Post #2: Darren Brown

    I didn’t know who Darren Brown was before listening to his TED talk and watching his older series about debunking other psychics, but I am so glad I know of him now. He truly is a great mentalist and has an amazing showmanship factor. The key thing for psychics really is the idea of being vague and generalizing things for their audience. Brown shows that he can match the “famous” psychics by being so vague and really “faking ‘til he makes it.” In my personal experience, I used to love getting my tarot cards read and looking up my astrology for compatibility or if I would want to know what would be my ideal career. Now I know that something like the “stars” and “signs” cannot define who I am as a person but it can generalize a majority of people who share the same birth month as me. As for the tarot reader, looking back now this old italian woman that I had met in Venice  Beach, CA was able to sell me more of an “experience” rather than answers to my future and reading of my past. I found the Ted talk enlightening because as someone who used to rely so heavily on these psychics can now see that it is a trick of just reading a person's mannerisms and more relating to humans and their habits.

Astrology

     Astrology is a pseudoscience based on the premise that astronomical phenomena can be used to predict or interpret events in our life. The planets in our solar system are said to represent life forms that can be interpreted based on their zodiacal positions and how they're situated in space relative to one another. It is said that this can give a comprehensive analysis of a person and their future potential based on their natal horoscope.

     Unfortunately the astronomy field is one filled with extraordinary claims that lack irrefutable evidence. Controlled experiments show that astrologers' abilities don't exceed the degree of chance of their predictions coming true, although it is barely testable to begin with due to the vagueness of the predictions. Astrology itself even has some inconsistencies in its history. First, there used to be 13 zodiac signs, the missing one being Ophiuchus, which was discarded after it was decided 12 was the favorable number of signs. Also they don't account for the "wobble" of Earth's axis over a period of 26,000 years. This wobble has changed the current signs to be at least one sign off from the constellation the sun rises in from 2,000 years ago!
     Personally I don't believe in astrology or horoscopes but I do enjoy reading them from time to time. Enjoy this short 1 minute video from Bill Nye on the subject.