Saddam Hussein and mundane astrology - Time for Ultimate Test, PVR, Gurus?

[Guest guest]

Gauging by PVR's spirited reply to Siva's post, I am thinking it

really is time for "The Ultimate Test" but not exactly as outlined

at http://www.srath.com/test.htm. The test itself is somewhat poorly

designed as I shall elaborate. Please read fully:

 

My first dabblings at astrology were due to Rick Houck's book "The

Astrology of Death". At that time, I also happened to look at James

Randi's One Million Dollar Challenge, which currently stands at 1.1

million dollars and is still unclaimed:

http://www.randi.org/research/index.html

 

In a personal communication with Rick Houck, being suitably impressed

with his predictive powers, I suggested that he try his luck at

claiming Randi's prize money.

 

Rick Houck then replied that he had once actually issued an open

challenge to the NIH (National Institute of Health), but it was never

taken. He later passed away in early 2001. I personally felt that

that challenge was very well designed and it now seems to me that the

format of that challenge would help restructure Sanjay Rath's "The

Ultimate Test" into a more realistic and acceptable challenge, and at

the same time, work toward claiming James Randi's 1.1 million, which

is still very much up for grabs. Useful for SJC, wouldnt you agree?

Anyway, here is Rick Houck's approach:

 

1) Have a non-astrological disinterested party (not BAVA etc, which

are astrological and famous astrologers are bound to have connections

leading to much controversy) pick out the birth times of people in

PAIRs from reliable hospital and county records. In each pair, the

people should have approximately the same birth time. Dates of

marriage, birth of children etc should also be extractable from

records.

 

2) In each pair, the non-astrological party should pick out the time

of death of ONE of the two people and write it on the outside of an

envelope. Put inside the envelope the birthdata (and for

rectification purposes marriage, children birth time, siblings) of

both the people.

 

3) Prepare 20, or 30, or 40 or 50 such envelopes (depending on the

degree of certainty required).

 

Give these envelopes to each of the contestants. For each envelope,

each contestant simply has to predict which one of the two people in

the envelope died at the time written on the outside of the envelope.

 

I believe getting 80% or more right would be sufficient to offset the

possibility of chance occurrence. That would easily claim the 1.1

million dollar prize, and also among the contestants, the one with

more answers correct is the winner.

 

The key to this test is that the selection criterion and judgement

criterion are totally simple and objective and do not require an

astrologically knowledgeable body. This goes to both toward proving

the efficacy of astrology AND establishing who really knows his/her

stuff.

 

 

Sundeep