What Skeptics Say about Astrology
Posted by Administrator in Psychic.Skeptics of Astrology often say that horoscope readings are so “general” they could apply to anyone; and that people will look for what they want to see and ignore what doesn’t seem true for them, thus deluding themselves that the horoscope is “accurate”. This skepticism would most likely be eliminated if the skeptic actually looked at a real horoscope done by a competent professional astrologer, using his unique time and place of birth. But in this second part of the series, we’ll look at an example of how a skeptic of Astrology can come to a false conclusion and go on saying that Astrology is “bunk” or “fake” to others - by NOT using a real horoscope to “prove” his point.
A Skeptic’s Bait-and-Switch Trick
I once saw a documentary show on public television about a skeptic named “the Amazing Randi” - who had worked as a professional magician. He told a group of young men and women in a classroom that they would be given horoscope readings about themselves if they submitted their birth data. When they were handed out their printed “horoscope readings” and had read them over, they were polled by asking them to raise their hands if they thought the readings accurately described them. Most everyone put up his or her hand.
Then Randi told them to hand the reading to the person behind them and read that “horoscope” to see how accurately IT described them. That was when each of them noticed that they had all been reading a copy of the SAME printed reading!
I wonder what I would have thought about this, if I did not know much about Astrology and had been one of the people participating in this “experiment”? I might conclude that if all the “horoscope readings” contained all the same words and sentences, and I thought they all described me accurately AND also described my classmate accurately (according to him or her), then “horoscopes” must all be written in such “general” terms that they could apply to anyone. And therefore Astrology must be “fake”.
I would have just been “faked out” with this “fake” astrology reading, so Astrology must be fake, I might conclude. But I would have been missing an all-important observation… the so-called “horoscope readings” were indeed “fake” - which means they were not “real” horoscope readings at all! Read more