:
> > On Aug 31, 3:55 pm, "Ganesh J. Acharya" <ganeshjacha...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >> On Aug 31, 3:41 pm, Vend <ven...@virgilio.it> wrote:
> >>
> >>> On 31 Ago, 12:29, "Ganesh J. Acharya" <ganeshjacha...@gmail.com>
> >>> wrote:
> >>
> >>>> Since this subject has often come up, I finally thought of finding
> >>>> out details about it here itself. I have often went into lengthily
> >>>> discussions both with believers and non believers. So, lets take up
> >>>> Birth Dates of 10 famous people who are no more and who's lives
> >>>> have been known and lets take an authentic Vedic Astrological
> >>>> writings and check them up here it self. Lets see how much of the
> >>>> writings match and how much does not.
> >>
> >>> The Flying Spaghetti Monster prophesied to me that you will fail.
> >>
> >> Does that really matter? Please suggest few dates authentic ones.
> > 1. February 12, 1809 @ 6:54 am - Abraham Lincoln
> > (Src: http://www.bemyastrologer.com/darwinlincoln.html,
> > http://www.astrotheme.com/portraits/x6EJFeT5h4gj.htm)
> Now, how would anyone know the exact minute of Lincoln's birth? The doctor
The chart was "rectified." Events in Lincolns history were used to
try to fit the natal house system (based upon birth time and
latitude) with a few transiting planets. The time used was utterly
arbitrary: any time of the day could be made to fit.
> looked at his pocket watch? Wasn't he just a bit busy, and his hands a bit
> messy to be handling a watch? Same with the father, perhaps, though usually
> doctors told them to wait outside. Though in a Midwest winter that might be
> difficult.
>
> And how do we know for sure that the watch used was accurate?
>
> And in 1809 every town had its own time; there were no time zones until
> much later when railway timetables required it. So was it log cabin
> standard time? And how did whoever wrote it down check the accuracy of
> their watch? And did the astrologer allow for this?
>
> The best way to avoid crackpot fakery is to come up with time/date/place of
> people who are not named or identified in any way, and have a double-blind
> test in which the identies are kept secret until the casting is done.
> Surely, if the astrology works, it can tell us which ones had become
> senators, university professors, lawyers, ditch diggers, axe murderers, etc
> just from their horoscopes.
>
> Try that first, let us know how it turns out.
Interesting. They'd rather stay a fool than be made a fool of?
So young, and already they seek reassurances rather than knowledge.
I'll grant that the acquisition of self-knowledge can be painful...
Kermit
> On Aug 31, 4:40 pm, "Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-
> orig...@moderators.isc.org" <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> > On Aug 31, 11:29 am, "Ganesh J. Acharya" <ganeshjacha...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Since this subject has often come up, I finally thought of finding out
> > > details about it here itself. I have often went into lengthily
> > > discussions both with believers and non believers. So, lets take up
> > > Birth Dates of 10 famous people who are no more and who's lives have
> > > been known and lets take an authentic Vedic Astrological writings and
> > > check them up here it self. Lets see how much of the writings match
> > > and how much does not.
> >
> > I don't think this is what we are here for. This is talk.origins. We
> > do evolution, mainly.
> >
> > Having said that, what data do you require - date, geographical
> > location, time of day? And what prediction do you hope to be able to
> > produce?
> >
> > Indeed, would you predict that every child born on a particular day in
> > one Maternity Hospital will have similar life events? Rarely
> > including dying almost immediately, so the clue is "rarely" (with
> > developed-world medicine)?
> I asked these same question to an astrologer (Not naming him). He
> replied back in every second the over all positions in the chart
> change and results are different for different individuals. I have
Earth's rotation for one second of time is negligible: no
astrologer defines planetary positions, nor house systems, that
precisely.
> heard about a method where by one first corrects the birth chart
> before predicting.
Chart rectification (the "method" you "heard about") does not
work.
> On Aug 31, 8:35 am, "Ganesh J. Acharya" <ganeshjacha...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > On Aug 31, 5:24 pm, Klaus Hellnick <khelSPAMln...@sbcglobal.net>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > On 8/31/2010 5:29 AM, Ganesh J. Acharya wrote:
> >
> > > > Since this subject has often come up, I finally thought of finding out
> > > > details about it here itself. I have often went into lengthily
> > > > discussions both with believers and non believers. So, lets take up
> > > > Birth Dates of 10 famous people who are no more and who's lives have
> > > > been known and lets take an authentic Vedic Astrological writings and
> > > > check them up here it self. Lets see how much of the writings match
> > > > and how much does not.
> > > Sure. I will give you the birth dates of two people, and then you do
> > > your analysis. I will even give you the genders.
> > > 1. Male,September 11, 1917
> > > 2. Female, December 8, 1542
> > Place of birth??
> 1. Sarrat, The Philippines.
> 2. Linlithgow, Scotland.
> Mitchell Coffey
What times?
When the infant draws its first breath. In ancient times, it was
when any part of the infant was exposed to the atmosphere (hand,
head, foot).
> > I have
> > heard about a method where by one first corrects the birth chart
> > before predicting.
>
> How?
http://www.forrestastrology.com/General-Astrology/the-craft-of-chart-rectification
http://horoscopicastrologyblog.com/2009/12/11/five-tips-for-birth-chart-rectification/
Zip Dobyns examined the system at ISAR. It doesn't work.
Be a little cautious when rejecting claims of fact from a non-
scientific culture (such as some of my family...) because the
explanations are impossible.
Back in the beginning - decades ago - when young science was first
looking at this silliness, the claims should not have been rejected
simply because the model makes no sense. Suppose, for example, that
weather, length of daylight, or various plant pollens affected the
development of the fetus? It would not be outrageous to claim that the
fetus might be influenced by subtle differences in the world around
us; we talk about some of them on occasion here on TO. "The stars"
could conceivably have simply been markers for the observations; a way
of keeping time.
Alas! for the astrologers; no verifiable evidence has ever turned
up.Stars or turnips, there seem to be no cause for these kind of
personality differences, associated with place and date, recorded in
this ancient body of pseudo-knowledge.
Kermit
Then I think I'll have another bloody drink.
> Since this subject has often come up, I finally thought of finding out
> details about it here itself. I have often went into lengthily
> discussions both with believers and non believers. So, lets take up
> Birth Dates of 10 famous people who are no more and who's lives have
> been known and lets take an authentic Vedic Astrological writings and
> check them up here it self. Lets see how much of the writings match
> and how much does not.
A famous person with an accurate biography:
January 29, 1927. Indiana, Pennsylvania, United States, "in the
late morning."
I have the dates of when he served in the USA military (start and
stop), when he was investigated by the USA FBI, and several other
major events of his life.
Now offer your excuses.
> On Aug 31, 10:01 am, Kermit <unrestrained_h...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> [snip]
> > The problem with your scenario is that 8whatever astrology would
> > predict can be made to fit after the fact. Believers will look at
> > horoscopes and say "Yes, that's me! It predicted my day exactly!" But
> > *whatever is said, the believer will think it fits him or her.
>
> There was a talk on www.ted.com that had a test like this.
> Each member of a test group was given "their" astrology
> forecast for the day, and asked to say how well it fit.
> Most of them said it fit very well. Then it was revealed
> that everybody in the test group got the exact same
> predictions. Hmm...
> Socks
Carl Sagan did the same thing in public schools.
You know, thinking about it a bit more, I'm wondering if the
exercise is valid scientifically. Experimentation on humans
requires informed consent in advance. It is usually not
considered to be acceptable to do "surprise" experiments,
because it violates ethics. The rejoinder to complaints that
it makes some experiments too hard is that humans have
rights, and we are not allowed to violate those rights just
to "see what happens."
So it is just possible that the university students complained
along those lines. Most university ethics panesl are very
sensitive to such things and will shy away from the slightest
whiff of improper procedure.
The "hard ass" position here is because it's a slippery slope.
If we allow that people can be tricked into thinking this slip
of paper contains a horoscope forecast, then by easy
steps, each seemingly quite reasonable, eventually we
are into all sorts of horrible things. The thing is though, our
desire to learn stuff does not over ride a person's rights to
make decisions about their own life.
I don't recall the details of the TED talk. But I *seem* to recall
that there was a way the researcher accomplished it such
that he didn't actually lie to his test subjects. But I can't
recall the details.
Socks
According to my astrological chart, that birth date has a strong
correlation with a closet containing an enormous number of lady’s
shoes, perhaps via marriage. Not sure how to interpret that in any
meaningful way though... but astrology is like that.
-loki
Would that be yours truly?
I believe you have it. My friend's intent was to demonstrate to his
students that they were not immune to this psychological trope; the
students saw it as being duped and made to look stupid. Since it had
no direct bearing on the topic of study, and as he was merely a grad
student, his department sided with the students. I don't blame them,
I'll add.
Mitchell Coffey
In spite of your insults, the "theory" of evolution is one big postdiction,
a self-fulfilling prophecy utterly dependent on (a) the incompleteness of
the fossil record, and (b) the credulity of those who desire to get
something for nothing (i.e. suckers).
But "serious" astrology says the ascendant (the sign or planet rising as the
person is born) is the most important astrological factor, and for that you
need to know the exact minute of the time of birth. Very few wikipedia
biographies carry that information.
And why the emphasis on celebrities?
--
Mike Dworetsky
(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)
Right. I see the project as a joke though, even more than usual. One
knows where Ganesh will go with this. He has already said that birth-
times down to the second will matter; this pretty much excludes any
serious test. He also doesn't seem to understand the significance of
the vagueness of Vedic astrological results. That is, if he's not a
troll, which I almost hope he is.
Mitchell Coffey
Hey now: let's not gang up on him, throw a wrench in the works, and
make a monkey out of him!
Mitchell Coffey
So, have you been out yet today, jerking about on the street corner,
shouting a repetitive jingle, jangling little cymbals and asking
passerbys to give you spare change?
Mitchell Coffey
Agree
I don't dismiss the (possible) influence of time of birth.
And there are also (possible) psychological effects.
A few examples I sometimes use:
If you are a kid, born in midsummer, chances are little friends turn up
at your birthdayparty because they are on holidays. That can affect
development.
What about daylight effects? We know of all kinds of 'critical periods'
during development in children. It is easily imagined a lot or a little
daylight influences these periods.
And what about the self-fullfilling profecy? If you are into astrology,
you can be influenced in your development by the things you read about
your character.
etc.
But as you stated, no convincing effects have been found.
And if they are found, I am quite sure they are related to things as
seasons, daylight, etc and not to the position of planets. ;-)
Based upon evidence, and not ad-hoc explainations.
> a self-fulfilling prophecy utterly dependent on (a) the incompleteness of
> the fossil record,
False claim. It's, in part, based upon the fossil record we do have,
you ignorant hick.
> and (b) the credulity of those who desire to get
> something for nothing (i.e. suckers).
That doesn't even make sense as an ignorant comment from an uneducated
twit sitting in the peanut gallery (you).
Boikat
Go ahead.
Get back to us if you find anything.
We'll wait.
No, I think he's stupid and credulous. Religion does that.
Expecting the fossil record to be anywhere _near_ complete is
ludicrous and the fierce debates (bordering on libel, sometimes) that
have raged over details of the ToE falsifies the "credulity" part of
your statement.
You are grasping at straws.
The theory of evolution makes predictions, look up Tiktaalik.
Here's some more:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA210.html
http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/evo_science.html
>a self-fulfilling prophecy utterly dependent on (a) the incompleteness of
>the fossil record
Yet as we find more fossils each and every one fits into known
evolutionary trees, every single one. Can you name a single fossil that
doesn't? e.g. a horse with wings, a 6 legged mammal or a whale with
gills.
The closest I know of is "nectocaris" which appeared to have both
chordate and arthropod features, but it turned out to be a cephalopod.
>, and (b) the credulity of those who desire to get
>something for nothing (i.e. suckers).
What about the credulity of those who think that if they spend their
life praying and giving money to their priests then they will live
forever in paradise?
--
sapient_...@spamsights.org ICQ #17887309 * Save the net *
Grok: http://spam.abuse.net http://www.cauce.org * nuke a spammer *
Find: http://www.samspade.org http://www.netdemon.net * today *
Kill: http://mail-abuse.com http://au.sorbs.net http://spamhaus.org
That's better than what his cult's leaders were sent to prison for
> Mitchell Coffey
16-Virgo-16 is "my" ascendant. That places Mars on the midheaven,
and Venus on the ascendant square Mars. Which means I am supposed
to be better than average in sports. Ha ha ha ha ha ha......
Damn good question.
He is saying that you must test your theory by prediction. If the
prediction is true it supports the theory.
So working out horoscopes of people long dead and checking to see if they
are right is a waste of time because it is not prediction.
What you should do is take a sample of newborn babes whose birth details are
known accurately and do their horoscopes. Seal these away for 100 years so
nobody can see them. Record the lives of each of the sample until death.
Then open the horoscopes and compare details to the actual lives. If they
agree it tends to confirm astrology.
David
"Doesn't Hurt". What do I lose if Ganesh goes through the whole
performance and gives me a prediction, right or wrong?
I suppose, someone who is publicly documented. That we all know
about, or can find out about. We also may be able to pick up their
birth certificate.
And it isn't absolutely illogical to use partial data on both sides of
the equation - birth situation and some major life events - to refine
a calculation.
Having said that... Astrology today has pretty much given up on any
mysterious force or radiation from stars and planets affecting our
lives. These days it's just Because I Say So that it's supposed to
"work", or maybe Because The Gods Say So. Rational people here are
thinking and saying, how can it /not/ be an enormous hoax?
No, done right, it's predicting the data you don't have from the data
that you do have.
Like with fossils and "transitional forms".
If you know the result in advance, is it an experiment, or is it a
demonstration?
Actually, if you do it right, this is a perfectly reasonable way of
testing the predictions. It is, after all, similar to what
evolutionary biologists do with fossil evidence.
Now, before anyone gets up in arms about this, biologists use real
science to look at these things. A posteriori tests are pretty common
in evolutionary biology. If you design your experiment correctly,
include appropriate data sets, and apply the right tests, they can be
quite illuminating.
I have not seen astrologers do that, but I confess profound and
blissful ignorance as to the details of their methodology. What I have
seen of their methods leads me to say, it's a tossup- either vapor or
wishful thinking.
>
> What you should do is take a sample of newborn babes whose birth details are
> known accurately and do their horoscopes. Seal these away for 100 years so
> nobody can see them. Record the lives of each of the sample until death.
> Then open the horoscopes and compare details to the actual lives. If they
> agree it tends to confirm astrology.
Taking a random birth date and making predictions across a large
sample size of dead people ("She died young"; "His marriage ended in
divorce") whose life outcomes were not known before the predictions
were made would seem to be appropriate. However, given the propensity
of astrologers to vigorously wave their hands ("He was dead in
spirit"; "They discussed a separation") I would have zero confidence
in their claims.
Chris
When you apply the appropriate a posteriori statistical tests to your
astrology, as biologists do to their fossil data, get back to me.
Otherwise, it's vapor and wishful thinking.
Chris
...who hears NYPD helicopters running up and down the beach at this
very moment- that usually means someone drowned. I hope they save the
poor person.
Tiktaalik was in fact both a prediction and a postdiction:
Prediction: The transition from aquatic life to terrestrial life
should have happened at THIS time.
Postdiction:
If anywhere, fossils of that transitional should exist HERE (i.e.,
Greenland)
Chris
>
> Here's some more:
>
> http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA210.htmlhttp://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/evo_science.html
>
> >a self-fulfilling prophecy utterly dependent on (a) the incompleteness of
> >the fossil record
>
> Yet as we find more fossils each and every one fits into known
> evolutionary trees, every single one. Can you name a single fossil that
> doesn't? e.g. a horse with wings, a 6 legged mammal or a whale with
> gills.
>
> The closest I know of is "nectocaris" which appeared to have both
> chordate and arthropod features, but it turned out to be a cephalopod.
>
> >, and (b) the credulity of those who desire to get
> >something for nothing (i.e. suckers).
>
> What about the credulity of those who think that if they spend their
> life praying and giving money to their priests then they will live
> forever in paradise?
> --
> sapient_usene...@spamsights.org ICQ #17887309 * Save the net *
> Grok:http://spam.abuse.net http://www.cauce.org* nuke a spammer *
> Find:http://www.samspade.orghttp://www.netdemon.net * today *
> On Aug 31, 7:58 am, Erwin Moller
> <Since_humans_read_this_I_am_spammed_too_m...@spamyourself.com> wrote:
>> On 8/31/2010 12:29 PM, Ganesh J. Acharya wrote:
>>
>> > Since this subject has often come up, I finally thought of finding out
>> > details about it here itself. I have often went into lengthily
>> > discussions both with believers and non believers. So, lets take up
>> > Birth Dates of 10 famous people who are no more and who's lives have
>> > been known and lets take an authentic Vedic Astrological writings and
>> > check them up here it self. Lets see how much of the writings match
>> > and how much does not.
>>
I have heard about one such effect. The best Canadian ice hockey players
are born in (I think) January far more often than chance would predict.
Why? Because there is a minimum age for playing on the junior ice hockey
teams, and the kids who are six years and eleven months old have a large
advantage over kids who are six years and fewer months old, and so they
get the majority of the play time and coaching, giving them even more of
an advantage, which continues through their career. I predict that if
the minimum age were changed up or down by six months, the planets would
suddenly realign to give kids born in July the advantage.
--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
"It is certain, from experience, that the smallest grain of natural
honesty and benevolence has more effect on men's conduct, than the most
pompous views suggested by theological theories and systems." - D. Hume
But there wouldn't be any ice[*].
[*] Actually there would. It's Canada. ;-)
> Having said that... Astrology today has pretty much given up on
> any mysterious force or radiation from stars and planets affecting
> our lives.
Recent scientific evidence suggests that radio-isotope decay rates are
related to neutrino flux. Given that: most neutrinos here originate in
the Sun; only something the size of a planet can measurably modify the
transmission coefficient; the neutrino path within the planet is
related to time-of-day; critical brain development takes place in the
minutes after birth following exposure to air / noise / visual
perception; chemical balances between elements are part of the process;
radio-isotope decay of key elements (K, Cl, Ca, Na, O, N, C, etc.)
affects their relative concentrations, it is thus *possible* that time-
of-day at birth can have a permanent effect on someone's personality,
intelligence, etc.
But planetary positions? Perhaps if you compute vector quantities (curl
and / or time derivatives) of the Earth's magnetic field as it relates
to the dipole summation of the planetary magnetic fields of Jupiter,
Mercury, and the Sun, you *might* arrive at slight change, for example,
in the resonant frequency of a part of the brain's neural network due
to slight changes in trigger voltages for synapse firing / etc. But
someone should perform the calculations first to see exactly the scale
of the quantities we are talking about.
Or perhaps, depending on the type of neutrino involved, the magnetic
field has a direct effect similar to what is described above regarding
isotope decay.
Unfortunately, those who believe in astrology are usually not the sort
of people who possess scientific backgrounds that would enable them to
perform these sorts of calculations.
There are no "evolutionary trees". Far from demonstrating evolution, your
examples serve rather to demonstrate discrete, static categories.
> The closest I know of is "nectocaris" which appeared to have both chordate
> and arthropod features, but it turned out to be a cephalopod.
>
>>, and (b) the credulity of those who desire to get
>>something for nothing (i.e. suckers).
>
> What about the credulity of those who think that if they spend their life
> praying and giving money to their priests then they will live forever in
> paradise?
Two incredulities don't make a credulity.
>
>"Boikat" <boi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
>news:fdb97ed0-dae9-42f9...@s15g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
>> On Aug 31, 5:38 am, "Ganesh J. Acharya" <ganeshjacha...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> On Aug 31, 3:29 pm, "Ganesh J. Acharya" <ganeshjacha...@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> > Since this subject has often come up, I finally thought of finding out
>>> > details about it here itself. I have often went into lengthily
>>> > discussions both with believers and non believers. So, lets take up
>>> > Birth Dates of 10 famous people who are no more and who's lives have
>>> > been known and lets take an authentic Vedic Astrological writings and
>>> > check them up here it self. Lets see how much of the writings match
>>> > and how much does not.
>>>
>>> Everyone here is requested to suggest names of famous individuals
>>> who's lives, time and date of births are well known to everyone.
>>
>> Postdictions ae easy, and not worth spit. Sort of like astrology.
>
>And the "theory" of evolution.
scientists disagree with you. and, given the fact your religion
1. has a 3000 year history of failure
2. causes untold human suffering to dalits
i'll go with science over your pathetic religious beliefs any day
>
>
>
>In spite of your insults, the "theory" of evolution is one big postdiction,
funny that darwin was able to make predictions about the appearance of
fossils before they were discovered...
if your contention was true, this should not have been possible
more evidence that your religion is wrong
OK the "done right" may cover much. My concern was that the suggested
process was very much subject to many errors such as confirmation bias and
straight out faking.
Isn't this where ESP studies collapse? You take a bunch of people and test
them with Rhine cards (check if their horoscope agrees with reality). When
you find that some of them guess better than statistical likelihood (some
horoscopes match history) you declare they have ESP (astrology works).
David
<snip to point>
> There are no "evolutionary trees". Far from demonstrating evolution, your
> examples serve rather to demonstrate discrete, static categories.
More self-evident facts from the source of Infallible Truth.
Well, you are talking about 1 incident in MM's life. Is this all what
astrology predicts?
Vedic Astrology is known to predict every incident in life, right from
birth, major illness, buying of property, accident, to death. How can
all of them fall inline?
> Here's another test. Two people born at the same time, in
> neighbouring rooms in the same hospital: Astrology says
> they should have similar lives and be similar people, yes?
> Surely you can turn up a few hundred such cases and
> wow us with how similar they are. And surely you *can't*
> find any such cases where the people had very different
> lives.
Do you think, I have not asked this question? "Two people born at the
same time". No two persons can be born at the same time at the same
place, that's impossible. The little difference changes their
horoscopes.
Time of birth cannot be accurate. For it to be accurate the following
needs to fall in place.
1. The watch needs to be set right,
2. A person has to stand next to the baby to decide when the baby took
its first breath.
Both the conditions are very rare.
Again, how much of corrections can be made? Even if the time is
adjusted after applying corrections the all the readings about the
said person needs to fall in place. There can be n number of incidents
that can be read about from a person's life. How can all of them fall
in line?
Surely this question is subject to a simple quantitative analysis:
1. What is the time interval between successive birth times that
yields a significantly different horoscopic prediction?
2. What is the accuracy (or precision) of time measurement available
for the births of two individuals who are to be compared?
If 2 is greater than 1, the horoscope must fail, irrespective of its
method.
Now you're just making up excuses.
>
> Both the conditions are very rare.
Idiot.
>
> Again, how much of corrections can be made? Even if the time is
> adjusted after applying corrections the all the readings about the
> said person needs to fall in place. There can be n number of incidents
> that can be read about from a person's life. How can all of them fall
> in line?
And you originally claimed that you had just begun to study
astrology. Now, you're defending it tooth and nail, and making up
bullshit defenses. You're a liar.
Boikat
It might work if we told him data and time (and gender?) but not who
it was. Though with wikipedia it might not take too long to find
out...
Perhaps choose someone moderatly obscure but documented. Perhaps
someone who's written an autobiography but isn't a household name.
> This is worthless, since it does not
> test how well astrology works, but rather, how much trivia
> the average astrologer already knows. "Ooh, Marylin Monroe,
> I've done her chart, and it says she should be a famous
> actress with a tragic end. See?"
>
> Here's another test. Two people born at the same time, in
> neighbouring rooms in the same hospital: Astrology says
> they should have similar lives and be similar people, yes?
> Surely you can turn up a few hundred such cases and
> wow us with how similar they are. And surely you *can't*
> find any such cases where the people had very different
> lives.
the punk rock singer I share a birthday with is already dead
my back-of-the-envelope calculation makes it about 3 people born every
second. 190 every minute. I bet there have been cases where two people
were born in the same minute at the same place.
Actually, I think that was really a prediction as well. A postdiction would
only happen if the fossils had already been found there and everyone
chorused, "Of course!"
[snippages]
--
Mike Dworetsky
(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)