Research Studies: Tropical vs. Sidereal & Related

[Ray_Murphy]

Kyle wrote:

In my dynamic synastry study, I'm generating a few thousand partner charts for each individual, for random dates within a specified range of years, [......]

I've done a fair bit of fishing expedition work on angular separations between thousands of partners' planets and points and also midpoints - all aspects and all orbs, but I've never generated control groups, partly because I thought that a specified range of years might not be good enough if they produced purely random dates within a window which extended several years from the birth date of any given person.

It seemed to me that because there is always a bell curve distribution for the partners' age differences, we'd need to find what it was for our partners' data and then create a unique formula for that survey to give us a similar curve. For example we might start with the womens' data and see that we had 119 partners who were .5 years older; 126 who where 1 year older; 133 who were 1.5 years older ....... and 7 who were 12 years older etc. If we didn't do that our [second rate] computer-generated control group with a random distribution in say a 5 year window could easily miss such things as the MAR-MAR connection that seems to exist in this era at least, purely because of the age differences of a couple of years between partners (a Mars cycle).

I suppose it wouldn't be hard to make a 'bell-curve-modifier' program for our control data window, but I still haven't got my brain into gear to see what's needed - so that any set of partners' data could be processed quickly with a more realistic control group.

[Ray_Murphy]

Sari wrote:

This should be the main concern of the study: to gain better knowledge of how the patterns really work on charts. I’m not that interested in proving that astrology works (though that can be a byproduct, but some people will never believe it anyway) or even proving that a certain pet theory really works, but simply finding out what the planets, houses, signs, etc. really do at charts. It’s not always so evident as people think it is.

That could be a fascinating topic - "What could happen if research yields some solid answers?" I think we already have some pretty convincing negative answers spinning around on some researchers' hard drives, but we might be at the wrong end of the century for discussing it and moving forward.

An example might be that there is no extra chance of partners having SUN-VEN conjunctions (any orb), despite the common belief (by myself as well) that it's a fine 'attractor' between potential partners.

What would happen if this was found to be the case with SUN-VEN?
Astrologers could honestly say "We never SAID that more people with SUN con VEN paired-up in marriage or relationships - we have only ever said that more often than not it is very good for relationships". (or similar).

So if this happened, where would we go from there - would we start to focus more on what the SUN-VEN connections between partners actually did for relationships - and perhaps improve our astrology?

[Kyle_Pierce]

Ray, thanks for your thoughts. This problem really calls for a careful analysis of what is implied by different study designs and ways of constructing samples and controls, and I'm glad you have raised this question. The concept of a control group is sort of problematic for my own study, which focuses on the question of how to arrive at a hypothesis rather than on how to test one. It is a series of case studies rather than a sample study, which to me seems like a better fit for my current stage of investigation and the kind of knowledge I’m pursuing.

So I'm looking at individual cases and comparing one case with another, and this turns out to be a valuable exercise for clarifying some issues. In this scenario, there is no curve to match, only an individual partner. Even so, it is useful to apply a statistical model to a series of cases in order to see what stands out in a particular case. For instance, I can use Monte Carlo simulation to determine the probability of finding certain planets in aspect between a pair of charts. The question of what this means -- that is, in relation to what distribution of positions, or what time period -- is pretty open to various interpretations.

This case study approach begins with an astrological mindset, and so it highlights what is unusual about a given pair of charts. This is in contrast to the controlled sample type of study where the hypothesis states that some predictable or consistent relationship will show itself when looking across many charts. So it’s not easy to say how these approaches can be related to each other, but that’s the whole point of doing case studies this way. At least for now, I’m more concerned with how to use statistical methods in the context of astrological practice than with doing the hypothesis-driven type of study.

[Ray_Murphy]

Kyle wrote:

Ray, thanks for your thoughts. This problem really calls for a careful analysis of what is implied by different study designs and ways of constructing samples and controls, and I'm glad you have raised this question. The concept of a control group is sort of problematic for my own study because it focuses on the question of how to arrive at a hypothesis, rather than on how to test one. It is a series of case studies rather than a sample study, which to me seems like a better fit for my current stage of investigation and the kind of knowledge I’m pursuing.

It's all very hard because we have virtually nothing that is astrologically solid to work with. We don't even have a rule in astrology that says people will gravitate towards each other - based on complimentary synastry. We actually don't have ANY clear-cut claims about anything in astrology. If we did, someone would be able to quote one of them ad verbatim.

I am convinced that people DO gravitate towards each other, based on complimentary synastry for good long-lasting relationships, but they also do it for less admirable reasons, such as 'gold digging', mental stimulation or getting a trophy partner or sex or simply finding someone who can tolerate them and help them live their chart and help them deal with their quirks, so I would expect that if we include all available couples in our surveys and pretend we are dealing with romantic relationships, we'll get an awful lot of background noise in our research graphs when we examine
individual factors.

This wouldn't matter a lot if astrological 'romantic attractors' worked at a fairly high percentage above the expected rate, but I've found that they don't - well not the 11,000 of them that I routinely use anyway. Ten percent above the expected rate is about the best I expect to ever see after processing so much data. So unless we can find some synastry factors that work at a fairly high rate, we have little hope of being able to start filtering our data in obvious ways after finding interesting peaks in our graphs.

Of course we can still do that - find an interesting peak in a graph, but one which is completely insignificant from a stats point of view, and then combine it with another equally high but also insignificant peak, and give ourselves a neat looking 'multi-factor'. Yes, it's ok to try that - just in case it might work, but it never has yet. I suppose in a case like that, the first factor may have been real, although not yet statistically significant because of the amount of data being used, but if we combine it with another factor which is only rating highly just by chance, then we don't find anything, but if we could somehow use all the permutations for that second factor, and one of them was real, we'd be able to move forward.

To put that in very simple terms - if we found that MER con JUP women married more men than expected with SUN in SAG or VEN in GEM, we may find nothing significant if we compared it with a control group, but if we tested for SUN
in SAG plus VEN in all the signs, we might have success with (say) SUN in SAG or VEN in ARI, even though Venus in Aries didn't score particularly well in our set of data. As far as I know, no one is doing astrological research in this way yet.

Another thing that is worth considering, whether it's for your type of searching or mine - and that's the 'opportunity factor'. It's something that I have often wondered about, but I still cannot see it clearly enough. Lot's of factors are not present in transit events or synastry because it is impossible to get them in a particular era, or in the case of
partner-synastry, impossible to get within several years of the person's birth date, so I've been wondering how we can (in some surveys) isolate data that cannot produce 'hits' or can only produce a nominal number of hits. It doesn't seem quite right to me to be using data for people who CAN have certain factors in their synastry and those who cannot.

It sounds like your system of generating control charts is already handling that (apart from using a block of years, rather than a tapered-years' block, but I wonder if it might help a bit to also generate the controls with an allowance for the geographic coordinate boundaries in which partners are usually found. For example if a woman was born in London, she would have a greater chance of marrying someone who was born reasonably close to her birth place or alternatively, her location at the time of meeting, so the control data should probably reflect that - even if some women who were born in London marry a foreigner in London.

What I'm driving at here is that the distribution of rising signs can vary so drastically in different parts of the world, that it can for example, reduce the chances of a woman in London with VEN in ARI marrying a man with Aries rising, because there are very few there. If she went to Australia she would find the place crawling with 'em and possibly increase her chances of having some very nice synastry

So I'm looking at individual cases and comparing one case with another, and this turns out to be a valuable exercise for clarifying some issues. In this scenario, there is no curve to match, only an individual partner. Even so, it is useful to apply a statistical model to a series of cases in order to see what stands out in a particular case. For instance, I can use Monte Carlo simulation to determine the probability of finding certain planets in aspect between a pair of charts. The question of what this means -- that is, in relation to what distribution of positions, or what time period -- is pretty open to various interpretations.


This case study approach begins with an astrological mindset, and so it highlights what is unusual about a given pair of charts. This is in contrast to the controlled sample type of study where the hypothesis states that some predictable or consistent relationship will show itself when looking across many charts. So it’s not easy to say how these approaches can be related to each other, but that’s the whole point of doing case studies this way. At least for now, I’m more concerned with how to use statistical methods in the context of astrological practice than with doing the hypothesis-driven type of study.

I think this is where other astrologers can help. They have had the opportunity to reflect on their own or their clients' synastry and often have a good idea about what brought them together. For example, in my parents' case, my (then) 30 year old father reluctantly went on a blind date and saw my (then) 18 year old mother standing at the top of an outside wooden staircase as she was about to descend. He told me many years later that he knew immediately that she was going to be his wife. She had her Venus con his Asc and Sun opp Vertex. There was probably more than that, but I never noticed. They split up in 1947 just after i was born in 1946, but there was never a question of divorce.

One more thing. it seems to me that relationship attractions are based on best fits - whether it's a dominant single factor, or a dominant factor plus other factors that get carried along with it in the sky by default, so if some people don't circulate very much amongst [realistic] potential partners, then they are reducing the chances of encountering someone with some of the best fits for their charts, and yet in research we assume they all had an equal chance.

[Sari_Metsovuori]

The samples link in my previous post was passive, but now it's working again. The URL was http://koti.welho.com/jmetsovu/samples.htm .

Sari

[Ray_Murphy]

Hi Sari,
Have a look at Mars in the 10th House with your data and see if you get the same trend that I spotted.

[Steve Spellman]

A link to excellent statistical research: Tropical vs. Sidereal

http://www.solunars.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=60

Regards, Steve

[Steve Spellman]

Fagan’s historic explanation of the Tropical Zodiac.

Cyril Fagan began his career as an astrologer using the Tropical Zodiac. After years of scholarly research into the history of astrology Fagan switched to the Sidereal Zodiac. Fagan wrote a small booklet titled ‘Zodiacs Old and New’. Since this book is out of print I will offer some Fagan quotes from this booklet which helps explain, in part, why Fagan switched from the Tropical Zodiac to the Sidereal Zodiac. Fagan decided early in his research on the history of astrology that a ‘working knowledge of astronomy and Egyptology was essential if the embryo of astrology was to be unearthed’. Fagan discovered that there were ‘celestial diagrams’ on the inside of ancient Egyptian coffin lids, the ceilings of sarcophagi, and certain temple buildings. What allowed Fagan to make this discovery is the fact that the so-called Egyptian decans were in fact pentades or 5-day star groups. Fagan identified most of these star groups which led him to the discovery the ancient Egyptian were producing mundane horoscopes (celestial diagrams) as early as 3000 B.C. These 5-day star groups allowed Fagan to prove that these ancient Egyptian celestial diagrams were reckoned from the Sidereal Zodiac, not the Tropical Zodiac.

Fagan states:
The prevalent opinion that Egypt derived all her astronomy with its symbols and names from Assyrian or Babylonia is, in my opinion, not justified.

Fagan goes on to quote a statement by Diodorus (1, 28, 31) that:
“the Chaldeans of Babylon being colonists from Egypt enjoy the fame which they have for their astrology because they learned the science from the priest of Egypt” may be more trustworthy than archaeologist are prepared to concede.

Fagan documented from an abundance of his historical research evidence, the ancient astrologers from Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria, were using the Sidereal Zodiac.

The following is how Fagan explains the great ‘blunder’ of the Tropical Zodiac.

“In their eagerness to make Babylonian astronomy their own the Greeks, being unaware that the position of the vernal point was receding in the sidereal zodiac at the approximate rate of one degree in 72 years, concluded the vernal-point was fixed absolutely in the constellation of Aries. It is not known when Claudius Ptolemy was born or when he died, but according to his Almagest he made observations of the stars between A.D. 127 and 151 when the longitude of the VERNAL POINT IN THE SIDEREAL ZODIAC WAS IN ARIES 1 DEGREE 11 MINUTES and 0 DEGREE 51 MINUTES respectively. Presumably it was some time during this period that he penned the ‘Tetrabiblos’, the SOLE authority for the tropical (moving) zodiac which is in common use to-day. It is clear, therefore, that during his life time the Sidereal and the Tropical zodiacs were to all intents and purposes identical. They exactly coincided in A.D. 213. Consequently when he tells his pupils in the “Tetrabiblos” that the Zodiac should commence with the vernal-point (‘Tetrabiblos 11, 10) his admonition was quite apposite to his own time”.



THE GREAT BLUNDER OF THE MIDDLE AGES

“Ptolemy’s “Great Construction” and “Four Books” were translated into Arabic and with the Moorish invasion were introduced into western Europe during the Dark Ages. This was probably western Europe’s first introduction to classical astrology. From the Arabic the books were rendered into Latin by the doctors of the church. Not knowing that they were originally written at a time when the vernal-point had regressed to the beginning of Aries these learned fathers, like Proclus, took Ptolemy’s categorical statement that the zodiac commenced with the equinoctial point at face value, and thus was initiated the greatest blunder that has ever been made in the history of astrology. Many passages can be cited from the ‘Tetrabiblos’ to prove that Ptolemy taught only in terms of the sidereal (fixed) zodiac”.

Regards, Steve

[David_Ray]

Dear Friends,

I have been enjoying this discussion. I am very impressed with astrologers that have the time and discipline to do scientifically-based research. I think it is a very important aspect of the evolution of astrology in our time.

I agree with what somebody has mentioned, that we are dealing with two challenges: that of calculation and that of technique. If we do not get the results we want, we don't know if it's because our calculations are off or if it's because our techniques are off. So we must gradually improve both and work towards the middle.

I am a Vedic astrologer who currently uses the tropical zodiac. Originally I studied Western astrology, and then I got into Vedic astrology using the sidereal zodiac. Then I began studying with Ernst Wilhelm, who has some interesting ideas about the history of the zodiac. He moderates the Vedic Astrology group, using Vedic techniques with the tropical zodiac. His website has a free class called the Ayanamsa Class which relates his process around this issue. I have had great results with the tropical, but so far have not been rigorous enough to really test it scientifically. Having switched back and forth so many times, I remain open-minded and in gratitude for those astrologers willing to do the testing for the benefit of us all.

Thanks again,
David Ray

[Abd-Allah Meyers]

Dear Ms. Sari Metsovuori,

Perhaps I overlooked it but would you please post which precession factor (ayanamsha) you used in your study?

Also, many thanks for your tedious and courageous work with statistical methods in astrology. Unlike other branches of mathematics, e. g. geometry and trigonometry, applying statistics to astrology is, alas, far from being universal practice amongst astrologers. Some even claim that, as astrology is an 'intuitive art' rather than a science, statistical methods have no place in astrology.

As with most statistical research, the underlying assumptions and premises are also of utmost importance in astrology. Often, placements of planets in signs and stelliums in signs are assumed to be significant factors in determining the e. g. professions and social standings of the natives in the sample. However, most astrological schools consider the ascendant and medium coeli as well as house placements (which house systems?) to be most relevant for these matters. Other schools, e. g. "Cosmobiology", assign highest weight to axes and to half-sums amongst factors.

In contrast to antiquity when astrologers were above all expected to predict events, most statistical studies of astrology have been limited to other considerations. Many astrologers restrict contemporary astrology to psychology, stating that astrologers cannot and, ethically, should not predict.

As a standard for astrological quality might one consider say a minimum of 240 written, time-stamped, unequivocal predictions with a fulfilment quota of at least 160 (2/3)?

Kind regards,

Abd-Allah Meyers