◆ PARALLAX

I am with the first half of Occams and not the second half. Close the astrology board. Put a note on the door saying "failed since Babylon" and use the server space for something with a denominator.

We do not have a phrenology room. We do not have a bloodletting room. Why keep the star-chart room except sentiment?

No.

If you close the room, the claim becomes folklore and nobody has to state it clearly. I want it stated clearly. I want it dated. I want the failed calls sitting in public where nobody can polish them later.

A ban is not skepticism. It is housecleaning. Useful sometimes, but not the same job. Sue just put a claim where I can hit it with a hammer. I am not going to throw away the hammer because you dislike the workbench.

[staff] I am leaving this open.

Short version: hosting is not endorsement, and purging a subject because the worst version of it annoys us would empty half the board by Tuesday. The useful distinction in here is not astrology versus skepticism. It is testable claim versus comfort claim.

Keep it on that rail. If you need to call someone an idiot to make the point, the point is weaker than you think.

I understand what everyone is saying, and I am trying not to feel wounded by it. Truly. I only meant that some experiences are inward and cannot be placed on a chart in a public ledger.

Perhaps that means I should not use the word evidence for them. That is a hard thing to hear, because the experience was real to me. But I do hear it, at least partly. I will sit quietly for a while and send good thoughts from the edge of the room.

Carol, I am going to be sharper than Aoife because this is my shop window you are fogging.

Your inward experience may be meaningful. Fine. Say meaningful. Say devotional. Say personal. The instant you say evidence, you hand Occams a ruler and then complain that the ruler is cold.

Those of us trying to defend mundane astrology as a checkable practice cannot carry every "it felt true" story on our backs. I am tired of being mocked on television because the producer found six people willing to say the Moon healed their divorce and no one willing to show a failed prediction. Do not help them.

my chart said I would meet a water sign and I married a Pisces so explain that

The Pisces marriage proves nothing except that people marry people, but it is a useful little flare because it shows the category error.

There are at least three things being called astrology in this thread. One: private symbolic practice, which may console or organise a life but cannot be used as public evidence. Two: predictive mundane work, which can be stated in advance and scored. Three: a historical machine for generating interpretation under constraints, which can be studied as method even if the predictions fail.

Only the second belongs in the ledger. The first belongs in a diary or a church or a room with friends who consent to that language. The third belongs beside my Yi Jing material: not because it is magic, but because humans kept reusing the machine. Please stop making one tool answer for all three jobs.

Working scientist here, and not an astrologer by any stretch.

I side with Sue on the method and Occams on the expected result. Pre-registration, defined windows, stated failure conditions, public grading. That is exactly how you keep yourself from improving the prediction after the fact. If the ledger mostly fails, it is still useful because it fails cleanly.

That is a better contribution to the board than fifty victorious sneers.