Do you read your horoscope every day?

Upbeat

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Skeptical for years, I finally started to read them only to find they're more on target than not!
Now, I'm convinced there's a unique planetary-pull influence on each of us according to our birth dates.
A December-born friend is a super-active, consistently adventurous soul with a firey personality who sometimes needs to be advised to cool his jets.
A couple of Leo friends - born leaders - seem always to have big plans in mind - often managing them to a successful finish.
A January-born Capricorn friend - impatiently power hungry, seems uninterested in taking a break to 'smell the roses'.
The awareness of of zodiac-related personality traits can, in my view, be helpful in relating to others - with understanding, rather than with the conflict.
 
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Seaclusion

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No. I don't believe in astronomy.

Richard
 
Seaclusion

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But I do read my fortune cookie.

Richard
 
William Haskins

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i like to clip them out and mail them to the families of people listed in the obituaries.
 
Seaclusion

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Ok. I don't get a newspaper. Can you provide a link to a good source.

Richard
 
Seaclusion

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Just added it to favorites. I will read it every day and make a note on how accurate it is. Next week I will resurect this thread (OH wait, my horoscope said it wouldn't be dead) and report my findings. I'll even keep an open mind even though everyone tells me I have a mind like a steel trap.

Richard
 

Upbeat

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Seaclusion said:
Just added it to favorites. I will read it every day and make a note on how accurate it is. Next week I will resurect this thread (OH wait, my horoscope said it wouldn't be dead) and report my findings. I'll even keep an open mind even though everyone tells me I have a mind like a steel trap.

Richard
Click to expand...

'...mind like a steel trap'? Good heavens! What's your birth date?
 
Seaclusion

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October 22, On the cusp (see I know more than I think)

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CDarklock

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Upbeat said:
Now, I'm convinced there's a unique planetary-pull influence on each of us according to our birth dates.
Click to expand...

Speaking as a former professional astrologer, this is a positively ludicrous notion. The people who told you this are trying to pretend astrology is a science without really understanding how it works.

Astrology works because things move in cycles. As it happens, the cycles of human existence match other things in the universe. People have different personalities depending on the positions of the planets, not because the planets make them have those personalities, but simply because the planetary orbits happen to match these cycles.

Just like a woman's menstrual cycle tends to match the phase of the moon. The moon doesn't control her cycle. They simply happen to have the same duration.

That said, I don't read my daily horoscope, because these cycles don't advance sufficiently in a single day to make any reliable predictions about how things will happen. People believe in daily horoscopes largely because of confirmation bias, not any real level of accuracy. I will occasionally check my horoscope (as in my horoscope, cast by me) for synastry and influence when making a major decision, but all ten major heavenly cycles need to be considered - the eight planets other than earth, the moon, and the sun - to have any real weight.

Which is why a lot of people read their daily horoscope and find it to be largely wrong, or wrong roughly as often as it's right, or so vague that you can't really tell if it's right or not.

If you really want to know how accurate your daily horoscope is, read it at night instead of in the morning. If it has any real predictive power, it will be every bit as accurate. What you'll find is that the accuracy level declines markedly, because you haven't been out there following up on what your horoscope said would happen - and that's what made it look so accurate. If you go out believing you can do something, you're a lot more likely to succeed in doing it.
 

Dario D.

I did a test of all of my family members, and the majority of their horoscopes didn't even almost match. Example: my colors are supposed to be Green and Dark Brown. LOLWUT??? The two colors that, if I had to arrange a list of most significant colors in my life (being a big-time artist [link], and thinking about colors a LOT), would be darn near close to dead-bottom. Near the top would be blue, more blue, and bright-and-sunny orange (like in my avatar).

So anyway, after doing that test, I found this... (wonderful read) So now, if anyone asks me what my sign is, I just say Skeptico... :D ...and I tell them to Google it.

The Forer Effect seems to win for lots of folks nowadays. As long as signs have "something for everyone", people find them hard to shake their minds free of, even if the "non-something for me" attributes are disgustingly off.
 
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CDarklock

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Dario D. said:
And then I found this... (wonderful read)
Click to expand...

Scientifically flawed, but a wonderful read.

Test 1: We gave people a choice of three horoscopes, and asked which one was most like them. They didn't choose the right one.

So... most people didn't accurately identify their own personality from a lineup. Who's surprised by this? I mean, honestly.

Test 2: We gave astrologers a horoscope and asked them to match it with the correct person's psychological test results. They didn't do so well.

So... astrologers can't correlate a personality test with a chart. Could you?

How about test 1a: give people a choice of three psychological test results, and see how often they choose their own as representing them.

Or test 2b: give psychologists a test result and ask them to match it with the correct person's astrological chart.

Or test 3: give astrologers charts, and psychologists test results, and let them interview the people they reflect. Then have them match the charts or test results to the correct people, and compare the success rates.

The results are biased. The deck was stacked against the astrologer in both cases, and no alternate mechanism was shown to do any better.

(The average astrologer is still largely a charlatan, and probably won't do so well... but so is the average psychologist, so I'm not worried.)
 

Dario D.

CDarklock said:
The results are biased. The deck was stacked against the astrologer in both cases, and no alternate mechanism was shown to do any better.
Click to expand...
Umm, okay... having been following this for a while, you're the first person I've seen (in the non-biased-lunatic camp) to be drawing this conclusion. :)

What makes you think that? From your examples, and from what I read, I can't see one iota of evidence that the tables were stacked against the astrologers. The tests are quite logical, and deathly simple... and most of these studies were done by the scientific community, and universities. "Stacking the tables" is usually completely against their grain, and if stacking is detected by ANYONE who isn't completely biased, the study is a flop. Done. Finished. Do-over.
 
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Upbeat

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CDarklock said:
Speaking as a former professional astrologer, this is a positively ludicrous notion. The people who told you this are trying to pretend astrology is a science without really understanding how it works.

Astrology works because things move in cycles. As it happens, the cycles of human existence match other things in the universe. People have different personalities depending on the positions of the planets, not because the planets make them have those personalities, but simply because the planetary orbits happen to match these cycles.

Just like a woman's menstrual cycle tends to match the phase of the moon. The moon doesn't control her cycle. They simply happen to have the same duration.

I don't consider astrology a science. It's in a realm all its own.

Once a skeptic, I have found consistently that the behavior patterns of friends and family members, closely resemble those reflected in their zodiac signs.
That said, I don't read my daily horoscope, because these cycles don't advance sufficiently in a single day to make any reliable predictions about how things will happen. People believe in daily horoscopes largely because of confirmation bias, not any real level of accuracy. I will occasionally check my horoscope (as in my horoscope, cast by me) for synastry and influence when making a major decision, but all ten major heavenly cycles need to be considered - the eight planets other than earth, the moon, and the sun - to have any real weight.

Which is why a lot of people read their daily horoscope and find it to be largely wrong, or wrong roughly as often as it's right, or so vague that you can't really tell if it's right or not.

If you really want to know how accurate your daily horoscope is, read it at night instead of in the morning. If it has any real predictive power, it will be every bit as accurate. What you'll find is that the accuracy level declines markedly, because you haven't been out there following up on what your horoscope said would happen - and that's what made it look so accurate. If you go out believing you can do something, you're a lot more likely to succeed in doing it.
Click to expand...

I don't consider astrology a science. Its in a realm all its own.
Although I once was a skeptic, I've found that the behavior patterns of family member and friends, consistently correspond with those of their zodiac signs.
While there certainly are charletan astrologers, I've found stariq.com astrologers' daily horoscopes to be credible.
You speak of 'predictive power', which is not what I'm seeking when reading horoscopes.
In my view, zodiac signs indicate behavior patterns.
 
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Upbeat said:
Skeptical for years, I finally started to read them only to find they're more on target than not!
Click to expand...

Of course they are. I've seen a little of Julia Sweeney's show 'Letting Go Of God' (utterly brilliant, btw) and there's a bit in it where she tells how she discovered her mother had moved her birthday by a few weeks when she was a kid to get her into school a year early. She always used to read her horoscope as a Virgo and it was always 'so totally me!'. Now she was a Libra, so she started reading that horoscope and found that it was also 'so totally me!'.
Their written to be as generic as possible, so everyone can find something in them that fits. And, as CDarklock pointed out, if you read them in the morning, you'll have whatever it says in your mind all day and be more likely to follow it's predictions in a self fulfilling prophecy sort of way.
 

Upbeat

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JimmyB27 said:
Of course they are. I've seen a little of Julia Sweeney's show 'Letting Go Of God' (utterly brilliant, btw) and there's a bit in it where she tells how she discovered her mother had moved her birthday by a few weeks when she was a kid to get her into school a year early. She always used to read her horoscope as a Virgo and it was always 'so totally me!'. Now she was a Libra, so she started reading that horoscope and found that it was also 'so totally me!'.
Their written to be as generic as possible, so everyone can find something in them that fits. And, as CDarklock pointed out, if you read them in the morning, you'll have whatever it says in your mind all day and be more likely to follow it's predictions in a self fulfilling prophecy sort of way.
Click to expand...

It's the charletons who are generic.
As for Virgos and Libras, their zodiac signs indicate similar hehavior patterns.
 
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