people who were young, female, less educated, or knew fewer science facts
Assuming by “young” they mean (say) younger than 18 rather than (say) younger than 50 (and that they’re talking about age effects rather than cohort effects), and with the possible exception of gender, that does sound like a description of the groups of people who I’d expect to be less rational. Hence, that doesn’t sound like as strong a reason to doubt the effectiveness of belief-in-astrology as a test for rationality as finding that people from South Examplistan are more likely to believe in astrology than people from North Examplistan.
“Young” is my own way of summarising the results for the different age subgroups; I saw no correlation with age for ages >34, but people aged 18-24 thought astrology was more scientific than people aged 25-34, who in turn thought it more scientific than people aged 35+. (The sample had no under-18s, unfortunately.) In any case, astrology seems like a good item to add to a potential list of rationality probes.
Assuming by “young” they mean (say) younger than 18 rather than (say) younger than 50 (and that they’re talking about age effects rather than cohort effects), and with the possible exception of gender, that does sound like a description of the groups of people who I’d expect to be less rational. Hence, that doesn’t sound like as strong a reason to doubt the effectiveness of belief-in-astrology as a test for rationality as finding that people from South Examplistan are more likely to believe in astrology than people from North Examplistan.
“Young” is my own way of summarising the results for the different age subgroups; I saw no correlation with age for ages >34, but people aged 18-24 thought astrology was more scientific than people aged 25-34, who in turn thought it more scientific than people aged 35+. (The sample had no under-18s, unfortunately.) In any case, astrology seems like a good item to add to a potential list of rationality probes.