Don’t spend money on fortune‑telling, tarot, or astrology to make decisions
Original: eternity4719 · source details
Original author: eternity4719 · Chinese source: · English adaptation: parveen0029. Translation and grade notes ↗
Bibliographic titles are retained in their original language.
Source author's views and grades; not individually verified by this site.
Cost and benefit at a glance
- Check the cost Cost ↓
- It costs nothing. The hard part is giving up a quick shortcut for making choices and having to think for yourself afterward.
- Then the source benefit Benefit ↓
- In that same experiment, students rated the generic personality analysis they received after a test; 34 out of 39 gave it a score of 4 or 5 on a 0‑to‑5 scale, yielding an average o…
In plain terms
There’s a classic classroom experiment: students receive a “personality analysis” that is identical for everyone, yet most find it very accurate. This is exactly why fortune‑telling seems reliable. Astrologers perform no better than random guesses. The price isn’t just a few dollars: in Xixian County, Henan Province, a fortune‑telling ring collected “offering fees” and “donation packages” priced up to 3,888 yuan; the ringleader was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
This guide's cartoon · show illustration
Enlarge illustrationOriginal illustration with Chinese lettering; the English dialogue is below. Humour is a reading aid, not evidence.
English dialogue
- Everybody loves it!
- I'd like to read the original.
Cost: what it takes
It costs nothing. The hard part is giving up a quick shortcut for making choices and having to think for yourself afterward.
Benefit: what the source reports
In that same experiment, students rated the generic personality analysis they received after a test; 34 out of 39 gave it a score of 4 or 5 on a 0‑to‑5 scale, yielding an average of roughly 4.26. This illustrates the Barnum effect, which explains why such analyses always seem spot‑on. A double‑blind test of astrology was also published in Nature: astrologers were asked to match a client’s horoscope to one of three personality profiles; they succeeded 40 times out of 116, whereas chance alone would have yielded about 38.5 matches — far below their own expectation of 58.5. Official records show a similar pattern: prosecutors in Xixian County uncovered an online fortune‑telling scam that lured victims with free palm‑reading services, then demanded “offering fees” and “donation packages” up to 3,888 yuan. Over 50 victims lost more than 2 million yuan; the ringleader received an 11‑year sentence plus a 100,000‑yuan fine.
Conditions, limits and disagreements
Both studies cited here are single‑experiment investigations. The average score of 4.26 for the Forer test wasn’t stated outright in the original paper; it was calculated from the distribution shown in Table 1. This note merely points out that such predictions lack accuracy; it makes no judgment about any belief system. Spending a few dollars for entertainment is fine, but using these services to decide on career moves, marriage, or investments is a costly mistake.
Original references
Original bibliographic titles and links are preserved; some titles are in Chinese.
Forer BR (1949). The fallacy of personal validation: A classroom demonstration of gullibility. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 44(1):118-123（表 1 评分分布：2 分 1 人、3 分 4 人、4 分 18 人、5 分 16 人，N=39）. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0059240；Carlson S (1985). A double-blind test of astrology. Nature 318:419-425（表 2：首选 116 份，挑中 40 份，随机期望 38.5，占星师预计 58.5；「The data are consistent with chance, inconsistent with astrological hypothesis」）. https://doi.org/10.1038/318419a0，第二作者主页全文 https://muller.lbl.gov/papers/Astrology-Carlson.pdf；最高人民检察院 (2026). 河南息县：历经三年持续追踪打掉一批网络算命诈骗团伙. https://www.spp.gov.cn/zdgz/202607/t20260728_732935.shtml
Medical, legal, financial and policy conditions vary by person, place and time. Policy material primarily concerns mainland China; check the cited document and current local requirements.