Skeptico

The Secret Exposed by The Chasers

I wrote earlier this year about the scam that is The Secret, and how The Law of Attraction is not an actual scientific law. Of course, I wrote using logic and facts. Boring! Anyway, reader Martin sent me a link to this You Tube clip.  These two Australian guys know the right way to do it – with humor. Brilliant humor. Worth watching all seven minutes.

I especially loved it at the end where they are in the dry cleaners and they “visualize” the clothes as being theirs. Unfortunately the shop owner had obviously also been watching The Secret – and she visualized them back.

Even More Drivel from Deepak Chopra

Via Pharyngula I learn of some more drivel from Deepak Chopra. He’s whining about skeptics and materialists again. It’s the same old rubbish:

Skeptics have a rigid mind-set, skeptics suppress new ideas, science is a religion, materialism is false, science isn’t the only way of knowing, science can’t understand spiritualism, yadda yadda…

I was going to deconstruct it paragraph by paragraph, but it all started to look a little familiar, and then I remembered how I wrote Is Deepak Chopra a negative or a positive for science and humanity? in Sept 2005, and responded to More Chopra drivel in January 2006. Click the links – I think I covered his lame arguments then, so I think I’ll save my time now.

Well, if Chopra can recycle his drivel I don’t see why I can’t recycle my debunking of it.

Testing Astrology – Again

Can you test astrology to see if it works? If you can’t, how do you know if it does work? And how did anyone work out all the detailed rules of astrology if they couldn’t test it to see if the rules were right?

In December 1985, Shawn Carlson published “A double-blind test of astrology” in the journal Nature. The purpose was to test the fundamental thesis of astrology, as agreed by the astrologers involved, which was the proposition that:

the position of the “planets” (all planets, the Sun and Moon, plus other objects defined by astrologers) at the moment of birth can be used to determine the subject’s general personality traits and tendencies in temperament and behaviour, and to indicate the major issues which the subject is likely to encounter.

There were two tests. In the first test, subjects were asked to pick their own horoscope out of three (their own and two controls). In the second test, astrologers were asked which one of three California Personality Index (CPI) results belonged to the subject whose natal data they had been given. Astrology failed both tests – the results were no better than chance. You can read more in my write-up from February 2005 - What do you mean, “test” astrology?

Recently there has been some discussion of these tests in the comments. In response to a question from me, one commenter Apollia argues that the CPI might not be that accurate, or that the astrologers might not understand it. Her comment is here. My reply to her is here.

Testing the people

Apollia’s comment raised for me an interesting point – how do you determine the actual personality traits of a person, in a way that they can be compared with what astrology predicts they will be?

Off hand I can think of a few ways:

1. Ask the subject
2. Ask friends of the subject
3. Ask an some other third party expert to assess the subject
4. Ask the astrologer to assess the subject
5. Use a standardized test such as the CPI.

There may be others, although I can’t think of any that are significantly different from the above. There are problems with each.

Ask the subject

This is test # 1 from the Nature article. A criticism of this is that the subject may not be sufficiently self-aware to select an accurate description of himself from a group of three, and/or might be unwilling to “admit” to certain negative characteristics that he might in fact have. The Nature article agreed that this would be a problem, and concluded that because of this, test # 1 was a poor test of astrology.

Ask friends of the subject

This would get around the problem of the subject not wanting to admit to an undesirable characteristic. However, this method assumes that other people know the subject better than he or she does. While this might be true in some cases, it is likely to be less true in others. As with “ask the subject”, you would need first to determine scientifically that friends could select accurate descriptions of the subject.

Ask an some other third party expert to assess the subject

Again, you would need scientific evidence that these experts could select accurate descriptions of strangers, based on interview or other methods. In addition, you would need to demonstrate that the expert could accurately match this information to a horoscope, or that the descriptions could be accurately conveyed to the astrologers who would match them to a horoscope.

Ask the astrologer to assess the subject

This is basically Apollia’s idea. But here we would be assuming that an astrologer could select an accurate personality description more often than the subject, the subject’s friends or an expert psychologist. I don’t think astrologers necessarily have training in this area, so it’s hard to see how this would be true. But there is a much bigger problem with this method. There would be a huge possibility of sensory leakage – other ways the astrologer would have of “finding out” details of the subjects’ natal charts. Any valid test has to be securely controlled to prevent all other ways (other than astrology) for the astrologers to pick the correct chart. Any test that allowed the astrologers to spend time with the subjects would be deeply flawed and therefore invalid.

Use a standardized test such as the CPI

This is the Nature test #2. It is true that the CPI may not be 100% accurate or 100% understandable.  But the CPI was chosen for the Nature test by the astrologers “because the advising astrologers judged the CPI attributes to be closest to those discernable by astrology.” (Page 420.) Also, the Nature test was devised and run by astrologers recommended by the National Council for Geocosmic Research for their expertise in astrology and in their ability to use the CPI. Even if the CPI is not perfect, you would still expect results better than chance. But chance results were exactly what they got.

It seems to me the CPI method is probably one of the best on offer, although I would be open to the friends or experts evaluations (# 2 and 3 above), if it could be demonstrated that these people could select the accurate description of the subject from two controls. But the burden of proof is clearly with astrologers to demonstrate that astrology can pass a test to demonstrate that it works, not with skeptics to show it doesn’t.

Conclusion

There is one thing I want to be clear about here. If none of these methods are acceptable, and if astrology can’t be tested, then it means that astrology is almost certainly bogus. For one, astrology’s doubtful provenance (no known method by which it is supposed to work, no known way its rules were derived, its absurd premises), mean we need extraordinary evidence that it works. By this I mean better evidence that we demand for many other things. But we are only offered poor evidence – anecdotes that are biased by the Forer Effect and confirmation bias. And for two, if astrology can’t be tested, then clearly no one would ever have been able to work out all the detailed rules astrologers use in the first place. How would they have been able to work out the rules if there is no way of ever testing them to see if they were right?

So either astrology can be tested – so astrologers, please tell us how. (And so far it has failed all well designed tests.) Or it can’t be tested – so astrologers please tell us how its rules were derived and how you know it works.

Which is it? Because it can’t be both.

69th Carnival of the Godless

The Carnival of the Godless has just been posted at The Uncredible Hallq. All posts are from an invisible-man-in- the-sky-less perspective.

Adopting Secular Religions (Or Not)

Reader Rob sent me a link to this TCSDaily article by Karl Reitz – essentially a criticism of recent atheist books by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Chris Hitchens. Reitz takes on the response to the claim the atheist societies (for example fascists and communists), have done as many evil things as religious ones. He quotes Hitchens saying that such beliefs “were types of secularised religion, and as such do not count." Reitz responds that if people became atheists, they would inevitably adopt such “secular religions” in the place of religion:

A world in which everyone stopped believing in God would likely provide fertile ground for such secular faiths. These secularized religions are what we would really have if we somehow got everyone to stop believing in God. Realistically, atheists […] may only have a choice between living in societies that are traditionally religious or ones that have adopted secularized religions.

So, far from "not counting," secular religions must be taken very seriously, and their implications understood, before we preach the benefits of godless society.

Reitz is presenting us with a false dilemma – humans will either believe in God and religion, or they will adopt false secular faiths such as fascism or communism. But there is a third option – they will adopt critical thinking and the scientific method. I agree that “secular religions” should be taken seriously – that’s why this blog is about skepticism and critical thinking, and not solely about atheism and being anti-religious (although I am both). So yes, of course when and if people stop believing in God, they should adopt critical thinking in its place. Not as any kind of religion (which it isn’t), but as the normal way to evaluate claims. Secular religions are not inevitable.

Reitz goes on to assert that the common factor in both secular and non secular religions, is faith:

I am atheist because I don't believe in faith, which I believe is the common dogma shared by traditional religion and secularized religions.

I agree with him here – the common factor is faith: belief without evidence, and/or in the teeth of contradictory evidence. However, he is missing the important area where most religions differ from secular religions - belief in God. This is important because, although people may feel free to disagree with the tenets of a secular faith, they cannot disagree with God. As I have written before, religion tells us that its rules are the way God says things have to be. You and I can disagree on all sorts of things, but if God is telling us the other person is wrong, ultimately we can’t peacefully disagree. And it’s the certainty that God-belief provides that is the reason religion is so dangerous. Secular leaders such as Stalin or Mao could only stay in power and keep their “faith” alive with an iron fist. Such measures, contrary to the will of the people, are ultimately doomed to fail no matter how brutally they are applied. Contrast that with (for example) Islam. Muslims didn’t have to be forced by their leaders to riot in the streets to protest the Muhammad cartoons and demand an end to free speech; they did it because they believed God wanted them to. That’s why Islam is still going strong after 1,300 years (and Christianity after 2,000 years), while the Soviet Union collapsed in about 70.

Having missed the important difference between secular and non-secular religions, Reitz goes on to highlight an irrelevant one:

The fundamental difference between traditional religions and these secular religions is that secular religions promise us that perfection (heaven) is possible here, on earth, in present times.

So what? If they both promote a false reality they’re both bad. But isn’t religious anti-science worse? The Soviets (and later the Communist Chinese) promoted the anti-science Lysenkoism which resulted in crop failures and famine, as well as the execution of numerous geneticists. But Lysenkoism eventually collapsed under the weight of contradictory evidence. Compare that with the anti-science creationists who want to get their ignorance taught in schools as though it were science, or Christians who reject condom use in Africa as a means of preventing the spread of AIDS. The religious are driven by God-belief to take us back to the dark ages. Unlike with Lysenkoism, we can be sure that such religious anti-scientific beliefs will never be influenced by contradictory evidence. Contradictory evidence only makes God-believers fight harder.

I think that in his penultimate paragraph, Reitz reveals the real source of his disagreement with Hitchens, and shows us the origin of his confusion about religion:

For the same reasons that I don't want religion taught to my [theoretical future] children in public schools, I don't want Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth to be a requirement for graduation. If the First Amendment prohibits the teaching of religion in public schools, shouldn't it prohibit showing that movie? After all, what's the difference between that movie and one that presented a traditional religion in the same way?

What’s the difference? Wow - it’s obvious! Al Gore’s movie was based on actual current scientific research and for the most part, Gore gets the science right. Both it, and the scientific research it is based upon, can be questioned and will be revised as better evidence presents itself in future. Religion is immune to such reality checks. Still, I think the fact that Reitz thinks “An Inconvenient Truth” is a religion, gives us a window into his secular religion – global warming denial. I guess he really did “adopt a secular religion” in the place of religion, when he became an atheist.

Act of God?

God is angry again, and he’s a vengeful God. Via Pharyngula and Effect Measure I learn of God’s apparent displeasure at graven images:

The nuns at Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden were thanking God on Sunday that no one was hurt when a bolt of lightning shot out of the sky and struck their 33-foot statue of Jesus.

The lightning bolt broke off one of Jesus' arms and a hand and damaged one of his feet, sending marble plummeting to the ground during a Saturday afternoon storm.

The message couldn’t be clearer. God is taking time off from sending hurricanes to punish America for tolerating gays, so he can punish these nuns for breaking the second commandment. The faithful though, still don’t get it:

Thousands of people visit the shrine each year to pray and pay homage to Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini […]

Visitors climb the 373 stairs to the sacred heart statue, "praying as they go,"

Not hard enough, apparently.

Seems armless enough.

62nd Skeptics’ Circle

Well, I failed. Despite my good intentions another two weeks has passed and I still didn’t manage to post anything. It’s true I have been especially busy recently, but I have to admit the main reason for my lack of posts has been my lack of desire or motivation to write anything. I have taken a break before and returned with new stuff, and I intend to do so again. Still, in the mean time there is no reason to miss out on skeptical blogging, because the 62nd Skeptics' Circle has just been posted at Polite Company. Click the link for the best skeptical blogging from the last two weeks. And check back here soon. Honestly.

Edited to add:

There is also the Carnival of the Godless today – so more than enough reading.