On Apr 23, 6:50 am, Ray Murphy <ray...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>On Apr 23, 4:06 pm, Apollia <xerxes...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> On Apr 22, 10:20 am, Ray Murphy <ray...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> >On Apr 22, 4:35 pm, Apollia <xerxes...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> >> On Apr 20, 6:24 pm, "Ray Murphy" <ray...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> >> > "Apollia" <xerxes...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>> >>
>news:0aacfaae-4c86-4b69-b1fd-55f3a29d21c1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>> >[......]
>>
>> >> > Did you know that
>> >> > your data and my observation of the MER con URA prominence in
>> >> > it, caused a huge disturbance in the world of astrology
>> >> > research?
>>
>> >> Wow, really?! No, I had no clue. :-) I've scarcely looked at
>> >> that data for years, glad to hear it turned out to be useful
somehow.
>> >> I look forward to discussing it. Can't wait to hear what
>> >> happened... :-)
>>
>> >RM: It was all pretty silly really. I just did my normal thing on
>> >one of the Yahoo groups and casually mentioned my observation in your
>> >data about the high percentage of people who had MER con URA with a 3
>> >deg orb.
>>
>> Ah, I see - 19 out of 400 with Mercury conjunct Uranus with a 3
>> degree orb, 4.75% of the data.
>>
>> I never looked super-carefully at that data - I was kind of putting
>> off taking a _really_ hard look at it until I finally got around to
>> learning enough about statistics that it wouldn't be a waste of
>> time. :-)
>
>RM: I've never learned about statistics in any formal setting and the
>whole subject can be incredibly complex, but I eventually discovered
>that it's not really that complex for astrological research. I also
>learned that a lot of it can be explained simply in plain English, but
>there seems to be a genral aversion to that sort of thing.
>
>An example of that is understanding Standard Deviation, which looks
>hard to grasp if one has never learned anything about statistics
>beyond calculating the average in primary school. I've found the best
>way to introduce anyone to it is to say "Forget about Standard
>Deviation and just think in terms of Average Deviation from the aveage
>line". Now
>how simple is that -- find the average and then find out how much all
>the scores deviate from it on average? The more sophisticated
>calculation for SD only makes a minimal difference, and when one want
>to get that extra precision for Standard Deviation it becomes easy to
>learn and people are *anxious* to learn it.
>
>Another thing that can be grossly simplified is "Degrees of Freedom".
>For 10 years I wondered what the hell it was and whether it would ever
>make any sense to me so I could calculate probability scores (those
>creepy stats things like p < .003). In simple terms "Degrees of
>Freedom" is merely "The number of bars in your bloody graph, minus 1".
>One again - how simple is that!
Thanks, that's quite helpful. :-)
>> But before I started collecting it, my assumption was that if
>> anything notable came up in it, it would probably be Mercury/Mars
>> aspects.
>
>RM: I think most of us would start with that pair, but also most
>astrologers would also tend to specify orbs without having much of a
>clue about what they really are for any given pair of factors, so the
>ideal way to go is to do research in a way that allows us to
>(literally) SEE the orbs in the data - whether they are real or just
>there by chance. If we don't do that we can miss peaks in graphs
>altogether.
Excellent points, I totally agree.
>> So, this is a surprise, but, it does make some astrological sense.
>> A higher than normal number of VE/NE conjunctions or some other
>> aspect suggesting a peaceful, gentle nature would, I think, have been
>> rather baffling from an astrological point of view... :-)
>
>RM: Yes of course.
>
>> >The idea was to discuss it from several perspectives but after a
>> >short time it attracted a series of angry responses from the
>> >"Gators" research crew and a threat to expose my shoddy and
>> >misleading .. um ... research which could have put poor ignorant
>> >astrologers on the wrong track :-)
>>
>> How encouraging... :-D It must be something rather unusual if
>> people can't even believe it's not made up or the result of being
>> shoddy or misleading.
>
>RM: There were several allegations I can recall:
>(1) That it was irresponsible to put forward an observation for
>discussion without making it clear that the observation was not
>statistically significant. Besides being untrue, nearly all
>astrological observations fall into that category - except the odd
>ones presented by researchers.
Yes, agreed. Plus, it would be rather annoying to have to sprinkle
tons of disclaimers throughout every casual discussion of astrology in
the name of being "responsible" - instead of just letting it go
without saying that we know this stuff isn't well-verified (or
verified at all) yet.
>(2) That the data had duplicates in it. This was countered by pointing
>out that when 400 dates are gathered at random [in that timeframe] we
>are *supposed* to to have duplicate dates.
Hmm, quite possible.
As I mentioned before somewhere, I'm not sure if there are duplicates
or not. I would've happily put in duplicate data for two different
users with the same birthdate (and probably not even realized it), and
happily left them in there if I had known of it. The only thing I'm
concerned about is if I accidentally put in the birthdates for some of
the same users multiple times.
Anyhow, I still have all the LiveJournal user profiles I saved back in
2002; I guess eventually I might write a script or something to
extract all the birthdates automatically, and decrease the possibility
of human error.
>(3) That birth times were not used (Irrelevant for Mer-Ura transits]
Agreed. Plenty can be done without birth times (thank goodness!).
>(4) That "people on the net lie about birth dates" and it was
>irresponsible to use data from known liars.
Hmm. Well, I definitely had, and have, no way of knowing whether or
not those LiveJournal users were putting up truthful data or not. I
always knew it was a possibility that some of them were lying; I have
no idea how common or not it is, though.
On LiveJournal, though, displaying your birthday is (currently)
optional, and I'm guessing it was probably optional back in 2002 as
well - so, that might help decrease some of the incentives there might
be to lie.
>(5) That my calculations were wrong [Later demonstrated to be untrue
>but no retraction was produced].
Oh, well.
>> I always figured if anyone ever found anything really interesting in
>> astrological research that questions of honesty/competency would be
>> some of the first raised. Not that there's anything wrong with
>> that - can't expect anyone scientific and skeptical to take our
>> honesty and competency on faith. Except, a more knowledge-advancing
>> way to attack this research would be to try to collect the same
>> kind of data, and see if the same oddity is in it or not.
>
>RM: I've been saying for a long time that we should develop a friendly
>culture of trying to shoot down others' stats work - as a sort of
>game, and the person who spots the flaw first, gets a silver star or
>something :-).
Sounds good to me... :-)
>It's far better for other astrologers to do it, rather than to publish
>and be ridiculed by skeptics - and drag astrology down at the same
>time.
Well, astrology has such a poor reputation it might be hard to make it
any worse, but, I see your point. I do think something presented
rather informally and without making any absurd, insufficiently
substantiated claims such as that it definitely confirms the validity
of astrology might not hurt so much...
But, publi****ng something which isn't really that great with pompous
pretensions as if it earthshatteringly proves the validity of
astrology, when there are untold multitudes of ways for that research
to be picked apart, would probably make astrology look even sillier
than it already does. Still could probably learn from the criticism of
skeptics in either case, though, so maybe it wouldn't be all bad.
There's definitely no need for anyone to make inflated claims which
will only get knocked down, though.
>Yes, of course we need to try and replicate our observations. Frankly
>I cannot even ucomprehend why anyone would publish any observation
>without attempting that first, and yet it seems to be encouraged by
>many people in science. It's different if there's some urgency about
>it, and it could delay potentially life-saving research.
Agreed.
>> How exciting... :-) Sometime, I definitely want to try this again
>> (maybe with a different website just so the data collected will
>> consist of a a completely different batch of people) and see if the
>> same thing happens.
>
>RM: The odds are that the Mer con Ura observation WAS just chance at
>play, but even if it is, it shows us with real-life examples what CAN
>happen and it also shows us what was not in the data. It all adds to
>our collective knowledge.
Yes, kind of like the Thomas Edison quote, "I have not failed, I've
just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
>> I wonder if anyone has (or ever will) reproduce similar results.
>> Hope so, so I won't look as if I dishonestly messed with the data or
>> incompetently messed something up... :-)
I guess I'm both relieved _and_ disappointed that it could actually
just be chance at play. :-)
>RM: Well it's certainly a good aspect to keep in mind. I see some Mer-
>Ura (in astrological practice) as contrariness and inventiveness
>rather than argumentativeness, and there's a distinct difference.
Suddenly I am reminded of the Monty Python argument clinic skit. :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teMlv3ripSM
Oh, neat... it just occurred to me to check out John Cleese's chart
for the first time. Turns out he has Mercury opp. Uranus... :-)
>Any
>Mer-Ura person who's switched-on will often see a whole bunch of ways
>to look at any given situation, so that automatically provides the
>potential to debate the various issues.
Agreed.
>> What group did this take place on, are there archives available?
>> I'd love to read them.
>
>RM: The NCGR group on Yahoo. Jan 2007.
Thank you!
>I cannot access the group
>myself since the 'Gators went on the attack after my earthquake
>question.
They kicked you out? :-( How terrible, I'm sure you didn't deserve
that.
>A word search should bring up one or more threads about Mer-Ura..
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/astrologyncgr/
>
>You'll also see yourself mentioned in the "Gators" journal in PDF
>format.
>http://www.astroinvestigators.com/index.html
Thanks, never knew about that. They do make some valid points - I've
always known that LiveJournal data is far from guaranteed to all be
accurate, and, truly serious research would have to use much more
credible sources.
I am still inclined to doubt that the majority of people who choose to
display their birthdays on that site are lying, but who knows?
>> >[Here's a similar graph to the one I posted]
>>
>http://tropical-astrology-research.googlegroups.com/web/Arguing%20Mer-Ura%20Normalized.gif?gda=srXg-k8AAAAR4o_U4Mb1ar5u1N08e_lze8OyHDn2PEBe3bYeUQ3z4WG1qiJ7UbTIup-M2XPURDQyeeM32eVwZCx-azyiYrZUhu-JjqkBsWqaCsSbDCEHYQ&gsc=jHbeWwsAAADvoi2H_h8zkgNxXd8bSddn
>>
>> Hmm, I know I'm not understanding everything in that picture, but, I
>> think I've got the main idea, and it does look rather strange. I
>> wonder if I made a data-entry error - maybe I input some duplicate
>> data accidentally. I'll have to check sometime.
>
>RM: The graph could be explained a lot better, but the main thing it
>is telling us is that something unusual is hapening at the conjunction
>and all the other aspects look like a normal distribution.
Weird... :-)
>I should
>make it clear here that there were no MORE conjunctions than other
>aspects, but MORE than expected for the conjunction.
OK...
>All other aspects
>besides the con + opp have two of each.
Hmm, I'm a bit confused about "two of each" refers to exactly. I
guess you're not talking about the quantities of other aspects, since,
with a 3 degree orb, it appears there are 6 oppositions, 17 trines, 13
squares, 18 ***tiles, 17 semisquares, 16 sesquisquares, 11
semi***tiles, and 10 quincunxes.
----
Apollia My website: http://www.astroblahhh.com/
Birth data: -qa July 3 1981 12:50 EDT 79:59W 40:26N (Pittsburgh, PA)
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