waybread wrote:Mike, Apparently I can't make myself any clearer, either. Pity. My point is simple.

We are talking blind chart readings, no? Two people born in the same town at the same year would not know each other if one moved away as an infant. Yet they might be highly compatible.

You might carefully screen your randomly matched pairs so that they fit some pre-specified criteria, and then if you included them you would need more than a sample of 10 charts with the percentage break-down you've indicated to really feel you'd got something, hopefully to control for experimental design flaws. Research is all about controlling for potentially confounding variables. If you don't do this, then you don't know whether your results stem from what you are actually trying to examine, or from something else.

The trouble with the study you outlined is that it doesn't sufficiently control for possibilities that could throw off the results. A test of astrological techniques should test for correlations that astrology actually purports to say something about; not for correlations that are beyond its scope. As you know, astrology does not claim to address any and all phenomena.

How much synastry have you studied, Mike--and how much synastry have you done for people? And hey, if you have decided a priori that an astrologer taking on those 20 charts would be doomed to failure anyway--then there is no point in continuing this discussion.

Yes Blind charts. If the people were there it is a different experiment. I also stated earlier to be fair to the astrologers, and here it would be necessary to know broadly what system the astrologer was using, that the ?randoms? would need to have their charts assessed to make sure they didn?t tick too many of the astrological compatible boxes being employed.

It is 10 charts in one batch. Since the first experiment should use about 20 batches, this is 200 charts. If the astrologer did well, as I have already outlined , then we do it again. I would personally like to see at least 3/4 goes so 600/800 charts in effect, if we used the 10 not 7.

The confounding variables get reduced the larger the sample size. The main challenge in this experiment, I think, is the pre-screening to ensure that the 6 were considerably more content in the relationships than the 1.

I couldn?t give you much of a figure as to how many couples?s charts I?ve looked at. Around 1985/6 I recall trying to see if the perhaps 50? couples I had known and had data for had the more cook bookie type 'compatible' connections. Such as element similarities, Sun/Mon/Asc // Ven/Mars contacts, 7th house connections ???..No science/objective data here!

Where we differ is in your perception that just blind charts can tell you the amount of information you require, or an astrologer would require, to know who is and isn't compatible to the extent they would sign up for a test of this type. Out of curiosity which astrologers, alive today, do you think would agree with you?

My last message on this board appears to have been deleted, and I was just notified that I received a PM but it is not in my inbox. If anyone knows why, I would appreciate an explanation.

Hi Waybread, I had sent you a link and when I tried to edit it later, which is still possible if the receiver hasn't opened the pm, I accidentally deleted it. I wanted to send you the link concerning my last post about the biographies on astrology-and-science but I felt a bit too tired to keep on continuing the discussion in the thread, I'll send it later. sorry for the inconvenience. Sorry, got to go now.

Richard Vetter wrote:"The subjective and projective character of astrology" -
http://www.astrologicalassociation.com/ ... /11-01.pdf

Sorry, I forgot: The English version can be read here:
http://astroinfo.astrologix.de/erkennt/ ... jProGB.htm

In the last few weeks when I took more distance from the subject, I realized the value of different perspectives. I still acknowledge the value of statistics and the negative esults of these surely do have an effect on my views on astrology, but in dissecting every word of other reactions I left little space for others? views.

I therefore feel that I pushed the discussion too far. I?m sorry for that and my apologies to those involved and to others affected by it.