BS: New Astrological statistics!

Subject: RE: BS: New Astrological statistics!
From: John Hardly
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 11:40 AM

Zogg born a Vertigo.

Subject: RE: BS: New Astrological statistics!
From: Amos
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 10:40 AM

Aw, man, Wolfie. Don't be doing that. You may find yourself beset upon while on the podium by a mob of angry, vicious, disincarnate Higher Selves with nothing better to do than take offense at your attitude!! :D

A

Subject: RE: BS: New Astrological statistics!
From: Wolfgang
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 10:16 AM

Variations of incidence/prevalence of disorders with the season of birth make a lot of sense. Schizophrenics are more likely born in winter, for instance. The differences are tiny and only found in hugh samples.

Noone (among those doing this research) believes in sun signs or months as the real causative variable responsible for the differences. The real variable(s) confounded with season of birth could be:
(1) food intake of mother during pregnancy (varying with season, of course)
(2) weather during the first months after birth or during the months when the kids starts walking and crawling (different early experiences)
(3) social background of the kid (the different social strata have slightly different maxima of their kids' birthmonths)
...

But the idea of the study above was different: gather a lot of data and look for a lot of differences, then you are sure to find some statistically significant differences by chance alone. That's the unreliable method of "data snooping". Good for gathering hypotheses, bad for testing hypotheses. The remedy is the split half method: take half of your data for gathering hypotheses and the other half for testing them. If something then remains statistically significant, pay attention to it, if not, forget it.

The above study has deliberately made that one mistake for the purpose of demonstrating that error and later shown what the remedy is.

I am very grateful to know about it, for I can use it well for demonstration purposes.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: New Astrological statistics!
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 09:59 AM

I repeat a crucial section of the post, with italics

"Replace astrological signs with another characteristic such as gender or age, and immediately your mind starts to form explanations for the observed associations," Austin said. "Then we leap to conclusions, constructing reasons for why we saw the results we did. We did this study to prove a larger point -- the more we look for patterns, the more likely we are to find them, particularly when we don't begin with a particular question."

Subject: RE: BS: New Astrological statistics!
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 08:15 AM

Poor :Libras

They were also pinned as the ones to most likely to have car crashes.

Subject: RE: BS: New Astrological statistics!
From: kendall
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 07:45 AM

It seems like bollox is a small cottage industry in this country!

Subject: RE: BS: New Astrological statistics!
From: Grab
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 06:52 AM

Related to this, there was an article in NewScientist a couple of weeks back, saying that a study showed certain disorders were more common for people born at different times during the year. So surprisingly this might have some genuine scientific background. Whether this is real or just a statistical fluke will require further studies. That's the problem with statistics - you need LOADS of them before you can make an accurate correlation.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: New Astrological statistics!
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 05:03 AM

A good friend of mine who always reads his horoscope had read it in the newspaper about three years ago and it suggested that he should take care that day or he might break a limb............he was involved in a collision with another car whilst driving and the other persons leg was broken!.......what a silly coincidence.

Subject: RE: BS: New Astrological statistics!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 04:31 AM

Ah, but they were MEANT to be the sign they are, otherwise they would not have been premature.

I can vouch for the vomiting Virgos.. I felt or was sick every day, any time of day for 6 months of my pregnancy. And people wonder why I stopped at one child.

I used to childmind a Virgo child who could vomit for her country... she'd do it to get attention, she'd do it when she was angry, she'd do it to get her own way. She's a lovely child now but still prone to travel sickness, so it's not just during pregnancy. My Aries child rarely puked at all once she'd got on to solid food.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: New Astrological statistics!
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 04:23 AM

I've always found it difficult to see how people who were born prematurely fit in to things like this. A lot of them should have been born under another sign.

Subject: RE: BS: New Astrological statistics!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Feb 07 - 07:08 PM

Doing the study on the basis of Astrological Signs and it all sounds flaky. Do it on tyebasis of birthmonth, and it'd sound a lot more scientfic. And yet it'd be essentially the same thing.

Subject: BS: New Astrological statistics!
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Feb 07 - 06:37 PM

well...obviously *I* couldn't resist this one!

Study: Virgos Vomit More, Libras Fracture Pelvises
Results Show How Studies Can Be Misinterpreted


Does your astrological sign determine your health issues? Maybe.

According to a new survey, compared to people born under other astrological signs, Virgos have an increased risk of vomiting during pregnancy, Pisces have an increased risk of heart failure, and Libras have an increased risk of fracturing their pelvises.

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council grantee Peter Austin and three other researchers at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto completed the survey of hospital visits in Ontario. Their research shows that each of the 12 astrological signs had at least two medical disorders associated with them, thus placing people born under a given sign at increased risk compared to those born under different signs.


The study, which used data from 10 million Ontario residents in 2000, was conducted with tongue firmly in cheek, a press release said.

"Replace astrological signs with another characteristic such as gender or age, and immediately your mind starts to form explanations for the observed associations," Austin said. "Then we leap to conclusions, constructing reasons for why we saw the results we did. We did this study to prove a larger point -- the more we look for patterns, the more likely we are to find them, particularly when we don't begin with a particular question."

Austin said he found that even though each astrological sign had its own unique disorders, his initial results were not reproduced when they were explicitly tested in a second population.

"Scientists take pains to make sure their clinical studies are conducted accurately," said Austin. "But sometimes erroneous conclusions will be obtained solely due to chance."

Statistical chance means that 5 percent of the time, scientists will incorrectly conclude that an association exists, when in reality no such association exists in the population that the scientists are studying.

One way to reduce the chances of drawing a wrong conclusion is to try and reproduce unexpected results in further studies.

"There is a danger in basing scientific decisions on the results of one study, particularly if the results were unanticipated or the association was one that we did not initially decide to examine," Austin said. "But when several studies all arrive at similar conclusions, we reduce the risk of arriving at an incorrect outcome."

Austin will discuss his results at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Conference in San Francisco, which runs from Feb. 15 to 19, 2007.