Women and Astrology, psychics etc.

Have recently re-entered the dating scene so I’ve been swiping away at tinder and one thing that really struck me is the amount of women making references to astrology in their bios/profiles.

My question is why is it that there is such an apparent gender imbalance regarding belief in astrology?
I don’t want to generalise but I know numerous women who profess belief in it but can’t say the same of any men I know. Same goes for psychics.

Perhaps there’s no definitive answer but has anyone any ideas?

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

I'd leave off tinder til Thursday mate.

Mercury's in retrograde.

Ipso

You're such an Ophiuchus.

sullivlo

Batrachotox wrote: »

Have recently re-entered the dating scene so I’ve been swiping away at tinder and one thing that really struck me is the amount of women making references to astrology in their bios/profiles.

My question is why is it that there is such an apparent gender imbalance regarding belief in astrology?
I don’t want to generalise but I know numerous women who profess belief in it but can’t say the same of any men I know. Same goes for psychics.

Perhaps there’s no definitive answer but has anyone any ideas?

As a female I like astronomy and physics. Maybe you're misreading their bios?

JohnnyFlash

My swamp donkey on an ex-wife used to visit psychics a lot. Funny they weren’t able to tell her that I was ending the marriage and moving out for the good of my sanity and happiness.

eviltwin

Women tend to be more religious as well don't they? Maybe it's the need to believe that things will be okay, that there is some higher power looking out for us all. Maybe they are just idiots.

kikilarue2

I don't mind reading my horoscope as a bit of fun but I put no store in it.

Now, this is where I'm going to get lambasted - I do believe there are a tiny, tiny minority of people who are psychic. Now, I think most of them are absolute scam artists but there are definitely (imho) a handful out there that just seem to operate on a higher level than the rest of it.

I almost think of it the same way I do elite athletes. Most human beings couldn't come close to the physical skill you see on display at the Olympics. But a very small minority have a natural talent for a sport, and they spend their lives honing and training it.

It used to be said that we only use 10% of our brains - that myth has been disproved by science, but what science does say is that we only understand about 10% of how it functions (link)

I believe there are a handful who have gifts the rest of us don't have access to or understand. There are too many stories of psychics knowing super-specific things (not like "Has anyone lost a Mary") to completely write it off completely.

mikhail

Kiki, when someone can collect James Randi's million dollars, I might pay some heed. They're all chancers. If there was even one of them worth a damn, they'd have to close down the lotto.

kikilarue2

mikhail wrote: »

Kiki, when someone can collect James Randi's million dollars, I might pay some heed. They're all chancers. If there was even one of them worth a damn, they'd have to close down the lotto.

They'll have trouble collecting on it since it no longer exists (as per the first paragraph of your link)

I don't think they can predict the future in any case.

Your Face

mikhail wrote: »

Kiki, when someone can collect James Randi's million dollars, I might pay some heed. They're all chancers. If there was even one of them worth a damn, they'd have to close down the lotto.

He's a bit of a chancer himself.

kikilarue2

mikhail wrote: »

Kiki, when someone can collect James Randi's million dollars, I might pay some heed. They're all chancers. If there was even one of them worth a damn, they'd have to close down the lotto.

Also, your point is a logical fallacy - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (the fact that something hasn't been proved is not evidence that it cannot be proved)

I'll give you an example - say 50 years ago if you went to a doctor with depression and he told you to meditate every day and see if that helped, you'd think he was a quack. There was no evidence to support it.

These days, there's an abundance of scientific evidence of the benefits of meditation. The proof didn't exist 50 years ago, but the benefits were no less real.

sullivlo

sullivlo wrote: »

As a female I like astronomy and physics. Maybe you're misreading their bios?

Nope, definitely astrology.

And I’m not suggesting women aren’t interested in astronomy or physics either...

Do you disagree that women are more commonly interested in astrology than men? That’s all I’m trying to figure out here.

mikhail

kikilarue2 wrote: »

Also, your point is a logical fallacy - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (the fact that something hasn't been proved is not evidence that it cannot be proved)

I'll give you an example - say 50 years ago if you went to a doctor with depression and he told you to meditate every day and see if that helped, you'd think he was a quack. There was no evidence to support it.

These days, there's an abundance of scientific evidence of the benefits of meditation. The proof didn't exist 50 years ago, but the benefits were no less real.

Ah, Russell's Teapot lives on. They're making the claim; the onus is on them to supply the evidence.

kikilarue2

mikhail wrote: »

Ah, Russell's Teapot lives on. They're making the claim; the onus is on them to supply the evidence.

Nope, I'm not saying it's up to you to prove me wrong.

I'm saying science is a living and constantly developing thing, and we understand things now that we didn't understand 50 years ago, and we'll understand stuff 50 years from now that we don't today.

kikilarue2

kikilarue2 wrote: »

Nope, I'm not saying it's up to you to prove me wrong.

I'm saying science is a living and constantly developing thing, and we understand things now that we didn't understand 50 years ago, and we'll understand stuff 50 years from now that we don't today.

Yes, and astrology will remain complete bunk.

Ipso

Deleted User wrote: »

Yes, and astrology will remain complete bunk.

I'm not sure. I have a feeling that we will find that those lines drawn through important stars in the sky (the millions of others are not important) can predict the future.

kikilarue2

Deleted User wrote: »

Yes, and astrology will remain complete bunk.

You're entitled to hold that opinion. Many people wrote off meditation in the same way and for similar reasons for decades, some of them still refuse to believe it even though plenty of evidence now exists.

Ipso

kikilarue2 wrote: »

You're entitled to hold that opinion. Many people wrote off meditation in the same way and for similar reasons for decades, some of them still refuse to believe it even though plenty of evidence now exists.

So how can a random group of stars predict the future?

ILoveYourVibes

Batrachotox wrote: »

Have recently re-entered the dating scene so I’ve been swiping away at tinder and one thing that really struck me is the amount of women making references to astrology in their bios/profiles.

My question is why is it that there is such an apparent gender imbalance regarding belief in astrology?
I don’t want to generalise but I know numerous women who profess belief in it but can’t say the same of any men I know. Same goes for psychics.

Perhaps there’s no definitive answer but has anyone any ideas?

Very few men are genuinely psychic so why would they believe in it?

Men and women are different. Our brains are different.

kikilarue2

kikilarue2 wrote: »

You're entitled to hold that opinion. Many people wrote off meditation in the same way and for similar reasons for decades, some of them still refuse to believe it even though plenty of evidence now exists.

Meditation is tangible in terms of alleviating stress etc. The movement of planets millions of miles away has no discernible influence on humans. I'll defer to astronomy instead of hocus pocus.

kikilarue2

Ipso wrote: »

So how can a random group of stars predict the future?

I don't think they can. I didn't say they could. Keep up.

kikilarue2

kikilarue2 wrote: »

You're entitled to hold that opinion. Many people wrote off meditation in the same way and for similar reasons for decades, some of them still refuse to believe it even though plenty of evidence now exists.

What do you think psychics can do - if not tell the future. Do you mean a medium, that can communicate with "the other side"?

M5

There is a million dollar prize available for anyone who ca prove they are psychic. Double blind test under laboratory conditions of course.

despite being available for over a decade there hasn't been any interest from the psychic community, and no claimants either.

Funny that...

Autecher

Ipso wrote: »

So how can a random group of stars predict the future?

To be fair Kiki has not said that, she has said she believes there are some people out there who operate on a higher plane than others.

M5

M5 wrote: »

There is a million dollar prize available for anyone who ca prove they are psychic. Double blind test under laboratory conditions of course.

Funnily enough, despite being available for over a decade there hasn't been huge interest from the psychic community.

Funny that...

Well, you're not psychic anyway

kikilarue2

Deleted User wrote: »

Meditation is tangible in terms of alleviating stress etc. The movement of planets millions of miles away has no discernible influence on humans. I'll defer to astronomy instead of hocus pocus.

I agree with you there. I haven't said anything about stars or planets. I made a point about human beings.

Ipso

kikilarue2 wrote: »

I don't think they can. I didn't say they could. Keep up.

Why reply about how things can change to someone saying astrology is bunk?

M5

Deleted User wrote: »

Well, you're not psychic anyway

I could have predicted that thee would be no claimants. Maybe I am!

Sardonicat

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Very few men are genuinely psychic so why would they believe in it?

Men and women are different. Our brains are different.

'Genuinely ' psychic? As opposed to 'actually ' psychic? No one is actually psychic.

ILoveYourVibes

Sardonicat wrote: »

'Genuinely ' psychic? As opposed to 'actually ' psychic? No one is actually psychic.

You have to be psychic to know.

Ipso

Sardonicat wrote: »

'Genuinely ' psychic? As opposed to 'actually ' psychic? No one is actually psychic.

Possibly just monetarily psychic.

kikilarue2

I love science and all that it has given the world, but I'm also aware of its limits, and one of them is the brain.

If you've got an infection or a virus or a heart problem or a liver problem, there's a good chance a doctor can treat it.

If you've got a problem with your brain - dementia, schizophrenia, mental health problems, brain damage etc. there's damn all they can do in most cases. Our understanding of how the brain works is quite limited compared to what we know about the body.

And in the same way that our understanding of problems with the brain is limited, so too is our understanding of people whose brains appear to have extraordinary abilities.

Sardonicat

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

You have to be psychic to know.

To know what? What you're rambling on about?

kikilarue2

kikilarue2 wrote: »

And in the same way that our understanding of problems with the brain is limited, so too is our understanding of people whose brains appear to have extraordinary abilities.

Are you implying that psychics are legitimate?

Sardonicat

Sardonicat wrote: »

To know what? What you're rambling on about?

Think someone is mixing up psycho rather than psychic.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Are you implying that psychics are legitimate?

Yes. Yes, she is Bertie.

kikilarue2

Deleted User wrote: »

Are you implying that psychics are legitimate?

Would you not just read the whole thread before asking questions that are already answered?

Earlier in the thread I said that while I believe the vast majority of people who claim to be psychic are not, but that there are a handful who appear to have some kind of gift that cannot currently be understood at a scientific level.

Ficheall

Autecher wrote: »

there are some people out there who operate on a higher plane than others.

Well, there are definitely some people out there who seem to operate on a lower plane than others, so I guess that's true...

kikilarue2

kikilarue2 wrote: »

some kind of gift that cannot currently be understood at a scientific level.

Surely you can expand. What do you mean by psychic?

Sardonicat

kikilarue2 wrote: »

Would you not just read the whole thread before asking questions that are already answered?

Earlier in the thread I said that while I believe the vast majority of people who claim to be psychic are not, but that there are a handful who appear to have some kind of gift that cannot currently be understood at a scientific level.

Like who?

ILoveYourVibes

Sardonicat wrote: »

Like who?

Winona Ryder.

suicide_circus

eviltwin wrote: »

Women tend to be more religious as well don't they? Maybe it's the need to believe that things will be okay, that there is some higher power looking out for us all. Maybe they are just idiots.

its something to do with coping with the loss of multiple children through infant mortality and their husbands and sons through war for most of human history.

kikilarue2

kikilarue2 wrote: »

Would you not just read the whole thread before asking questions that are already answered?

Earlier in the thread I said that while I believe the vast majority of people who claim to be psychic are not, but that there are a handful who appear to have some kind of gift that cannot currently be understood at a scientific level.

You're not in a position to second guess my activities. Geddit?

Furthermore, I'm somewhat sceptical of your angle...trying to disguise a faux medium as "something that cannot be understood".

I wiped the crystal ball, now it is transparent.

Sardonicat

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Winona Ryder.

No. Those clothes got in her bag as a result of kleptomania. That wasn't ESP

ILoveYourVibes

Sardonicat wrote: »

To know what? What you're rambling on about?

Stop being so serious.:rolleyes:

Ah, I’m bored with the ‘some kind of gift’ psychic believer. Back to the OP… I think a modern poet summed it up quite eloquently when he extolled, 'bítches be cray cray'.

kikilarue2

Deleted User wrote: »

You're not in a position to second guess my activities. Geddit?

Yes I am I can, and I did. What ya gonna do about it?

Deleted User wrote: »

Furthermore, I'm somewhat sceptical of your angle...trying to disguise a faux medium as "something that cannot be understood".

I wiped the crystal ball, now it is transparent.

What angle? I'm not trying to sell you something. I'm just having a discussion on a discussion board (shock horror).

ILoveYourVibes

Sardonicat wrote: »

No. Those clothes got in her bag as a result of kleptomania. That wasn't ESP

Wow you have a bee in your bonnet about this.

ILoveYourVibes

Deleted User wrote: »

'bítches be cray cray'.

Bastards be virgins.

Why is it the smartest men do the stupidest things?

If your hoe believes in psychics you do too !

kikilarue2

kikilarue2 wrote: »

Yes I am I can, and I did. What ya gonna do about it?



What angle? I'm not trying to sell you something. I'm just having a discussion on a discussion board (shock horror).

Right. So you know exactly what other threads I've been reading in the meantime. That's a concrete no.

You're just having an innocent chat about discredited nonsense. Pull the other one, I wasn't born yesterday.

Gregor Samsa

kikilarue2 wrote: »

I love science and all that it has given the world, but I'm also aware of its limits, and one of them is the brain.

If you've got an infection or a virus or a heart problem or a liver problem, there's a good chance a doctor can treat it.

If you've got a problem with your brain - dementia, schizophrenia, mental health problems, brain damage etc. there's damn all they can do in most cases. Our understanding of how the brain works is quite limited compared to what we know about the body.

And in the same way that our understanding of problems with the brain is limited, so too is our understanding of people whose brains appear to have extraordinary abilities.

The issue with psychics isn't that science can't explain how they do what they do, it's that they can't actually do what they claim to be able to do when subjected to the rigors of a controlled experiment.