Skyscript Astrology Forum

GarryP wrote:Hi Everyone,
Mike, your proposal for a test is interesting as a thought-experiment. There would surely be ethical issues (e.g. the hidden cameras) and financial issues (the ?1.5M) to be addressed before anything could actually happen though, don't you think?

I wonder if it could be boiled down to simply testing whether or not astrologers can find the right time of birth, through dialogue with test subjects. You'd think tests of that kind would have been conducted by now, though Dean et al at p.469 of Recent Advances say "there have been no adequate blind trials of rectification accuracy". (Though that's 35 years old now so someone may know of more recent tests on this front...?)

Personally, and I suspect I may have said this before, I'm surprised that astrologers haven't shown more interest in the study of time-twins, which seems as if it should cut out many of the problems one runs into in other types of study.

Cheers,
Garry

I asked the site owner, Rudolf Smit about time twins. Below his reply:


>Is there a study on time twins in your site? Where?

Not yet - but there is one in preparation to be finished (after 20 years of research!!! -- yes, twenty (!!!) years). Why so long?
because a few thousand people were involved.
There has already been a large paper about its preliminary results, but right now I cannot find it. But when I find it, I will forward it to you.
But, in any case, the final result will be on our website.
One thing already: people born on the exact moment and at virtually the same place do not have the same character let alone a similar life. -R

Hi Gary, and all.

The main ethical issue here could be why we are spending 1.5million when we know it is nonsense already. There would need to be some preparation work with the subjects so their decision to proceed was based on an informed choice. Subjects could withdraw at any time and probably a fair percentage would. I don?t see any obvious ethical issues with the astrologers.
Did you have anything else in mind?

I'm curious what you think a Time Twin study might reveal. Coincidentally I have a celebrity time twin, although 1hr difference, we appear to have had very different lives but I can see some psychological similarities, not that friends or family have. Harvey made the point in the link dmause posted suggesting employing a psychologist to profile someone. How about Jungian Therapists analysing 50 time twins over a 2 year period, again not cheap and arguably more complex ethical issues involved.

This Smit research may be revealing but I doubt it unless there is some depth to it.

Hello,

Interesting discussion!

Re: "I asked the site owner, Rudolf Smit about time twins."

I still think that the best way to prove Astrology to mathematical/science types is to show Astrology functioning when chance would give infinitesimal odds.

The best way (imo) is using Topocentric Primary Directions (by way of Isaac Starkman's Polaris rectification program) in order to rectify a birthtime merely from events in the life.

1. If Astrology does NOT function, then there should be NO WAY that a piece of software fed with the events from someone's life COULD get to the birthtime, except at chance levels... ie. 1/1440 that Polaris arrives at the same minute as the documented birthtime (24 hrs/day * 60 mins/hr)

2. This means that, for every time that someone feeds events into Polaris and it derives the correct birthtime, THERE WOULD HAVE TO BE 1439 TIMES THAT IT FAILED! ANYTHING better than that shows that Polaris is working at beyond chance levels. (ie. Astrology "works")

[Non-math nerds skip this section]

Now, if we allow +/- 5 mins from the birthtime, then the odds are 1/144 (because there are 144 ten-minute periods in a day) that Polaris would find the correct birthtime (+/- 5 mins) from events.

If we have (just) 30 cases where the input of events (in Polaris) leads directly to the birthtime within +/- 5 mins, then there would have to be 4290 (ie. 143 "failures" * 30) cases where Polaris failed to do so in order for it to be working at "chance levels."

We ALREADY have over 30 cases of Polaris directly giving us the birthtime within +/- 5 mins. Considering that there haven't been (total) 4290 rectifications ran through Polaris, it already proves that it works better than chance levels, unless one wants to put forth that it will have ZERO more successes until we go on to reach 4290 rectifications.

[Welcome back]

It is funny that Rudolf Smit's name gets mentioned. I had several EMails back and forth with him BEFORE I bought Polaris, while I was telling him about the program. He was very interested, asked some questions, and expressed that it seemed a way to prove Astrology. Once I got the program, I wrote to Smit again telling him that I had the program and would be interested in doing a test. I still await an answer.

Funny that he will throw any and every thing on his website that casts a doubt on Astrology, and yet, when faced with one very direct way to prove it, suddenly mute.

Peace

Atlantean wrote:Hello,

Interesting discussion!

Re: "I asked the site owner, Rudolf Smit about time twins."

I still think that the best way to prove Astrology to mathematical/science types is to show Astrology functioning when chance would give infinitesimal odds.

The best way (imo) is using Topocentric Primary Directions (by way of Isaac Starkman's Polaris rectification program) in order to rectify a birthtime merely from events in the life.

1. If Astrology does NOT function, then there should be NO WAY that a piece of software fed with the events from someone's life COULD get to the birthtime, except at chance levels... ie. 1/1440 that Polaris arrives at the same minute as the documented birthtime (24 hrs/day * 60 mins/hr)

2. This means that, for every time that someone feeds events into Polaris and it derives the correct birthtime, THERE WOULD HAVE TO BE 1439 TIMES THAT IT FAILED! ANYTHING better than that shows that Polaris is working at beyond chance levels. (ie. Astrology "works")

[Non-math nerds skip this section]

Now, if we allow +/- 5 mins from the birthtime, then the odds are 1/144 (because there are 144 ten-minute periods in a day) that Polaris would find the correct birthtime (+/- 5 mins) from events.

If we have (just) 30 cases where the input of events (in Polaris) leads directly to the birthtime within +/- 5 mins, then there would have to be 4290 (ie. 143 "failures" * 30) cases where Polaris failed to do so in order for it to be working at "chance levels."

We ALREADY have over 30 cases of Polaris directly giving us the birthtime within +/- 5 mins. Considering that there haven't been (total) 4290 rectifications ran through Polaris, it already proves that it works better than chance levels, unless one wants to put forth that it will have ZERO more successes until we go on to reach 4290 rectifications.

[Welcome back]

It is funny that Rudolf Smit's name gets mentioned. I had several EMails back and forth with him BEFORE I bought Polaris, while I was telling him about the program. He was very interested, asked some questions, and expressed that it seemed a way to prove Astrology. Once I got the program, I wrote to Smit again telling him that I had the program and would be interested in doing a test. I still await an answer.

Funny that he will throw any and every thing on his website that casts a doubt on Astrology, and yet, when faced with one very direct way to prove it, suddenly mute.

Peace

Yes, his reply is often a simple "interesting" or no reply. That`s why I keep pushing him

By the way if you want my data with significant events for your Polaris study feel free to ask me

Hello,

Since I left the last post, I have received an EMail from Rudolf Smit.

He was very polite and mentioned that "bad health" was the reason that he hadn't gotten in touch with me at the time (MANY months ago) and had subsequently forgotten about the discussion that we were having.

From his EMail and the wording thereof, I believe that he is sincere that it was a mistake and not any conscious decision to skate around some very real astrological proof.

Please take my last post (which I am not re-editing) as being a statement of what I felt/thought at the time, when suddenly there were no more replies from him.

My experience with Smit fits another circumstance that just happened recently (in no way involving Smit), but amazingly similar from MY experience. On a certain skeptic's website (not giving him any advertising here by mentioning the URL), there were many insulting things said about me, about Astrology, and about a gullible public (sound familiar?). We talked about Polaris and yet, the closer we got to doing some kind of test, the less and less connected to the conversation he became. To date, I haven't heard from him in about a month or more.

Since Rudolf has mentioned NOW that he WOULD be interested in a test, this has the potential to get VERY INTERESTING.

[...reaching to turn on some music... Can I Get a Witness? by Marvin Gaye seems like a poignant selection]

If this is done correctly, there is the potential that ALL of the critical commentary on Smit's site can be (effectively) reduced to what it actually IS, ie. dancing around the point. Polaris (potentially) will prove a connection between events in one's life and appropriate astrological aspects on very specific mathematical terms that no (real) statistician can deny.

To state it simply, IF DATES OF EVENTS LEAD TO A CORRECT BIRTHTIME, THEN THE TWO HAVE TO BE RELATED! ie. the timeline of things happening in one's life is tied to exactly WHEN someone was born.

This is what we have said all along...


Peace

Hi again

I thought I had read a study which analysed Alexander Marr? s Topocentric Primary Directions system with the results being unsupportive, but I can't find it for the moment. If this Polaris software was used then it would be worth finding I'd have thought, assuming it exists.

Just to be clear with your idea Atlantean. How many events would you require and what would be the nature of these events. If the astrologer roughly 25% of the time came up with a time within the actual birth hour it would probably be worth repeating, being better than chance would amount to very little. If you were seeking the actual minute and ?hit it? 10 times and missed it 990 times I doubt anyone would take too much notice.

I think somewhere between 500-1,000 subjects would be the sample size to aim for initially.

Isaac S used Polaris on my chart, starting with a 12 hour window, and ended up with a chart within one minute of my personal rectification (from 40 years of doing astrology) and 2 minutes from the BC time. He used 20 events if I remember rightly. I was pretty impressed.

- Ed

Hello Ed

Yes this would clearly impress someone.

The criteria of 20 events (not easy to produce) and a 12 hour window looks ideal, we just need the 500-1,000 people's data now. Putting in 5 possible times and asking the computer to find the accurate one should be sufficient. A result showing the birth time in 1st or 2nd place most of the time would be required I think. Perhaps an average below 2 would be seen as significant. I'm not great on Statistics.

I have been reading about it in the last few hours and would like to give it a go with a friends data, although I can only generate - at the moment - about 5/6 events from the list found here.

http://outofthegdwaye.wordpress.com/201 ... -analysis/

Does anyone know what it costs?

I have already come across a few people who use it and it appears to be used to generate an income for some. If a large scale test found it lacked credibility this could prove inconvienient. - Also ethical issues involved here. - If Issac S agreed to it being tested this would be a commendable and brave decision.

Isaac told me Polaris can only be used in Win XP i`m afraid. I`ve got Win 7

Hello dmause,

Re: "Isaac told me Polaris can only be used in Win XP i`m afraid. I`ve got Win 7"

I am sitting at my laptop (Windows 7) looking at the Polaris screen.

If you have anything other than the low-end Windows 7, you can likely run Polaris directly on that machine, since it supposedly has a full Windows XP OS included. If you have the low-end version, as I do on my laptop, then you have to run it as a virtual machine using VMWARE software. (which is downloadable from the web and can be re-used FREE using their virtual machine Player) [Windows XP operating system ISO or starter-disk required]

Peace

Hello Mike N,

Re: "I thought I had read a study which analysed Alexander Marr? s Topocentric Primary Directions system with the results being unsupportive, but I can't find it for the moment."

I would be interested in reading any commentary relating to Marr, Topocentric Primary Directions, or Polaris that you could find. Please share if you do find it.

I must comment, since my experience has been the opposite. I have used Polaris (and thereby Alexander Marr's methods) on many rectifications and have found it be a Godsend. Normally, Polaris requires quite a few events (if we're talking about a large search range) in order to do its magic.

You can read my Pat Nixon rectification article at http://www.jamesalexander.de/PatNixon.html and get a better idea about Polaris and some of these methods. (there are other rectification-related things on the website, but I am trying to make sure that this doesn't look like a shameless plug -- I bring it up since there is some confusion about the methods and their efficacy)

Re: "How many events would you require and what would be the nature of these events."

The number of events needed depends on the size of the search range and in how well the true birthtime's (appropriate) Topocentric Primary Directions stand out against other possible birthtimes in that search range.

To explain it better...

Each rectification is different. Sometimes with a large search range and not so many events Polaris is able to quickly resolve the true birthtime. In some other cases, with many more events and a much smaller search range, it is still much work to resolve. In short, we don't know the difficulty until we roll up our sleeves and get into the work.

I am sure that the fundamental methodology is correct, otherwise, it would not be possible to directly input events from some celebrities and have Polaris take us directly to that birthtime. I rectified a chart of a fellow astrologer and (uncharacteristically) Polaris resolves his birthtime (matching the documented time to the minute) with only 3 events. Again, this IS a rarity that so few events leads us to the right time, but it shows the fundamental correctness of the algorithm.

Re: "...500-1,000 subjects would be the sample size..."

That simply is NOT possible, it is far too many man-hours to accomplish and it would be very difficult to find that many birthtimes (documented) that we KNOW are truly correct. The odds (in a 24 hour search) of Polaris (by chance) finding the documented (assuming correctness) time is 1 in 1440. Now (follow closely) for every single time that Polaris correctly leads us to the birthtime, there would have to be 1439 times that it failed in order for Polaris to be seen as operating at chance levels. Each and every time that Polaris takes us to the correct birthtime without there also being 1439 "failures", is that much MORE that Polaris is performing beyond chance levels.

To put it another way, assume that we have 30 cases (we have more!) where entering in the events from some celebrities' lives causes Polaris to correctly output the documented birthtime in a 24 hour search. The odds of this happening are (1/1440)^30, which is approximately ONE chance in 5,634,751,435,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. [ie. 5.634751435 * 10^94] (buying 3 tickets in three state lotteries and winning the jackpot in all 3 would be easier, odds-wise)

Re: " Putting in 5 possible times and asking the computer to find the accurate one should be sufficient."

That's not how Polaris works. Polaris "simply" takes the events from someone's life and looks through the search range for the BEST (possible) BIRTHTIMES in terms of appropriate Topocentric Primary Directions for EACH event, but across ALL of the events. Period. In a normal rectification, we start examining those times through other reliable systems (including Secondaries, Progressed Sidereal Solar Returns, and sometimes Age Harmonics) in order to CONFIRM which is correct. For a test, it is enough that we show that Polaris "sees" which is the correct time (ie. rates it highest), so that the fundamental algorithm can be seen to be correct.

Again, each rectification is different. For Ken Haining, 3 events and Polaris leads right to his birthtime (ie. number one by some margin). For my personal rectification, with 19 events, the correct time (in a 24 hour search) doesn't make it into the top 10 "possible" birthtimes. For Pat Nixon (mentioned earlier), Polaris took 18 events and the correct time is number one. (realize that Pat Nixon was NOT a 24 hour search...we already knew that she was born some time shortly before midnight, so no point in looking in the afternoon!)

Re: "Does anyone know what it costs?"

$350. More info can be read at http://www.jamesalexander.de/PolarisSoftware.html

Hope this helped clarify some ideas you may have about the program.

By the way, I make NO MONEY from supporting the software. It is a labor of love because it makes my work so much easier!!!

Ed commented on the software, because he has "honed" his birthtime over 40 years of analysis. Polaris, and these attendant methods, leads us to his correct birthtime. As Ed said, he is "pretty impressed".

To me, this is the greatest proof that Astrology "works" and on terms that statisticians/mathematicians can understand, since the probabilities are very straight forward...

Peace