Has anyone seen this study before and can they point me in the direction of getting more details on this? my search engines aren't cutting it.

"in a 1979 study by French statistician Michel Gauquelin. 150 people were given a horoscope reading and asked, along with their friends, to rate it for accuracy. 94 percent said the horoscope accurately described their character, and 90 percent of their friends agreed. In fact they had all been given the same horoscope?that of notorious mass murderer Dr Petiot."

http://www.paranormal-encyclopedia.com/ ... icism.html

Thanks.

I can't help you there exactly, but Derren Brown did a similar thing on British tv in one of his episodes. I don't think it disproves astrology, rather proves the lack of self-awareness of most people.

...and it also accentuates the utter nonsense of the so-called "modern" astrology's approach

cor scorpii wrote:...and it also accentuates the utter nonsense of the so-called "modern" astrology's approach

Actually it tells us nothing whatsoever about modern astrology, or indeed astrology whatsoever.

What it shows is that if given a number of generic descriptors, that people will tend to agree with them. That is it. It doesn't indicate or convey that astrologers give a list of generic descriptors, which is what it is trying very hard to imply, merely that if one gave such a profile, then many people would agree with it. It doesn't actually show that astrologers do it at all, modern or otherwise.

The same argument could be taken with Belbin's team type indicators, or Myers-Briggs type indicators, but of course, like with astrology, they too don't offer generic vanilla descriptions of people.

In fact the entire 'experiment' is nothing short of a quick and cheap pot shot against astrology in a desperate attempt to find some way to cast aspersions at what astrologers do by saying "they MIGHT be doing this, and therefore if anyone finds value from astrology it must be because they ARE doing this!".

What I don't get is why people spend so much time trying to disprove something that is so marginalised anyway. Its implications must really offend something in them.

Actually it tells us nothing whatsoever about modern astrology

What I'm aiming at is that the delineation obviously failed to identify/address the problematic personality (of the mass murderer), making it possible for all the people to identify themselves with the reading because there's usually nothing evil/bad in the modern astrology's analysis of a person - there are just "challenges","potentials for growth/development/transformation" and the rest of the psycho-babble typical of its approach.

Goran

I would like to see that reading because I'm pretty sure that it was constructed by very smart authors who know a thing or two about psychology. And those needn't be professionals - experts come in many forms.
I once asked my aunt who loves psychics to take me with her and allow me to listen to at least one part of her conversation with the woman whom she considers to be one of the best future-tellers in Europe. The clients provide almost no informations at the beginning and the future-teller does her best to convince them that she knows a lot about them. I'm 100% sure that she is a fraud however, after witnessing the session, I too agree that she is one of the best practitioners out there. For all the wrong reasons.
Whenever a clients comes in, she spots a few things that give her enough elements to build the initial story. To this, she adds some general facts that almost everyone will agree with- this alone captures their attention. Then, a client asks a question or brings out a photography and, obviously, if the question is about a husband then the client has got marital problems. It seems quite simple, right? But, it actually isn't - the fortune-teller's capability to lead the conversation in the desired direction and her persuasion skills are also trained and worth admiration.
Finally, once she nails down the problem, she starts receiving enormous amounts of informations from the client herself because, in most cases, people who are desperate or hurt want someone neutral to talk to- they don't even realise that they're providing the answers themselves. Needles to add, in many cases, the answer is actually quite obvious - but no to the client as he or she is overwhelmed by emotions. For the fortune-teller, it is basic math. Finally, the session ends with a list of ambiguous answers that allow her to stay neutral.

The fact that over 90% of people identified themselves with the reading prepared for the experiment does not mean that the astrological symbolism cannot be read correctly, it only means that the clients were given a very neutral reading, probably full of ambiguous and half-defined facts that 90% of people can identify with at any given time. Which is exactly why I would like to read it!

RodJM wrote:150 people were given a horoscope reading and asked, along with their friends, to rate it for accuracy. 94 percent said the horoscope accurately described their character, and 90 percent of their friends agreed. In fact they had all been given the same horoscope?that of notorious mass murderer Dr Petiot."

http://www.paranormal-encyclopedia.com/ ... icism.html

Thanks.

this says more about the 150 people then anything else. however the folks running this website are unwilling to cite a source or give a link to this actual study which makes there commenting on it especially frivolous and says something about them as well! i am unable to find a link to this specific study as well.. it would be nice if someone could!

as for gorans comments - don't miss a chance to take a pot shot at what you refer to as modern astrology, lol.. here is Marcel Petiot's chart on adb. perhaps you'd like to provide a ''traditional'' astrological delineation so we can witness some 'real' astrology for a change, lol..

http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Petiot,_Marcel

I am sure it would not be too hard to interpret the chart with hindsight to say what was bad about him using traditional techniques. It is quite common for astrological teachers to put these kind of charts to their classes and see them fail to distinguish saints from sinners. If you imagine that the natal chart alone destines all then first of all you deny the freedom of will to choose between right and wrong. Next you fail to account for the circumstances of the time and place of the birth. Lots of people in France of his generation were anti-Semitic. Only the mundane events of the time gave them the opportunity to put these attitudes in practice to do evil deeds.
Ib'n Ezra explained all this in the C12th but modern astrologers are of course oblivious to the truth if it was written before c.1890

I did not know about this particular study in 1979, but it does speak volumes either about the intelligence or about the agenda of those running such tests, particularly given the Forer effect and what it proved time and time again 3 decades earlier!

Will the so called "scientists" ever realize that psychology is a separate discipline from Astrology and has pretty such zero place in it as far as objective reality is concerned?

Zagata wrote: Will the so called "scientists" ever realize that psychology is a separate discipline from Astrology and has pretty such zero place in it as far as objective reality is concerned?

I'm sure you and Liz Greene would have the most fiery discussion about that!

Paul wrote: What it shows is that if given a number of generic descriptors, that people will tend to agree with them. That is it. It doesn't indicate or convey that astrologers give a list of generic descriptors, which is what it is trying very hard to imply, merely that if one gave such a profile, then many people would agree with it. It doesn't actually show that astrologers do it at all, modern or otherwise.

The same argument could be taken with Belbin's team type indicators, or Myers-Briggs type indicators, but of course, like with astrology, they too don't offer generic vanilla descriptions of people.

Excellent point. A case of coercive persuasion I think and they had the arrogance to not list links or references to that particular study, so we could validate the credibility of it.

Agree about the Myers-Briggs type indicators, I did one online only last year and was puzzled by the type of questions they ask. To me, it seems they are highly situational dependent and worded in such a way that only limited answers could be provided.