Monday, August 10, 2009

Carlson's test of astrology: not scientific enough?

For those who didn't yet notice the post on Astrodispatch: there is interesting news for astrologers all over the world who have been confronted with a 'test' dated 1985 that 'proved' astrology wrong. Reviewing the test, fairness questions have risen, according to a statistical expert (his name is Suitbert Ertel, and he is Professor Emeritus at Gottingen University in Germany and works for GEM Institute of Psychology in Gottingen.

I am not surprised about his findings. I have another example of such a 'test' that I published months ago (I named it "Do the witch test"). In that test the sceptics also worked against their own protocol. They told the astrologer that it took at least 7 charts (why?) and she had to find 7 (most of them not very life changing) events and find which chart matched with the event. They even didn't mention the exact data, two birth data and event data were equal and they gave her a few hours in a cold place to do what they already knew (as they said): fail.

Carlson's study is a more famous one than the test of Skepsis.be. Sceptics all over the world name it as an argument against astrology. So the news that another scientist is thinking that Carlson's test results were not convincing enough is BIG news. Read the news about Carlson's flawed 'Double blind study' on Astro Research News Service.

(c) http://astropost.blogspot.com

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