“Uh, me?
Okay.
I'm a Sagittarius, which probably tells you way more than you need to know."
"Yes, it tells us that you participate in the mass cultural delusion that the sun's
apparent position relativity to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your
birth somehow affects your personality.”
“My name is Ray Couture.
I’m a professional astrologer.”
[Me doing Sheldon’s face, Leonard replying] “And how long have you been an astrologer?”
“Between 45 and 50 years.”
“Have you ever done anything like this?”
“Erh, not in a group setting, but wherever I am I look at someone and say ‘are you
a Pisces?’
And sometimes they say ‘yeah’ and sometimes they say ‘none of your business’.”
“Alright, let’s get everyone lined up – they’re going to stand behind you.”
Between the months of February and March, 2018, the channel Cut published a series of
videos in which astrologers attempted to guess the zodiac signs of twelve strangers.
The astrologers were Ray Couture and Shakera, and they both managed to correctly guess four
out of the possible twelve.
“Alright, raise your hand if he got you correct.”
“Go ahead turn around.”
“I’m afraid, but sure.”
“That’s not too bad.”
“Who was the most obvious?”
“I don’t know, none of them apparently.”
“Alright, raise your hand if she got you right.”
“Mmm…
I knew it, I knew it!
I knew…
I knew you was a Pisces, girl!
I knew you was a Libra!
And I knew you was a Leo!
And I knew you were a Gemini.”
Now some believers in astrology have calculated that since there’s twelve zodiac signs (that
is, twelve possible outcomes), and twelve people (that is, twelve trials), the chances
of correctly guessing at least 4 out of the 12 twelve is a measly 1.38%... and that therefore,
we can reasonably conclude that there’s at least some truth to astrology.
The problem, however, and as anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of psychology
and deception will tell you, is that Ray and Shakera were cheating… they were throwing
loaded dice.
This , is “Astrologers Guess Zodiac Signs – Debunked”.
Whenever I touch pseudo-scientific nonsense, such as tarot cards, channeling, homeopathy,
crystals, mediumship, and astrology, someone, at some point, almost always asks me “Why
bother?”
If people are deriving comfort from it, then why shatter their illusion?
Now my answer depends on the specific drivel being pedestalled, but in general it’s because
“Beliefs inform actions and actions have consequences.”
Not only does astrology (in this case) erode critical thinking and promote credulity, it
also has all the hallmarks of racism… seriously, it encourages believers to categorise people
not according to the content of their character but by the month in which they were born…
“I think you’re a Leo because you’re a little aggressive – that’s exactly what
she is too.”
“Can I see your profile?
Oh, okay, you’re Scorpio.”
“Why Scorpio?”
“What makes me a Scorpio to you?”
“The Intensity.”
“I’ve just noticed that Aquarius I've come in contact with are very draining; they're
very attention-seeking; they're very suffocating.
It’s very ironic that they’re the air sign, because they literally…
I can’t breathe.
Thank you for getting out of my way.”
Just as it’s unfounded and reprehensible to assert that someone is aggressive, intense,
or attention-seeking due to the colour of their skin, so too is it unfounded and reprehensible
to assert that someone is aggressive, intense, or attention-seeking due to the date on which
they were born.
This simply isn’t acceptable… in fact, it’s despicable!
Or to emphasis this point in a less-potent way, here’s how Richard Dawkins put it:
“Day in, day out, astrological horoscopes get far more newspaper column inches than
science.
Amusingly, it falls foul of our modern taboo against lazy stereotyping.
How would we react if a newspaper published a daily column that read something like this:
Germans - it is in your nature to be hardworking and methodical, which should serve you well
at work today.
In your personal relationships, especially this evening, you will need to curb your natural
tendency to obey orders.
Chinese - inscrutability has many advantages, but it may be your undoing today.
British - your stiff upper lip may serve you well in business dealings, but try to relax
and let yourself go in your social life.
And so on through twelve national stereotypes.
Of course, the astrology columns are not as offensive as that, but we should ask ourselves
exactly where the difference lies... both are guilty of facile discrimination, dividing
humanity up into exclusive groups based on no evidence.”
Anyhow, let’s get back on track.
If there’s a miniscule 1.38% chance of someone rolling twelve 12-sided dice and correctly
guessing at least four of the rolls, then isn’t it more plausible to assume that there’s
some truth to astrology, rather than that Ray and Shakera simply got lucky?
The answer, is that so long as the methodology was rigorous and peer reviewed by a reputable
journal (that is, that the dice were fair), then “yes”, but as alluded to earlier,
this wasn’t the case.
Ray and Shakera threw loaded dice, and the study (due to it being made primarily for
entertainment purposes) was abysmal!
First off, while there’s no scientific evidence for the astrological assertion that there’s
a relationship between celestial events and human personalities, there’s plenty of evidence
that links human personalities, allergies, and disorders to the month (and particularly
the season) in which someone was born.
To give just a few examples, studies have found that autumn babies are three times more
likely than summer babies to have an allergy to milk and eggs; that spring and summer babies
are significantly more likely to have an optimistic outlook; and that January babies are considerably
more likely to suffer from schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder, and recurrent
depressive disorder.
And so by simply asking a few seemingly irrelevant questions someone can subtly coax a great
deal of information.
For instance, if I ask “Do you have any allergies?” and within your answer you reveal
that you’re lactose intolerant, then I can infer from this that there’s a slightly
higher chance that you were born in autumn… and if I combine such insights with clues
given by your physical appearance, body language, reactions and microexpressions, then I stand
a much higher chance of correctly guessing your star sign…
In fact, as a quick side-note, here’s Ray changing his mind precisely due to a reaction.
“I’ll go with Virgo.”
“Okay.”
“Changing that to Libra.”
“Why.”
“He accepted it too fast – I have to watch how people act too.”
And this actually brings us perfectly to cold reading… which is the name given to an array
of techniques (which include the aforementioned) that enables the ‘reader’ to subtly obtain
information and create the illusion that they know much more about the person they’re
‘reading’ than they actually do.
But before I expose the astrologer’s cold reading, I want to lay a few more things on
the table.
The first is that if you’re seriously interested in the techniques used by charlatans and illusionists,
and want to know more than what’s currently on screen, then I highly recommend that you
check out Holy Koolaid’s series on the topic (because it’s damn awesome).
And if you still want more after that, then be sure to digest the works of the one and
only James Randi and outstanding illusionist Derren Brown.
And speaking of Derren, here’s a question which pertains to one of his feats: what are
the chances of him correctly guessing the profession of a random stranger on the street?
For brevity and argument’s sake, let’s be extremely conservative and assume that
there’s only one-hundred professions, and that therefore he stands just a 1% chance
(which, by the way, is already less likely than fair dice guessing at least 4 out of
12 people’s star signs).
“Do you know who I am?
What I do?"
"No."
"No, great, but I think I can tell you what you do for a living.
Look at me, it's... uh, it's people, it's PR, it's marketing... it's that kind of thing?"
"Yeah."
"Is that what you do?"
"Yes."
And now let’s ask what the chances are of him correctly guessing 4 out of 12 stranger’s
professions… the answer is an incredibly implausible .000004%!
Or in other words, pretty much impossible!
“You look for people's skills, you put them in positions, it's some sort of head-hunting
- is that right?"
"Yes."
"Recruitment, that kind of thing?
What do you do?"
"I'm a recruitment consultant."
[…] “It's fasion... is it a shop?
Specificaly denim, yeah?
You were selling jeans - is that right?
You were doing that but you haven't done it for a while?
Until you recently came out of that job.
Is that right?”
“Yes, absolutely right… oh my god!”
Now if Derren asserted that he achieved this miraculous result due to tarot cards, astrology,
mediumship, channelling, or any other method, would it be logical to simply accept his claim?
No… unless Derren was to provide objective, repeatable evidence of correlation, we wouldn’t
be able to infer causation, and so we’d have to conclude that while he used some method
to achieve his result, it isn’t the one he’s told us.
Luckily, however, Derren is awesomely upfront about most of his techniques, and has clearly
stated and explained numerous times that he uses cold reading: “Open your eyes.
Take this guy... his walk, the gum-chewing, the long coat.
He's confident, street-wise attached.
He's protective of his girlfriend, so he's aware of the danger around him.
His hair tells me he's not in the forces, so I'd say he's a journalist […] Work mates.
The woman on the left, she's wearing night time gear at lunch time and has conservative
hair and makeup, and so it's only a work outfit.
The rose means she's gregarious, so these two work in the PR end of high street fashion.”
Anyhow, so how many examples do I have of Ray and Shakera cold reading?
Well, I have plenty of Ray (which I’ll show you in just a moment), but none of Shakera
because she didn’t actually cold read.
Rather, she simply relied on the participants giving away their sign.
You see, while I don’t know exactly how Cut selected their participants, it’s obvious
that many of them already believed in astrology and so either consciously or unconsciously
wanted the astrologers to succeed, and because of this they played up to their zodiac sign.
“You got it right… you absolutely got it right, because I like, gave you fucking
attitude.”
“Yeah you gave me attitude, and I was like yeah.”
“I gave it away when I said I was better than you.
You were like oh Gemini.”
“No, you gave it away when you said you don’t like to go out or do anything fun.”
“I know, I gave you the wrong impression when you asked me if I’m driven.”
And further evidence of this can be seen by how many of them immediately gave the astrologers
an excuse for failing to guess their sign: “So you got me wrong, but my mother is a
Virgo and we’re very close.
So you might be feeling her presence.”
“It could be because you’re a Cancer and you carry a moon with you, and you carry your
mother with you.”
Well done Ray, nice repackaging.
“You’re very warm and when you don’t feel good, you get a little needy and so you
call mom.”
“And that’s why the girls run away.
Hahaha.”
Alright, calm down… someone might notice.
“I can not believe you were cancer!”
“Well, you were kind of going on the right track when you were talking about sex drive
and everything - should've just paid attention to the six.”
“And the nine!”
“Hahaha.”
“That’s good… that’s a good one.”
“I’m an Aries and you guessed me as a Taurus.”
“Yes, I guessed you as a Taurus.”
“I was born April 19th, so I’m at the cusp.”
“So if it’s near the cusp from Aries to Taurus you’ll have Taurus qualities as well
as Aries qualities, and so that turns out to be your problem.”
Her problem?
[Leanards face] Give me a break.
Now as if the fact that the astrologers got to see the participants, ask them question,
and analyse their reactions wasn’t enough to invalidate the study (which it is), the
fact that many of the participants wanted the astrologers to succeed is the nail in
the coffin.
Game over.
But since I haven’t yet delivered on my promise of exposing Ray’s cold reading,
here’re just a few examples: “Do you have any advice to him being an Aquarius?”
“Yeah, he’s in the middle of an eclipse.
For the last four or five months struggling with this whole process of how you’re gonna
deal with this.”
“He’s not wrong.
Hahaha.”
Seems personal right?
But it’s not – it’s a Barnum statement.
Almost everyone has been struggling with something over the last four or five months… be it
their health, their job, a relationship, or their financial situation.
It seems like Ray said something specific and personal, but he didn’t.
“Didn’t you have difficulties until you was about 18 feeling worthless or not valuable?”
“Yeah.”
Now that’s a classic Barnum statement…
I mean, who didn’t feel worthless as a teenager?
“It was in college?
You ran into somebody?
Who told you how great you really are?”
“Yeah.”
And who didn’t have someone tell them that’s they’re valuable?
“Well, when I know what time and so forth I can really figure this out, but you know,
just the sun sign is a little hard.”
That a boy Ray, tell her that you know this information because you correlated her time
of birth with celestial bodies, rather than that you simply made a demographically-tailored
Barnum statement.
"I met my bioloigcal mum when I was 19."
"Ah."
"Oh my god, yeah."
"And she said I love you."
"Yeah... hahaha.
I'm stunned right now."
Wow, how did he know that?
Who’d known that a mother who’s never seen her child still loves her child?
Look, I mean no offense to any of the participants (and I mean that), but this really gets under
my skin – charlatans exploiting the credulity of others to promote their services and elevate
their ego triggers the fuck out of me… but that’s a topic for another time.
“How tall are you?”
“6'1" “Are you an artist?”
“I am.”
Wow… [wow] what a guess!
I thought he was a brick layer…
I mean, that scarf screams brick-layer, don’t you think?
“You pick up a newspaper article or somebody hands you something to proofread, first thing
you see is what’s wrong with it?”
“Yeah, I’d say so.”
Yeah Ray, he just told you that he’s an artist – and you can tell from his appearance
that he pays attention to detail… come on Sir, even Shakera could’ve figured that
out.
And, your grandmother was really really important in your life?”
“Yeah….”
And here we have yet another Barnum statement.
Most people consider at least one of their grandmothers to be important, and if the young
lady had said “no” then Ray could’ve simply flipped his meaning by saying “Ah,
that’s where the importance comes in.
She wasn’t there for you”, and hence, this still would’ve felt like a hit.
“Yeah…”
“Extremely important, she took care of you.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“You had to get what you needed from her because it wasn’t coming from mom and pop.”
“Yeah.”
“Hahaha.”
Now if you look at young lady’s expression when she says “yes” it’s obvious that
her grandmother means a great deal to her, and therefore, it’s likely that her grandmother
is at least somewhat of a parental figure… again, it seems like a hit, but all Ray has
done is used a Barnum statement and then capitalised on her reaction.
“So what time were you born?”
“Uh, 6:15 a.m.” “6:15, morning, Taurus, sun just came up… (mumbles).”
“There's some unfinished business that's been sitting around for a while.
You’re actually thinking of school again.”
So, despite Ray making out that he’s made that inference from the time and date of her
birth, he actually made it from the fact she literally just told him a few moments ago
that she didn’t go to college (“Where did you go to school?”
“I did not go to college”) and he’s made the reasonable assumption that someone
who’s quit education would consider going back.
He’s repacked information and made a highly probably guess…
“So let me see your hands.
So you’re an independent thinker.”
“Yeah, haha.”
Gee… who would’ve guessed that a transsexual is an independent thinker?
Of course they are… it takes tremendous courage to be who you are when your society
doesn’t entirely accept you.
Also, who doesn’t consider themselves to be an independent thinker?
Yet again, Barnum statement.
“What’s your birthday?”
“December 24th.”
“So you’ve already gone through…
I won’t call it a near-death experience, you were hanging on the edges for a while,
about three years ago maybe four?
You did the right thing.
You had to do the right thing.”
“Is he referring to your divorce?”
“I think so.”
“Wow!”
Okay, this is the last one, because I can only take so much bullshit.
If you remove the metaphorical fluff, all Ray’s said is that she went through a traumatic
time several years ago, and yet the audience reacted as if he somehow knew all about her
divorce… he didn’t.
And what’s more, who didn’t go through a traumatic event several years ago?
And, again, who didn’t experience turmoil as a teenager?
Anyhow, before I wrap up, and on a completely different note, if you’re interested in
podcasts and you’re a science-enthusiast, then please check out the Here and How Podcast,
which is hosted by myself, Rachel Oates, and Thomas Westbrook, and if you enjoy it then
please consider rating us on iTunes – it really helps out.
As always, thank you kindly for the view, and an extra special thank you to my wonderful
patrons and those of you who’ve donated via PayPal.
Slowly but surely we are together making the world a more rational place!
Thank you.
“Here’s the thing, if you want a clumsy tool to divide the population in to distinct
groups so that you can make predictions, racism is way better than astrology!
In fact, if you remember nothing else from this gig – if you wake up and everything
has thump out of your head, remember just that fragment, even out of context, where
I went, racism is way better than astrology!”