Researchers' response to Dennis Elwell's Critique

What follows is a response, from Geoffrey Dean, Ivan Kelly, Arthur Mather and Rudolf Smit, to the article 'Researching the Researchers' by Dennis Elwell.

The format which they have chosen is to interpolate their comments in the original article.  In order to distinguish between their texts,  Elwell's is in a regular font and not indented; the researcher's text is bold and indented.

Preamble by researchers

We hope the ordinary interested inquirer would realise we did more than conduct "an impartial investigation." For 25 years, both as scientists and astrologers, we have searched the literature, gathered our own data, tested the most promising claims, published articles and reviews, lectured at conferences, run critical debates, issued challenges, and held prize competitions for evidence in support of astrological claims. Not even Elwell has been as systematic or as thorough.

Before we can accept Elwell's view we need to know what the proper direction is, what the proper premises are, and precisely what tests we should be applying to these premises. But despite the length of his response (10K words) Elwell never tells us. These are issues on which he stays resolutely silent.

But Elwell was bound to arrive at the opposite conclusion because for half a century he has failed to apply safeguards against seeing astrology where none exists. Near the end he even confirms his rejection of such safeguards.

According to Chapter 15 "I am a Capricorn" of the above book (published by Vintage Books, New York 1998), Mullis began to think about astrology when three people correctly classified him as a Capricorn. How did they do it? The first, a ten-year-old neighbour, said "You act like one." This was when Mullis was a teenager. Three years later a woman at a party said "it was the way I was waving my hands when I talked. And the way that I held onto the counter top when I was not waving them. I was also leaning forward, then backing off." A month later a man at a campfire party said "Because of the way you come on, really strong and then back off. You act like one." Interesting that the woman should see a Geminian waving-of-hands as Capricorn. Worrying that Mullis never considers how they might have discovered his birthday in advance and were having him on. Of course an astrologer might explain this coming-up-then-backing-off as the direct result of the sun (pushing outward) interacting with cautious Capricorn (pulling back), except that this sort of thing receives no mention in Hone, Mayo, Davison, or even Linda Goodman. Nevertheless Mullis seems to show how easily sun signs can be tested. One look and it is all over.

The Nautical Almanac is an ephemeris and there is nothing especially hard or Capricornian about it. But if astrology hadn't worked, Elwell would presumably have blamed Mullis for not being an astrologer. Mullis says he later obtained a 50-page computerised chart interpretation, which fitted him very well except the part based on his rising sign, which was shown as Taurus instead of the correct Aries. Mullis says this was because it was EWT when he was born (WT = War Time, same as daylight saving), which the computer had corrected to EST by subtracting one hour. However, Mullis had already corrected his time to EST, so when the computer subtracted one hour it made the Ascendant one hour earlier than it should have been. Evidently neither Mullis nor Elwell noticed that this should give an Ascendant earlier than Aries (eg Pisces), not later (Taurus), so does Mullis really know what he is talking about? Anyway, when the computer redid his chart to give the correct Aries Ascendant, Mullis noticed that the rising sign part now fitted, a point confirmed by his friends. So he concludes that "A horoscope that accurately reflects your personality can be cast by a computer if you give it the correct birth data."

Brave indeed, for Mullis is completely unaware of the research into astrology, or even how to go about it. He says "there's a broad and arrogant understanding among social science professionals that folklore, like astrology, is for simpletons. Without doing any simple experiments to test some of the tenets of astrology, it has been completely ignored by psychologists in the last two centuries." Alas, Mullis could not be more wrong. Worse, in almost the same breath he says "I am a scientist", in which case his failure to use controls is inexcusable. He is a pot calling kettles black. But these fatal flaws, and his claim that testing astrology is simple, do nothing to diminish Elwell's enthusiasm. Nor does Mullis's attention to reductionist single factors such as sun sign, rising sign, and things like "A Grand Trine means that the Native will be born with a silver spoon." No doubt Elwell would be scornful if we did things like this, so why should Mullis be excused? Is it because he says nice things about astrology no matter how unsoundly based?
Furthermore Mullis's book is largely a tirade against mental health practices, which he sees as based on "the fact that the present-day mental health practitioners have their heads firmly inserted in their assess." So his appeal to astrology as further evidence of their faulty thinking might be less impartial than Elwell claims. In any case Mullis shows no familiarity with the safeguards needed to avoid fooling oneself when reading chart interpretations, so his conclusions are of little value. He ends by giving his birth data (1758 GMT 28 December 1944 Lenoir NC 35N55 81W32) and saying "You can find out more about me from that than you can from reading this book." But phrenologists said the same about phrenology. "The phrenologist has shown that he is able to read character like an open book, and to lay bare the hidden springs of conduct with an accuracy that the most intimate friends cannot approach" said Alfred Russel Wallace in the 1890s. Pretty good for a technique now known to be totally without validity.

Interesting how, when we ourselves investigate the subject in that same hands-on way, Elwell's enthusiasm does a sudden U-turn.

Speculation. Has Elwell conducted a survey of thinking people? In our experience, genuinely thinking people do not scoff at anything unless there is good reason to do so. Unfortunately Elwell's response only adds to the scoffer's case.

An interesting way to define astrology

Why should evidence be hard to produce just because astrology is psychological and client-driven? If this was the case then two millennia of non-psychological astrology should have produced an overkill of unchallengeable evidence. But it has not. And what about the possibility that astrologers are not producing evidence because they cannot?

Ironically, materialist views (now called naturalistic) are more popular in the scientific and philosophical literature than ever before. Elwell should familiarise himself with this literature. Furthermore, on what grounds does he reject materialist philosophies? Because they don't fit in with his astrology? He gives his opinions but no arguments. Note that many people who believe in things like ESP are clearly not materialists yet they readily use the scientific approach to explore their beliefs. So what approach should astrologers use instead? Elwell never tells us other than a later (and unwise) reference to projective tests. Nor does Elwell tell us in his response what this different kind of reality is.
However, in his book Cosmic Loom: A New Science of Astrology (1987/1999) Elwell tells us that astrology is based on formal causation. It proposes two realities, one seen by us and the other seen by astrology. Our reality groups together things like dew, ice, water, humidity and steam, all to do with H₂O. Astrological reality groups together things like cold, old age, bones, lead, discontent and responsibility, all formal causes to do with Saturn. (Elwell does not discuss how different astrologies might lead to different clusters, or how he knows his clusters are correct.) Such apparent diversity is woven together on the cosmic loom, hence the name.
If Elwell's theory is true then Saturn things will group together more than chance, just as ice-water-steam does, but Elwell offers no testable theories, nor the evidence he would accept as showing his theory might be problematic or in need of revision. When in 1987 this point was put to Elwell, he replied that it was not necessary to justify one model in terms of another, just as "proponents of the wave concept of light are not required to prove it in terms of particle theory, and vice versa." Which evades the issue, because the request was to show that light behaves as a wave, not to explain waves in terms of particles. Furthermore both models of light are well supported by diverse experimental data and theory, whereas his astrological model is not.
For example, if astrological reality is a significant reality then we might expect evolution to have given us bones of cold lead, like Grecian columns, not warm calcium phosphate. And responsible people should be automatically discontented. That this is not the case is apparently of no consequence, because Elwell is careful to point out that "the cosmos seldom operates in the categories which seem important to us", which allows his theory to accommodate any conceivable turn which the facts may take. This means it has no power to distinguish truth from falsity, which evidently Elwell sees as no disadvantage.

Wrong. The researchers contributed more or less equally to the presentation, and the outcome reflects their collective views.

Judge for yourself. Check astrology books (including Phillipson's Year Zero) and astrological websites. Most are loaded with retro-fit testimonials but few empirical studies. For the ridicule bit, see next comment.

The remarks by Kelly and Dean focus on the claim repeatedly made by astrologers, that it is inappropriate to test isolated factors. What Kelly and Dean actually say is: "In Phillipson (2000) we endlessly read claims like Venus and Neptune create an artist ... If astrologers can see such isolated effects so easily, why would they suddenly vanish when researchers study them?" As you can see, there is no ridicule, and Elwell makes no attempt to resolve the problem by the kind of retrospective comment he is supposedly in favour of.

2.    By Their Methods Shall Ye Know Them

But thanks to Garry Phillipson it did consist of one point after another. How else should an interview proceed?

If you don't already know, just bear with us.

Our quote refers to astrologers (we name names) who happened to test astrology with proper safeguards, and found it ceased to work. So they gave up practising it without necessarily losing interest in it.

Emerson is paraphrasing Samuel Johnson, who a century earlier had said "If he really does think that there is no distinction between vice and virtue, why, Sir, when he leaves our house let us count our spoons", meaning the wretch might have stolen the expensive silverware. It seems that Elwell equates integrity with stealing.

According to Elwell, Dean plays games with the gullible, admits to deviousness, is mired in the fallacy of the double standard, passes over inconvenient facts and arguments, drops red herrings, appeals to pity (25 wasted years of fruitless research), insists on false alternatives (A or B when it could be A and B), and falls into semantic traps (not noticing when a word has different meanings). As we will show, such charges are related less to reality and more to Elwell's three rules of newspaper journalism: make it short, make it sensational, and make it up.

It is easy to see why Elwell does not want to take these chapters seriously -- they pose too much threat to his vested interests. As discerning readers encounter the increasing Elwellian polemics in the rest of his response, they will recognise the strategy: Why behave like a scholar when you can behave like a newspaperman, never letting the facts get in the way of a good story?

This is typical of the way that astrologers deal with critics.

Then avoid the deception in your own response.

The references to "deception" and "this repetitive urge to confirm that gullibility is still with us" shows how Elwell has failed twice over to grasp the problem and its solution. First, our acceptance of our own chart reading means nothing if we are equally accepting of another person's chart reading, but we will never know the latter unless we try it. This is what is known as a control, without which no conclusion can be drawn. So they are an essential part of research. Alas, you will look in vain for any mention of controls in Elwell's Cosmic Loom: A New Science of Astrology, so its title is a contradiction in terms. Second, as we have repeatedly stressed, the acceptance of chart readings has nothing to do with gullibility and everything to do with the reasoning processes that all humans share. It is easy to fool ourselves, which is why we have to use controls, and why controls receive so much attention in textbooks of research design. Elwell's failure to recognise this elementary point says it all.

Done all the time in research. Jonas Salk tested his polio vaccine on more than 400,000 children, of which half were given a placebo, which according to Elwell should be dismissed as deviousness. But without it we might never know what is going on. One could not test acupuncture without using needles in spots where theory says no effect should arise. A recent test of the improved well-being supposedly caused by crystals found that people using real crystals reported improvements no different from those who unknowingly using fake crystals made from paste. It was all in the mind. Why should such safeguards not be used in astrology when they are used everywhere else?

For impatient readers the supposed fatal flaws are (1) assuming traits are meaningful, and (2) assuming Dean's subjects were not conned by his undeniable charm. We reply to these charges where they appear.

Wrong. The alleged traits were not reversed. And they came from the chart (authentic or reversed, the latter being the control), which is what the subject expected. Had they come from reading patterned wallpaper they would presumably have been rejected as irrelevant, so it did matter where they came from.

If this was true then we would all behave the same in the same situation, Because everything would depend on situation, Mullis would not recognize himself in his chart, and astrologers could not observe links between human behaviour and the stars. In fact behaviour is not "largely situation dependent." Thus fundamental traits (or more properly dimensions) such as extraversion show impressive longitudinal stability, they have a marked heritability, and they tend to determine the situation (for example extraverts seek social situations whereas introverts avoid them). None of this would apply if behaviour was "largely situation dependent." So such traits are alive and well.

So traits can be tested after all.

Wrong, see previous comment on gullibility.

If true it would also explain why clients are so ready to agree with the chart interpretations of that nice Mr Elwell. But it is not true: Elwell should read the article again. In any case, he was not there, so he is arguing from a position of ignorance.

To Elwell a control is a trap. He really should read a few books on research design.

2.3 --- In the same article Dean boasts: "I myself have given astrologers a chart that was supposedly mine, but was actually that of somebody quite different from me, and their interpretation always fitted me perfectly." When I first read this I wondered, what goes on in the head, what expression do you wear, as you methodically dupe colleagues and perhaps friends?

But astrologers in Year Zero pages 118-119 refer to the wrong chart issue as particularly threatening. Geoffrey Cornelius says it is "ruthlessly undermining of the status of astrology", and David Hamblin abandoned astrology because it was so troubling. Elwell is confirming that he does not understand the need for controls, baselines, and comparison groups.
Note also the newspaper style. Elwell cannot simply report that we did X. He has to make us blast, boast, chant, cry, dupe, posture, savage, snort, smile. We do it emptily, indignantly, unblushingly, unguardedly, waspishly, wildly. His ad hominems imply we are not honourable, are not genuine, are reprehensible, are not impartial, cannot bear to be mistaken, have no integrity, and have vested interests. We are a circus, we play games, we do it whatever way suits Elwell's purpose. Why have scholarship when you can have abuse? (We say more on this at the end.).

Because they phoned Dean's mother and conned her. Amazing how Elwell's qualms about deviousness can suddenly disappear.

Note how Elwell seems determined to invade Dean's privacy. GP was also aware that Dean's data is actually part of an important test of astrology, and to reveal it would compromise the outcome and therefore the efforts of everyone involved. Evidently such things mean nothing to Elwell. As for Pottenger, the context was the chart interpretation, so the scientific approach is to start with a control. This control data was given in confidence, on the assumption that data given in confidence will not be disclosed to others, so no harm could result. But this confidence was broken. By the way, the control was born in London, so it could not have given Dean Australian citizenship.

Here Elwell shows good self-insight into his own character.

Ironically, despite Elwell's talk of magic and illusion, it is astrologers themselves who consider that astrology shares common ground with magic, see Year Zero page 117. If astrology works in the way and to the extent claimed by astrologers then winning the prize should not be difficult. The Randi challenge requires that the test conditions, and the criteria for failure, be set up and accepted in advance by both sides. In this way the test can be seen to be fair, and the outcome can be seen to be self-evident. Contrary to what Elwell says, it does not mean that "only eyewitness testimony is allowed", nor would it allow the claim that "the effect must be trickery." The test would not proceed unless the astrologer was happy with the arrangements.

So Elwell is not a public-spirited seeker after truth?

The money for the Randi challenge comes from individuals and organisations, all of whom see it as a serious means of investigating paranormal claims. If a million dollars will not do the trick, then what will? Furthermore, the discovery of a genuine paranormal phenomenon would be well worth a million dollars, so it is far from a publicity stunt. No wonder that, when we talk to those who attend skeptic conferences, the majority support it, which is contrary to the impression that Elwell gives.
 

3.    The sun-sign debate

Why? Because money was offered? Or because he believes sun signs are nonsense?

Wrong several times over. The prize was the superprize of $US5000, then (1983) the largest prize ever offered for support of astrological claims, and it was sponsored by a number of respected astrologers and astrological bodies including the Astrological Association, Astro Computing Services, Astro-Graphics Services, the International Society for Astrological Research, Matrix Software, and the Polakoff Foundation, all of whom had approved the details before the prize competition was announced. The sponsors would clearly not agree with Elwell that it was all a gimmick, nor would the more than 60 astrologers from around the world who expressed an interest in entering.
The prize was not specifically for proof of sun signs but for "convincing evidence that the accuracy of chart interpretations cannot be explained by non-astrological factors", which of course goes straight to the heart of the problem that Elwell is ignoring. At the conference debate in September 1983, Elwell contended that the prize was unwinnable because appropriate tests could not be designed and the panel of judges was not impartial. In fact the judges later unanimously accepted one entry, which would therefore have won the prize -- except it was a fake entry specifically designed to test Elwell's assertion. So Elwell and the audience that he says agreed with him were wrong: the judges were impartial, the prize was winnable. That the prize remained unwon is therefore a problem for astrology that Elwell understandably prefers not to tell you about. In any case, debating the merits of testing astrology before an audience of astrologers is like debating the merits of prisons before an audience of inmates. Losing the vote is unremarkable.

If such tests are so problematic, what tests should be done instead? Elwell does not tell us, and not telling us is something he does again and again (as you will see), which suggests he is unable to tell us because he hasn't a clue. Note how Elwell is effectively stacking our research deck with his pretence.

Then why do astrology books describe Aries as assertive and Taurus as practical? If the statements are untrue then the books should stop using them. Alternatively, if the books don't mean what they say and are actually talking in riddles, why should anyone bother? In any case Elwell gets it wrong. This was an earlier prize challenge of $US2000 sponsored by Dean & Mather in which entrants were invited to demonstrate the truth of the sign hypothesis given by Margaret Hone on page 37 of her Modern Textbook of Astrology, which at the time had been the basic text for the Faculty of Astrological Studies for 30 years and was rated by many as still the best single textbook on astrology. The choice could hardly have been fairer. Page 37 says "The astrological hypothesis is that each sign is of a different nature. People born with one or other of these signs prominent in their charts will be very much of the nature of these signs." There is nothing here that corresponds to Elwell's accusation of stacking the deck, but once again he shows how the facts are not allowed to stand in the way of a good story.

Wrong. Anyone familiar with psychological testing will know that it was simple compared to many other kinds of social science proposals.

But we have independent evidence that self-attribution exists. Also, analogous explanations exist in medicine, where placebo effects need to be considered. Alternative explanations are always seriously considered in science, but never it seems in Elwell's astrology. Furthermore we can test self-attribution directly by seeing how the results vary with knowledge of sun sign meanings. To determine if there is a genuine effect we simply extrapolate to zero knowledge. In principle it could hardly be more straightforward, but in what follows Elwell goes on and on about self-attribution as if it were a decisive point. It isn't.

But the same applies in everyday life. We demand more evidence to show a supposedly trustworthy person stole the money than one with a criminal record. Why should we be different in science? Interestingly, producing good evidence is "virtually impossible", yet later we are told that if you are receptive enough (whatever that means), "astrology will continually astonish you." Note the contradiction.

So they should not complain if others don't believe them. But Elwell's argument is absurd. As researchers we have no more time or money than astrologers have, yet we have been able to do the sort of research that (if astrology was true to the astonishing extent claimed by Elwell) would certainly have produced ample positive evidence of the right academic calibre. Furthermore, over the years there have been enough astrologers testing astrology in acceptable ways to achieve the same outcome -- provided astrology worked. Given a choice of two underlying reasons for the consistently negative outcomes, namely (1) not enough money, (2) astrology doesn't work, Elwell opts for the first. How convenient.

In the sciences (biology, psychology, geology, physics, chemistry, and so on), people are trained in research in their areas. Astrology is the only "science" (Elwell's term) where people are not trained in research, nor even in evaluating research. An odd "science" indeed.
But when it comes to hiring experts, astrologers with money do not even do that (Jonathan Cainer, where are you?). But before we hire experts we have to know something about the research area and the tools used, otherwise it will be difficult to explain what we want. If the area is dentistry or central heating then we can easily identify the problem -- we know which tooth aches or which room is too cold. But in astrology the focus is on symbolism that varies with maturity and context, and which Elwell says we may have got wrong anyway. So we have little idea what variables we should be looking at. Fortunately this is not a problem for researchers because approaches such as time twins avoid the need to identify variables, which means that if astrology is present (of any kind whether Elwellian or not) then it will be detected.

If it is so hard to demonstrate, how can Elwell see the truth of astrology everywhere, even when dozens of factors are supposedly interacting? It seems that astrology is simultaneously obvious and very difficult to prove. Some people (not us of course) might conclude that anyone who could believe that was seriously in need of counselling.

Controlling for self-attribution is hardly a daunting task, so how is this raining on Dean's bonfire? In any case, if it really were daunting, astrology books should stop saying "Aries are X." Notice Elwell's U-turn -- Mullis sees such tests as simple and gets a favourable quote, but suddenly such tests are no longer simple. How convenient.

And if it is negative, it would be dismissed by Elwell because it would not be the astrology he knows. In any case his warning is demeaning to the scientific integrity of students. Later in this section Elwell says that self-attribution effects must be tiny, implying they are small enough to be ignored, in which case sun sign effects should shine through. Didn't he notice this inconsistency?
In any case the testing of sun signs, including the control of self-attribution, is not difficult if their effects are as strong as sun sign astrologers claim. For example Linda Goodman says the sun sign "will be approximately eighty percent accurate, sometimes up to ninety percent." And over the years various psychology students have indeed adopted the testing of sun signs for a project, but nothing commensurate with the claims has been found. Even when the tests are made extra sensitive by using biographies and large sample, as Michel Gauquelin did, nothing in favour of signs (whether Sun, Moon, or Rising) came out of it.
As for Elwell's argument that the testing of sun signs is too complex for him too attempt, this complexity evidently did not stop him or Kary Mullis experiencing, in their daily astrological devotions, that sun signs were true. So we are supposed to believe simultaneously that sun signs are too complex to test, yet are so simple that every day they can be observed to work. Elwell must think his readers are stupid.

4.    Generous, extravert Leos

So all the variables make it difficult. Earlier Elwell accepted Mullis's simple test, where all the variables were as nothing, so here we have another U-turn.

But self-attribution can be tested and found not to be an explanation. It can also be controlled for, a point that any beginning student has no problem grasping.

We are not saying this. The point is, until the self-attribution explanation is ruled out, we have competing explanations.

Then astrological influences should stand out way above such effects. But they do not.

Wrong. We can find people who don't know their sign, or planets, or (more to the point) what they mean, and thus rule out self-attribution.

As we already said, we could also look at self-attribution directly by seeing if there is a relationship between tipping and how well sun sign meanings were known. Knowledgeable tippers would then be just as useful as non-knowledgeable ones.

Elwell may not know where to start (what a convenient cop out) but for a good researcher the matter is straightforward. Of course some researchers might be better placed to study tipping than others, but contrary to what Elwell implies there are ways to test Leos other than via tipping. We could also test several supposed Leo characteristics at the same time to see if they relate together, although we would of course have to be careful that (like being generous and being extravagant) they did not relate for reasons other than astrology. Note how, in his tirade against the supposed iniquities of existing tests, Elwell never suggests what tests should be done instead. Why be constructive when you can be silent?

What about the simple Capricorn hand-waving by Mullis? If Elwell can so glowingly accept this as a genuine test, what is the problem here?

In Cosmic Loom Elwell makes all sorts of claims about differences between people, yet he is now saying that such differences are hard to find and may not even exist. But people seem to have no difficulty in distinguishing between outgoing people (extraverts) and loners (introverts), nor do astrologers have any difficulty in doing the same in their books and web pages. So why is this such a difficulty for Elwell? For example one of Eysenck's early (1963) investigations of this dimension involved giving descriptions of the typical extravert and introvert to a convenience sample of hundreds of Mensa members, and asking them to nominate an extreme example of each from among their acquaintances. Those nominated had widely separated scores on the extraversion scale, confirming that they were genuinely different. Nothing here says extraverts and introverts are hard to find.

If we believe it is a poor yardstick, then we can repeat the study with a better one. And we don't have to think we have devised a test, there are plenty of existing tests of known authenticity to choose from. What are the authentic yardsticks that Elwell uses? How does he know they are authentic? He does not tell us.

Elwell is confusing types with dimensions. Had he read more deeply, and with more understanding, we might have been spared this nonsense. In any case, astrology books (including his own) talk as if such categories exist. We say more on extraversion in a moment.

How does Elwell know we can be "Martian where our Mars is found?" How did he find this out? Isn't this looking at isolated factors?
According to Elwell we have no way of knowing whether it would be true, but trust him anyway.

Because it would condemn the tests of astrology by astrologers? How convenient for Elwell to see the details as so "tedious" that you may be spared them in favour of taking his word for it. But he is wrong. The evidence for the validity of extraversion as a dimension of personality is now overwhelming. It emerges from all types of personality inventories and ratings, even those with anything but E in mind, for example Freud's oral character relates to E. It emerges from laboratory tests of all types of behaviour such as arousal, conditioning, vigilance, sensory thresholds and learning. It is found in all cultures, including those very different from Western cultures, and in animals such as rats, dogs and monkeys. It is discernible in ancient personality descriptions such as the four temperaments, which of course is one reason for using it to test astrology. It is one of the most major and enduring of personality dimensions to emerge from long-term studies of individuals lasting ten years or more. And it has a marked heritability. None of this would be the case if E was not securely related to the real world of real people. Furthermore it matches what ordinary people including astrologers mean by extraversion. Because astrologers rate extraversion as one of the easiest things to see in charts, and because it can be reliably measured by a pencil-and-paper test, extraversion is one of the most legitimate tests of astrology, contrary to what Elwell claims. In particular, one can measure the extraversion of many hundreds of people and then pick only those who are extremely extravert or introvert, which should make it even easier to see in their charts. Astrologers never had it so good. But when they try this test, they perform no better than guessing.
We know how astrologers rate extraversion because Dean asked them in a questionnaire (extraversion was only one of many traits it asked about). Interestingly, Elwell was at one of the conferences where Dean had handed out his questionnaires, so how did Elwell rate extraversion? Most of the astrologers that Dean approached were obliging and helpful; if they refused it was usually because they were beginners (conference attenders tend to be beginners) and felt they had too little experience. At the end of the final lecture Dean stood near the exit with a large envelope for receiving questionnaires not yet handed in. Up the aisle comes Elwell, and as he passes Dean's envelope he drops in a penny. As Elwell would say, by their methods shall ye know them.

We are aware of the difficulties, which (other than the difficulty of getting astrologers to be rigorous) we nevertheless think are inflated. But if tests are so difficult, how can astrologers say astrology is confirmed for them every day? It is a complete contradiction for something to be simultaneously hard to test and easy to confirm, This contradiction is appearing in Elwell's response again and again. Doesn't Elwell notice?

Perhaps we can paraphrase Elwell: if astrologers are unaware of research findings, they should be.

5.    Every picture tells a story

Looking for artifacts (alternative explanations) is the first thing a scientist will do, but it seems unthinkable to Elwell. If alternative explanations exist, then each has to be carefully tested to see which one actually applies. Otherwise we could go on believing that cars run on faith rather than on petrol. Nevertheless Elwell is saying that the running of cars has to be proof of faith. And if we don't believe him, he gets abusive.

Note the logic. Us: The evidence for faith is apt to disappear when artifacts are controlled. Therefore Elwell: but equally it is apt not to disappear when artifacts are controlled. Who says?

Not so. It is like saying petrol is discretional for cars. How does Elwell know they are discretional? Indeed, how could he know if the study of individual factors is meaningless?

So they are saying the whole chart is not needed. No doubt Elwell rejects factors like hypothetical planets that other astrologers happen to consider essential. How did Elwell decide they were not essential?

As if 1000 factors in an egg cup were fewer than 1000 factors on a dinner plate. Those factors had all been proposed and testified to by astrologers of some standing -- and that was in the 1970s, when the astrologer Dr Zip Dobyns could say "astrology is almost as confused as the earthly chaos it is supposed to clarify." Today the crowding would be much worse. Astrologers now have a choice of endless supercharts, so the present example is by no means unrealistic.

Note the mocking scornful tone. Yet the same applies to everything that Elwell says here that also appears in his book Cosmic Loom.

Note Elwell's red herring. Later he argues that the pieces of the jigsaw have no relevance until the jigsaw is completed ("and it's a big jigsaw!"), which is the same as saying only the whole chart will do. But here he is arguing that less than the whole chart will do. So at what point will decreasing wholeness not do? Elwell does not tell us. His position remains unfathomably dense. To put it another way, what kinds of results would create problems for astrology? Clearly none, because according to Elwell there is always another hidden variable or an unknown force to bring out. For example: astrology only inclines not compels, there are too many competing factors, the manifestation is untypical, and in any case we should not impose our ideas on the cosmos.
In short, Elwell's kind of astrology cannot be proven wrong. Which creates more problems than it solves. Just as you cannot tell when a TV set is working if you cannot tell when it is not working (otherwise you cannot tell the difference), the same with astrology. If it cannot be proven wrong then it cannot be proven right either, which means we cannot distinguish valid techniques from invalid ones. Which is awkward.

Yesterday the sky had some 10^22 celestial objects, today it has 10^22 plus one space probe. Yes, no reason for despair here. Also, we can find out where each one is and describe it separately, which is not the case in astrology. Another incorrect analogy.

And of Elwell. Given that Elwell has not told us how we should be testing astrology, or what he believes is the best positive evidence for astrology, he ought to be more careful.

That contradiction again. We understood astrology was difficult to test. Now it seems straightforward. Elwell's "ways round it" boil down to picking whatever simpler set of factors takes your fancy (no matter that elsewhere Elwell argues that the cosmos may not work the way you think it does). Furthermore, astrologers tend to completely disagree on the details even though based on long experience, for example some insist on using houses, others insist on not using houses, some insist on using progressions and ignoring transits, others vice versa, so we might wonder if an experience-based astrology could actually work when so much disagreement and rule-breaking are par for the course.

Like Elwell, Dean started wide-eyed and ignorant. But unlike Elwell he was prepared to change his mind when faced with the evidence.

The problem is what to do when, as in astrology, the variables are numerous and ill-defined. This is exactly the situation when people judge the aesthetic quality of artworks, where the number of variables is so large that they are forced to consider only a subset. The findings from tests of artwork-judging should therefore be of interest to astrologers. Especially as the findings point towards science, not away from science, as a check of the interview on this website will confirm. So how is all this a non sequitur?

Note that word "other." So astrology is a science?

It is a fact of life that all complex problems have to be simplified in order to be tackled, and the matter is won or lost depending on how they are simplified. Do it wrong and instead of oxygen you may get phlogiston. So other sciences cope with the information overload by selecting manageable pieces, and their books show how the result is progress, whereas before such selection there was little or no progress. Their books also show how, unlike astrology, other sciences insist on rigour and critical debate. And this is why astrology is different. Whereas the sciences reserve their highest praise for those who prove their predecessors wrong, astrology drums critics out of the corps. Criticism in astrology is simply not welcome, so any attempt to proceed in astrology as we do in the sciences is the cue for knee-jerk personal abuse, polemics, innuendo, name calling, ridicule, anything but scholarly debate. As Elwell is demonstrating. So much for astrology being a science.

5.2 -- Another interesting diagram (p.129) purports to clarify the subjective and objective strands in astrology, which are put on two separate axes as if they are in collision, although Phillipson tactfully suggests that many astrologers would view astrology as connecting both (p.128).
As the eye enters this diagram it encounters Santa Claus (i.e. a false belief fit only for children), and phrenology (i.e. a discredited belief), and therefore whatever integrity might attach to the subjective is immediately compromised.

Wrong. Contrary to what Elwell says, the issue is not the integrity of the subjective but its spiritual value, high for Santa Claus and low for phrenology. Indeed one of the most-used arguments against phrenology was that it demeaned God's work.

Why should it? The subjective statement "I have a pain" can be true, even though it was brought in to avoid the fuzziness of True.

Why should it? "John is 6 feet tall" could obviously be wrong.

Such things are discussed under reliability and validity in even the most elementary of books on scientific research. But is the word "true" really so fuzzy? Philosophers may argue about what connects the usage of the word across various domains, and about its correct analysis, but the word creates no problems in everyday usage. In any case, Year Zero page 129 spells out our argument, and it is not what Elwell says it is. We are not ruling out the possibility that subjective astrology might also be true. We say only that, to be accepted, it does not need to be true, which has nothing to do with its possible truth. Similarly for objective astrology, where we say only that, to be accepted, it has to be true. To be sure, as Elwell says, the objective might happen to be untrue, but it will not be accepted unless we are happy with accepting untruths, like accepting that the distance between London and Moscow is six inches.

So what? The existence of various definitions is irrelevant because we explain what we mean by those terms. The Elwellian arguments that follow below, based on those other definitions, are equally irrelevant. It is like arguing that some people think pizzas are really treacle tarts, therefore our pizzas are also treacle tarts.

Wrong, they are not incommunicable. People communicate about these all the time (read any novel) and we can check them out. If they really are incommunicable, how can Elwell expect us to take seriously his experiences with astrology, let alone understand them?

We can publically check out people's perceptions by asking them. In this case there are public tests of people's responses to traffic lights. After all, we give out objective tickets to people who go through red lights.

Decayed teeth and toothache have a high correlation.

So what? The subjective can be bound up with all sorts of theories, including much of psychology. It was also bound up with phrenology.

Elwell is still arguing that our pizzas are really treacle tarts.

Wrong. It is not a discussion about truth and untruth. If the word truth has to be introduced, then our distinction is between truth and benefit. Read it again. In any case Elwell's argument is a good criticism of most astrology books, which are filled with exaggerated claims of objectivity like Leos are generous.
 

6.    The hermeneutic circle

6.1 -- It would perhaps be doing Dean a great injustice to picture him, or his colleagues, constantly scheming to pull the mat out from under the astrologers, using every trick in the book.

Of course it would, so why mention it?

Elwell is certainly showing us how.

Exactly. The researchers have absolutely no vested interest in astrology, so it is of absolutely no consequence to them whether research outcomes are for or against astrology. The chips fall where they may. But Elwell has spent a lifetime championing astrology, his guiding passion is the rehabilitation of astrology, and for nearly twenty years has been a full-time astrologer and teacher. So he has a huge vested interest in ignoring anything negative, and in avoiding any path such as scholarship that might pose the slightest threat, as his response and his book Cosmic Loom demonstrate.

Misjudgement because they embraced astrology? But what matters is the evidence, not the hostility, and the evidence at that time was nowhere near as decisively against astrology as it is today. There were also many other areas demanding attention such as the high level of astrologer disagreement on just about everything and their reliance on speculation in lieu of testing.

The word "must" is telling. Elwell finds it incredible that anyone could find astrology less than persuasive. But phrenologists had the same view about phrenology. Furthermore an individual like Mullis can be criticised on the same ground: Unlike Dean and Smit, he was never a practising astrologer, and he is completely uninformed about research, yet he still carries much weight with Elwell. The reason is obvious -- Mullis says nice things about astrology.
In any case Year Zero page 165 shows Elwell is wrong. To start with, our initial studies (the result was Recent Advances) pointed to several promising areas worthy of further research. When the first few areas turned out negative, we did not turn our backs on astrology, we kept on with the remaining areas in the hope that they might still yield positive results. Later Elwell tells us he did exactly the same, so do we now conclude that what followed must have been a cascade of incidental errors and self-deceptions?

Elwell again finds it incredible that anyone could give up astrology on legitimate grounds. And that anyone who gave it up could avoid becoming a crusader against it. But if crusading is a sin, where does that leave his own position?

We do not savage anything. Why should we? Elwell does not tell you that Dean's "wildly improbably assertion" is based upon a meticulous 10-year re-examination of 45,000 Gauquelin birth data, for details see elsewhere on Rudolf Smit's website, so on what grounds is it "wildly implausible"? Most academics find astrology to be even more "wildly implausible", because among other things it fails to perform when reasoning errors are controlled, but this does not seem to worry Elwell. In any case, why should astrology be more plausible as an explanation than parental tampering? Elwell doesn't tell us. Overall Elwell seems to be fulfilling his own prophecy that, when the purpose is fanatical, "everything that might impede it is likely to be pushed unceremoniously aside."

Wrong. It confirms the reality of Gauquelin's observations so it actually adds to Gauquelin's credibility. It also shows how science advances, by debate, searching for flaws, and testing alternative explanations, something generally missing from astrology and evidently from Elwell's experience as well.

Perhaps if Elwell had read the full report on which the "wildly improbable assertion" was based (and which Elwell gets wrong anyway), he might have shown less of his own rabid misogyny. Not for Elwell the careful weighing of views from both sides. For him it is sufficient to assert that one researcher has cast doubt, as if one swallow (if it is a swallow) could make a summer, and then leave out all detail so you have to take his word for it. Yes lady, don't listen to those alarmist mechanics, the car looks great! Trust me!

A disagreement over the correct explanation of Gauquelin's results can hardly be described as a crisis of credibility.

Note Elwell's use of "the deserting trio." He is saying that those who consider the evidence and change their minds about astrology are deserters and backsliders. Why bother with evidence when you can have name calling?

One can always use this excuse. Fundamentalists use it all the time.

Notice how the possibility that the heavens were saying little or nothing was not considered. One of the perils of old malt?

Galileo said the same thing. By discrediting once and for all the long-cherished view that the earth was not the centre of the universe whose sole purpose was the sustaining of human life, he showed that our reality is not all it seems. But he had observations that could be checked. Nobody had to take his word for it. Unlike Elwell's case.
Furthermore, what Elwell sees as receptive, others might see as gullible. So how can we decide which applies? Elwell does not tell us. What does "receptive in this way" actually mean? Elwell does not tell us. How can astrology "continually astonish" if it is so hard to investigate? Elwell (again) does not tell us. If our reality is not all it seems, how is this evidence for astrology? Elwell does not tell us. His paragraph seems little more than an exercise in using words to say absolutely nothing.

No, many of our criticisms are philosophical and conceptual, looking at the vagueness and ambiguity in much of astrology.

Not if science is defined as being careful.

Note the implication -- future science will embrace astrology, but we researchers never got the message, being too intent on forcing the chips to fall our way. In 1898 Alfred Russel Wallace said exactly the same about phrenology: "In the coming century phrenology will assuredly attain general acceptance ... Its practical uses ... will give it one of the highest places in the hierarchy of the sciences, and it ... will be referred to an example of the almost incredible narrowness and prejudice which prevailed among men of science." This was based on Wallace's long experience and the same "mature judgement" that Elwell later finds so decisive, and on the avoidance of controls, the same controls that Elwell dismisses as devious. So in Elwellian terms Wallace should have been decisively right. But he was dead wrong. So why should anyone believe Elwell?
In any case the point is not our failure to apply Elwell's fundamental reappraisal (whatever that means), but our awareness that we can easily fool ourselves, and our readiness (so far absent in Elwell) to apply the necessary controls. Furthermore, as Year Zero pages 151 and 155 show, Elwell is wrong to imply that our conclusions are set in stone. Show us a better way and we will follow. Sadly, we are still waiting.

Elwell may be prepared to defend his conclusion, but he is evidently not prepared to be specific. Precisely what are these "so-called objective tests" that are paper tigers? Instead of telling us, Elwell dismisses them all in a single breath. Yet these tests were far better designed than the simplistic tests of Mullis that Elwell promotes as evidence for astrology.

Wrong. Smit's results were presented at a London research conference in 1987 and duly appeared in the published conference report. Elwell was one of the other speakers, which makes his lapse of memory remarkably convenient. Contrary to what Elwell asserts, Dean would ask to see the data, would (with Smit) check the results, and would then add them whatever the outcome to the research database for meta-analysis. Indeed, he already has. Furthermore Smit has other publications in the same field, for example a long article in four parts in the FAA journal was later condensed in Under Capricorn, An Anthology of Australian Astrology published in 1989 by the FAA's Board of Publications, pages 267-306. The topic was "Prime Event Analysis of Post Natal Celestial Movements." And in the internationally distributed Astrologers Forum (published by the Australian Astrologer Dymock Brose, then living in Blackheath NSW, now in Adelaide, SA) issues 68 and 69, March and April 1987, Smit presented a full account of his study of 62 Cases of Suicide. A telling reaction from German astrologer Alexander Marr: "It is really wasted time to experiment with so-called exactly-recorded birth times unless they are approximately or exactly rectified" -- In other words, this astrologer found it completely allowable to work towards a desired result. Any scientist following such procedures would immediately and forever be disqualified.

But the Gauquelin results apply only to eminent professionals, about 0.005% of the population, and not to the remaining 99.995%. Ignoring 99.995% of your sample does seem rather extreme, but perhaps that is why Gauquelin became agitated. In any case, to get an exact fit the birth time would have to be moved back by an average of something like fifteen or twenty minutes, a long way from that "first moment of independent existence." As far as we know, astrologers do not routinely do this, so presumably they have found nothing wrong with the first cry.