"Hermes" <hermes@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:hermes-C0B509.16533604052008@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Richard Nolle wrote:
>
> : Regarding the recent discussions, I must say that it's invalid to
> compare
> : only two of twelve categories in the manner presented. From my
> cursory
> : following of the discussion, I believe this is the point that
> Hermes is
> : trying to make.
> :
> : Ray is on to something in one regard: instead of going in with a
> specific
> : hypothesis and testing to see whether it's null or not, go ahead
> and test
> : for with a more general hypothesis (e.g. there is no difference
> between
> : astrological function A and cateogory X). This lets the data speak
> unimpeded
> : by astrological theory and practice. Testing only for things
> sanctioned by
> : astrological tradition could lead to overlooking what works best.
> And
> : probably would, in my estimation . . .
>
> I agree.
>
> The physicist P.A.M. Dirac once gave a lecture in which he looked
> at which approaches in research have been most fruitful. In general,
> every researcher is free and should be free to choose any approach
> that he/she likes and thinks might give good results. My coach at
> IBM Research in the 90's had a good idea while ironing his ****rts;
> why not? But Dirac noted one thing: Discoverers are usually more
> successful once a discrepancy between expected and observed behavior
> has been discovered. Very probably because otherwise the "space" of
> possible theories is just to big to be successful.
RM: That increased potentail only became glaringly obvious to me a
few months ago, after 5 years of normal research methods, and it's
why I'm now doong preliminary searches to filter out all the stuff
that
cannot possibly reach the .05 level with the amount of data in hand.
[....]
> Anyway, would be great to get "the foot in" with astrology. All
> that is needed is "only" a sufficiently large amount of data
> that shows a relation to planetary constellations that cannot be
> explained by seasons and full moons or other similar things and
> optimally for which the amount of data can be expanded in order
> to convince also very sceptical people (like me, too).
RM: We are never looking at constellations. It's zodiac signs,
whether they be tropical or sidereal, either from from the geocentric
or heliocentric perspective. We also use zodiacal longitudes
independently of signs. Some of us are also looking at the differences
between geocentric and topocentric and I'm also looking at
"line-of-sight" celestial body positions from a topocentric viewpoint.
We need more than just a solid correlation between the movement
of celestial bodies and human affairs. We need something that
resembles Tropcal or Vedic astrology in some way.
> Open in exploring new things, but sceptical before accepting
> them for good, I guess... :)
>
> A simple model that makes many verifiable and largely independent
> predictions that all work is certainly preferable, but may only
> be possible in a second step. Or maybe not. :)
RM: What's this "all work" business? Nothing in astrology works
all the time. Astrology is all about spotting themes and providing
our best examples of how they are more likely to manifest, either
generally or in relation to a person's current cir***stances (which
is a lot easier of course).
Ray
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