XPost: alt.atheism, alt.flame.jesus.christ, alt.talk.creationism   
   XPost: sci.skeptic   
   From: nospam@here.thanks   
      
   On 29/12/2014 21:14, felix_unger wrote:   
   > On 30-December-2014 7:21 AM, bilgat@m.nu wrote:   
   >   
   >> On Tue, 30 Dec 2014 07:05:20 +1100, felix_unger    
   >> wrote:   
   >>   
   >>> On 30-December-2014 1:45 AM, Mitchell Holman wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>>>    If you eager to believe in things with no proof I have some old   
   >>>> astrology texts to sell you.   
   >>>>   
   >>> if astrology is just nonsense, how  do you explain why it's accurate in   
   >>> describing ppl by their star signs?   
   >>   
   >> Felix how  old are you like 14?   
   >   
   > no   
   >   
   >>   Everyone knows that that shit is made   
   >> to be so generic that it can fit anyone. How many zodiacs have you   
   >> read besides your own?   
   >   
   > plenty. how many have you read? and Chinese astrology is surprisingly   
   > accurate as well. and then there's numerology.. :)   
   >   
   >> Read others you will find that most of them   
   >> will fit you in some way.   
   >   
   > yes, 'in some way'. but when the profiles are (significantly) more than   
   > 50% accurate, ie. beyond the law of averages, for each star sign, that's   
   > indicative that there must be reasons for it.   
      
      
   That's right.   
   It's commonly known as "confirmation bias"   
      
      
   >and the profiles for each   
   > star sign are significantly different, ie. they are are not just   
   > generically similar.   
      
   It doesn't matter if they are significantly different from each other or   
   not.   
   As long as the profile contains a description that someone will want to   
   identify with, confirmation bias will occur.   
      
      
   By the way, I've just tagged onto this conversation.   
   Was the OP being serious about astrology or were they just joking?   
      
   A friend of mine became a journalist after leaving college.   
   One of the first jobs he was given at the small newspaper he worked for   
   was to do the astrology column.   
   Most smaller publications can't afford to pay a "real' astrologist, so   
   the task was given to him.   
   He simply  gathered up old astrology predictions from old newspapers and   
   magazines, and worded them slightly differently.   
   It would only take him about ten minutes to put together the whole   
   astrology column every day.   
   There were quite a few readers who wrote in to tell the editor how   
   astoundingly accurate he was in all of his predictions.   
   So, when someone tells you that it's all generic made up shit, you can   
   take their word for it.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)