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© Copyright 1998, Jim Loy
Your horoscope, in the newspaper, is based on your sun sign. Your sun sign is the zodiac sign (but not the constellation) that the sun was in, when you were born. See my article, Taurus The Bull about the constellation, as opposed to the sign.
> A friend of mine is an astrologer (and a numerologist and a palm reader). A number of years ago, I told him that I figured out a way to test to see if sun signs were valid. He said that sun signs are of some validity, but not enough to test. As a math student, who had taken three courses in probability and statistics, I knew that he was wrong. The tools of probability allow a person to determine just how valid a theory is, give or take an experimental error (which can also be estimated). If it has a small amount of validity, the statistics should show that.
> My idea was to take a large sample of people, have them answer a questionnaire about their personalities, and see just how closely this conforms to their personalities, as described in the astrology literature.
> But, my friend was probably right, after all. As a math student, I did not consider psychology. Most people know their sun signs. And, many people know, to some extent, what astrologers say about people with their signs. And, just knowing that information is certainly enough to throw off my test. People conform to what astrologers say about them. They might reason, "Why fight my basic nature?" So they fulfill the astrologers' predictions.
> So, to be valid, my test would have to test for personality features that people do not know about themselves (and that would not be influenced by other personality features that they do know about), so that their knowledge of their sun signs would not skew the results. That sounds difficult, if not impossible. Too bad.
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> See My Horoscope.
> I have no sun sign. Certainly, the sun was somewhere when I was born. But, I don't care. And, anyone who is the least bit interested in what my sun sign is, has earned my contempt. I haven't a clue what personality attributes I'm supposed to have, except that astrologers would probably tell me that I fit my sign perfectly. So, I guess my sign is the one for people who think astrology is stupid, stupid, stupid.
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