There was a French guy, Gauequelin, a statistician, I believe, who set out to disprov astrology, but decided that there was something to it and developed his own form of astrology. But there are two main ways it can be scientifically tested
as a practice.
You get a group of astrologers who are well respected by their peers and clients.
- The first process is to give them 100 sets of birth information, with the gender. Make all of them within one sun sign. That eliminates people’s own sense of themselves as, say, a Cancer or Virgo. Most people think the sun sign is the only thing, and this is also true of critics. So, the group of astrologers does page long ‘readings’ of each of the 100 horoscopes. These are then given in pairs to each of the hundred. IOw they get their reading PLUS one other reading for someone else. They then pick the reading that they feel fits them best. Their own or one that is for another Cancer or Virgo as far as sun sign. Statistics then come in and it would be easy to see if there is any significant getting of hits. A better, though harder to organize form of this test would be to have someone who knows the person read the two readings.
- Come at it the other way. The 100 people with the same sun signs answer a questionaire about their personality, how they relate romantically, what they do for a living and what they like and don’t like about it, etc. Perhaps twenty questions with short, 3-4 sentence answers. The astrologers, in this case, are presented birth information and the answers from two different people. They then decide, based on the generated charts, which of the two self-descriptions fits the horoscope. In this case the group could even opt to not decide on some charts where the self-descriptions are very similar. IOW they would choose just those charts where they had some confidence. Since there is nothing, within science, for them to base this confidence on, these creates no problems. If they managet to pick the correct person in statistically significant numbers, then there is something to it. If not, not. Of course a number of studies would strengthen the evidence.
Both methods eliminate completely all the cold read criticisms. There would be no way for the astrologers to figure out the right answers or to affect the ‘clients’ who are reading their readings.
both those methods would be effective tests. And regardless of any paradigmatic issues one may have with positive results, positive results would mean there is something to it. Negative results would all have significance and be meaningful in a way
that speculative deduction by people ignorant of astrology does not.
People who know little about astrology often make ‘arguments’ based on confusions and ignorance and think they can rule out astrology. That’s fine, of course. People do this in all sorts of fields.
But if you actually want evidence, either way, the two tests above would be a way to get this.
Notice, I said, ‘as a practice’. What we are focusing on is how the task works out when experts perform it.