Is this the most amazing video that confirms our suspicions about Horoscopes?

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Lol that's funny...Show more

In a group setting, people search for cues on how to behave. Here factors influencing participants' behaviour are:

1) the presence of an authority figure;
2) conformity pressure;
3) possible pluralistic ignorance.

A couple of other weakness:

1) demand characteristics;
2) deception;
3) entirely quantitative data;
4) unrepresentative sample;
5) low mundane realism;
6) lack of alternative explanations presented;
7) lack of replication.

There are serious methodological drawbacks of the experiment and a further replication under different conditions might be needed to support the results obtained here....Show more

All that shows is the ignorance of the person conducting the test; he doesn't understand the saubject he's trying to ridicule. This is nothing new, it's been around for decades, not the video but the idea. It's corny and trite. if this is the best they can come up with, (things that have been ridiculed and discredited umpteen times before), then it's about time they found better use of their time. WEhy is it even anything to do with a classroom anyway?
Typical Yankie crap.
And if you think this is amazing, it just shows how little you know or understand about things and are ready to jump on a bandwagon just to make yourself look good when in fact it makes you look a complete and utter fool, ready to follow blindly.
Final edit, take it or leave it.
I just used one instance to show why one person may be different from another but yes there can be numerous influuences on a person to affect how they progress in life. No chart can determine the life it just shows where someone may be strong and things can come naturally or where there may be challenges etc. Nothing is written in stone; all sorts of outside influences make the person what they are. If you think, (and I'm not saying you are), that astrology is about predicting the future then it's wrong and for anyone to think this way is wrong.
I rest my case, take it or leave it.
FACT: I can tell you know absolutely nothing about astrology just by the remarks you've made.

Edit: I don't usually look back at questions but if I answer anything like this one, I just have to. (Thoufgh I don't bother usually).
This dates back to about 1995, although that's irrelevant to the "critique". Mr Randi was prevalant about then.
In order for you to understand anything you really do have to look into things, at least a little bit anyway!
Sun sign astrology, (that means just going by the month that people were born), (there, at least you now know something about it), dates back to about the 1920's when in and English newspaper, to fill the spaces, they got one of the sports writers to do some star readings and decided to call them horoscopes. That term has stuck for decades in the papers and mags etc. Horoscope is actually a Greek term for chart of the hour and that's what a true horoscope is, a chart or map of the skies at the "precise" time of birth of a person. If someone else was born at the exact time and place as that person, then they would have the same chart but then again if one person's from a disfuctional family and one's from an average family, then their lives probably would turn out differently.
You could do this sort of test, as in the video, with all sorts of subjects and it shows they prove nothing.
Everyone's entitled to their own opinion; nobody forces you to read about astrology but if you learn nothing else; by all means question things, but intelligently, that means getting the basics of a subject first not just follow blindly.
Final edit:
Astrology is not about predicting things; and that's why I know you know nothing about astrology, it's by the rubbish you come out with.
I rest my case....Show more

Actually James Randi knows virtually nothing of astrology. Straw man arguments are propaganda techniques and he and other skeptics use them extensively. Not only is his ignorance demonstrated many videos, but he once hilariously went on TV and claimed that Ptolemy invented astrology in the 2nd century AD.

To confuse Sun sign astrology with the astrology that dates back to the ancient Babylonians is ignorance personified. Criticizing something you know nothing about is bigotry, as is repeating discredited lines of attack as though they are true. For example, look at your assumption that there has to be a physical mechanism for astrology to work and since it has not been established astrology isn't valid. Totally illogical. At one time nothing had an explained mechanism. That didn't invalidate anything. It wasn't until recently that continental shift was understood, therefore prior to that it didn't happen? - that's your argument. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Furthermore there is no evidence that everything has to have a physical mechanism to work. In fact there is no evidence that physical science is the final arbiter of all truth. That is the premise of a historically recent and arrogant worldview. It's not a fact. The list of illogical arguments made by skeptics is endless and your arguments are spurious.

But we have one area of agreement that you won't understand. I think the idea of "psychological" astrology is weak at best. It isn't true psychology for one thing; it's pop psychology. And astrologers are not trained therapists much less trained psychologists (well a few are). That being said there are precious few anti-astrology arguments that cannot be equally made against contemporary psychotherapies....Show more

Yes....Show more