This is a continuation of the series focused on the idea of whether astrology can pass scientific testing by asking astrologers to match charts with descriptions. For example, if an astrologer were given a natal chart and a list of 5 people, could they pick the correct person to match the chart?

My desire to write about this was prompted by a recent incident in which a skeptic challenged astrologers to pass such a matching game, for a $1,000 prize. But I didn’t mean to make it solely focused on this particular incident; this situation has occurred before, and it will occur again. Astrologers should understand why this type of test is invalid, so they don’t fall for this kind of challenge from skeptics in the future. We should also understand what constitutes research methods that are scientifically sound, versus what approaches to “testing” are not sound.

Review my series so far, here:

• In which a skeptic accidentally proves astrology while trying to disprove it

  • TL;DR—the approach to issuing the challenge to astrologers did not follow standard procedures of transparency or objectivity for scientific research. Also, ironically, the chart displayed on the advertisement for the study speaks to the situation astrologically, which was almost certainly unintentional on the part of the skeptic!

• Why you can't test astrology using blind chart matches, Part I

  • TL;DR—The skeptic greatly abuses of the idea of “exceeding random chance” for the matching test. Also, the matching game only allows for a binary outcome, which does not fit the complexity of personalities, nor does it acknowledge the fact that multiple charts will have similarities to each other, just as different people have similarities to each other.

Tick tock, testing

Another huge problem with the test setup is that he wanted participants to get through twelve trials in just one or two hours.

Most astrologers I know spend at least an hour or two studying just one chart before entering a consultation with a client! To get through twelve charts in that same period of time?

OMG.

For those who don’t know, they may be wondering why it takes so long to read an astrological chart. The best way I can explain it is that it’s a process of decoding symbols. It’s like getting a message that is written in a foreign language, and then encrypted with a scrambling algorithm on top of that. It takes awhile to get through all the layers, to put everything together into a message we can understand!

If you are going to squeeze 12 chart analyses into 1 or 2 hours, the quality of your results are going to be quite poor. An astrologer’s speed at chart analysis does pick up over time with practice, sure, but there are some things that just can’t be rushed, no matter how much experience you have.

I’m going to go back to the comparison with the card-choice tests used for psychic abilities, but extend this example further.

Let’s say we have 5 cards with the following pictures on them, and the subject needs to choose the correct card.

In this example, let’s say the cat is the correct answer.

In a test of psychic abilities, the subject would be told to pick the correct answer without any clues, using only their intuition. But for astrology, we get a clue: the chart. But the chart isn’t a direct clue; it is encoded in symbols. It is more like a situation where this is your clue:

18.1.16.13..24.16.24.1.23..24.1..25.13.16.14.1.24.26.13..27.25.13.18.1 

Could you solve it?

You’d need to know the code. In this code that I just made up, you need to use the Gaj Latin alphabet to convert the numbers into letters. Then you end up with this:

MALI SISAR SA ŠILJASTIM UŠIMA

What in the world is that?

Oh, it’s Bosnian. You have one more step: you need to translate it into English. You end up with:

SMALL MAMMAL WITH POINTED EARS

In the pressure cooker of having only 5-10 minutes to decode the clue, the subject may accidentally miss decoding some words.

• If they miss the word “small,” they are left with “Mammal with pointed ears.” This could apply to the tiger equally as to the cat.

• If they miss the word “pointed,” they are left with “Small mammal with ears.” This could apply to the dachsund just as much as it applies to the cat.

See what I mean? If we don’t have enough time to “decode” the astrological charts properly, we may not get all of the relevant “clues” up to the surface. The astrologer may fail the test — not because they don’t know how to practice astrology, nor because astrology overall is bunk, but because they were not given enough time to obtain the information they needed.

Prioritization of facts

There’s another problem with the matching game. As mentioned, the challenge is to pick the the description of a person’s life that matches a given natal chart. But do those descriptions provide the same information that an astrological chart provides?

An extremely important issue to consider is what information about the people’s lives would be presented to the astrologer. Which details, and how many details, would be included about each person’s life description? And who gets to decide how to write each person’s biography? What narrative would be emphasized? Everyone is going to answer these questions differently, because everyone has a different set of values, traits they notice, and issues they prioritize. In a matching game, you don’t have enough space to provide extensive details about each person; you have to summarize them in a few sentences.

For example, if one of your subjects is Steve Jobs, Biographer “A” might emphasize his skill in computer coding and his impressive career in technology, while Biographer “B” might talk about his obsessive tendencies and his pattern of abusive interpersonal behavior, and Biographer “C” might explore his emphasis on how design and usability intersect with aesthetics. All of these things, and much more, will be in the natal chart, ready to observe by a trained astrologer. But these energies have to be interpreted from the symbols, which takes time. Just like different people notice different things about other people, different astrologers notice different things about the same astrological charts.

There is also the fact that publicly available information about any person may not match the “true sense” of that person’s personality as they experience it within themselves. People often present a “good face” to the world and never let anyone know how they are really feeling.

For example, a description of someone might state that they are always making jokes, and their friends see this person as optimistic and happy. But this person may actually be hiding a depression disorder, which they have learned how to conceal from the rest of the world, struggling with it only in private. The jokes and optimism are ways that this person copes with, and covers up, their depression. The astrologer would be able to see symbols showing great seriousness or heaviness in this person’s chart… but if they were only given the surface details of “happiness” in the description of the person, and nothing more, they would not be able to make a correct match.

In conclusion…

The tests presented by skeptics are rarely presented in good faith, and every one that I have ever seen has had serious flaws in the research methodology. (If you know of a good one, let me know…)

Even if the methodology were sound, the actual test itself—asking an astrologer to match a chart with a brief description of a person in just 5-10 minutes— is a terrible way to “prove” astrology, for the following reasons:

• Matching games have a binary outcome (correct/incorrect), while personalities are multitudinous.

• The astrologer would need much more time to get adequate information from the chart.

• The descriptions of the people being matched would need to be very deep and nuanced, to be able to be certain of a match.

So, OK, that’s me saying that this type of test isn’t good for astrology. But can tests be done? Can we compare astrology to personality tests, in their predictive power? Is there a way to “test” or “prove” astrology?

Eh, yes and no. That’s a long topic, perhaps for another post.

However, in a nutshell, if you're looking for a statistically tested “matching” approach to personality via the natal chart, there is one that I know of. Vincent Godbout is a former professor of mathematics and statistics, a computer programmer, and a serious, practicing astrologer. He created a test that uses a computer to perform the matching, which eliminates some of the subjectivity involved in normal matching tests.

Here’s an article about work that Professor Godbout has done in this area: Automated Study May Silence Astrology’s Critics. (It’s a good article, but I’d just say, don’t hold your breath about critics going silent, though. Critics are always going to criticize; it’s what they do.) 😉

Here’s a video showing the system:

There is also an excellent journal that produces peer-reviewed, statistically sound research in the area of astrology: Correlation.

Start there for a skeptic-free, non-hyped approach to astrological research.

By the way… if you can’t tell, I am interested in performing astrological research, myself! If you’d like to support my efforts, check out my membership options. I’m working on building out my business, and getting enough supporters will be crucial! Thank you!