Belief in the Zodiac Survey

[NRSASD]

Hey Playground!

My fiance and I have a brilliant, stupid theory that needs testing. We need to know what your zodiac sign is, and if you believe it influences your life. Type your response below or take this survey to let us know.

Please feel free to share it with anyone who looks vaguely interested! The more data, the better!

Thanks in advance!

[Tvtyrant]

This could do with a few extra options like "doesn't influence my life but accurately foretells it" or some such alternative.

I don't personally believe in fortunes, but I once got one so scary accurate my roommate actually changed his mind about them. It combined zodiacs, chinese years and elemental stones and described me as having a "cheery despair" which describes my personality well. I still think it was a case of many monkeys throwing lightning bolts, but there are some doubts.

[NRSASD]

@TvTryant- That's really interesting! Have your friend take the survey too so we can get his/her input. We're keeping it super simple for two reasons: a. clarity of data and b. not wasting people's time haha

[Roland St. Jude]

I think the Zodiac is bunk. Probably because I'm a typical Capricorn.

[halfeye]

There is no connection between us and the planets but gravity, and the moon's is much stronger in it's effect on us than any planet.

[Ninja_Prawn]

I believe only in La Zodiac.

[Elanasaurus]

I think the Zodiac is bunk. Probably because I'm a typical Capricorn.

Same here!

There is no connection between us and the planets but gravity, and the moon's is much stronger in it's effect on us than any planet.

I think we're talking supernatural here. Then again, I haven't looked into astrology recently so Iunno.

[Eldan]

So, wait. Are you trying to prove that people with certain signs are more likely to believe in the Zodiac?

[NRSASD]

Trying to prove is far too serious a statement. We're just curious if there's any correlation, because what if there is?! It would be absolutely ridiculous and raise so many bizarre questions if it turns out to be a thing.

@Roland St. Jude: I like the cut of your gib

[Algeh]

My parents have the same birthday. This has rather thoroughly convinced me to ignore things that try to match up birthdays with personality types, because I have lots of empirical evidence to the contrary.

(When I was a much younger Algeh working from a much smaller dataset about how the world works, it also convinced me that women changed their birthday when they got married just like they changed their last names, but I eventually accumulated enough data to change my mind about that one.)

[Kato]

I'm a Leo and only my grandmother believes there is anything I have in common with the most common traits associated with it..
In my opinion, the most powerful impact your Zodiac has on you is dependent on how much you believe in it. (or how well it is written)

I actually at one point considered comparing a few weekly horoscopes to see how well they match up.. But I'm too lazy. Also, I guess you could just pick your favorite to be the one made by qualified people.

[Cespenar]

Trying to prove is far too serious a statement. We're just curious if there's any correlation, because what if there is?! It would be absolutely ridiculous and raise so many bizarre questions if it turns out to be a thing.

@Roland St. Jude: I like the cut of your gib

I like pulling weird patterns out of thin air myself as well, but you do know that correlation doesn't imply causation, right?

Just checking.

[Knaight]

I like pulling weird patterns out of thin air myself as well, but you do know that correlation doesn't imply causation, right?

Just checking.

With that said, the potential for correlation isn't necessarily quite as outlandish as it seems. There are cases where particular cultural subgroups will see some months have large upticks in births, usually roughly 9 months after the end of some sort of voluntary deprivation ritual (though something like seasonal work can also do this). Belief in astrology is also something that varies between certain cultural subgroups.

The combination of these two effects could easily wash away in the noise, and that's what I'd expect to happen. That said, it's not too implausible that the combination doesn't, at least within the right sample groups.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Fine, I filled it in. But I want to see a proper statistical analysis. If you do 12*11 individual match ups and want to see a 95% certainty with small data sets you're very likely going to see an effect.

I'm also curious on how you plan to sift the data for say a single troll who submits several leos who do believe and a bunch of virgos who don't.

[NRSASD]

@Cespenar- That is exactly what we're doing, looking for patterns in the static. We don't really expect to find anything, and even if we did, there are so many other variables that could be responsible it will be virtually impossible to draw any meaningful conclusions. Still fun to try.

@Knaight- Yeah, so far all we've determined is when people are likely to be born. That being said, one of the factors we thought could be influencing belief in the zodiac is how favorable specific zodiac signs are. If the zodiac declares that Gemini are the best people ever, I'd expect to see more Geminis who believe than any other group.

@Level 2 Expert- Don't worry, we'll run as many statistically significant tests as we can justify on the data. Both my fiance and I have run actual honest-to-goodness published studies before.

Please share the survey far and wide, because the more data we can collect, the more interesting conclusions we can draw! I'll post the results, raw data, and our interpretation thereof in this thread once the "study" is complete, if people are interested in such things.

[2D8HP]

"Signs" no (except when people ask I answer "the disease").

But birthdays do, it's been often studied and shown how those who were the closest to being too old for a sports team, or academic grade do better than most, and the posirive effects of the good start persist into adulthood.

Kinda similar to how what the economy was like when you leave school effects lifetime earnings.

[NRSASD]

The Zodiac survey has closed! Thank you to the 125 people who responded. First Impressions: Scorpios do not answer surveys

[Lvl 2 Expert]

The Zodiac survey has closed! Thank you to the 125 people who responded. First Impressions: Scorpios do not answer surveys

When I grow up I want to be a scorpio.

[NRSASD]

The results are in! Last week we asked a non-random sample of our friends and strangers to answer 2 simple questions: What is your zodiac sign? and Do you believe your zodiac sign affects your life? After careful haphazard analysis, we can say with little confidence that the answer, to both questions, is NO.

Below are graphic representations of the data, which helped us come to these very scientific conclusions.
1. Fisher's Exact p-value = 0.95 (it is extremely unlikely there is a relationship between sign and belief).
2. Chi-squared p-value = 0.95 (same as above).
3. THAT SAID, Scorpios and Capricorns are least likely to believe their sign affects their life.
4. Leos and Aquariuses are most likely to believe their sign affects their life.
5. Scorpios do not answer surveys.

If anyone would like to play with the raw data I'm happy to send it along.

[Khedrac]

Thank-you for the detailed analysis and results - it is very rare that people posting surveys ever bother posting the results so this makes an interesting change.

Personally I think your result 5. is a bit what I would call "tongue in cheek" (or anyway I hope you don't mean that one seriously) because that result could have so many different possible causes (e.g. Scorpios don't answer surveys about the zodiac, Scorpios dont use this forum etc.).

3. THAT SAID, Scorpios and Capricorns are least likely to believe their sign affects their life.
4. Leos and Aquariuses are most likely to believe their sign affects their life.

These two results raise an interesting question because, so far as I can see from a quick glance at your data they are only supportable for one of the two ways of interpreting them - and I wonder how people see the difference between these questions:

Of people who answer surveys about the zodiac,

A) people of which star sign are most likely to believe in the zodiac? Leo
B) people that believe in the zodiac are most likely to be what star sign? Cancer or Aquarius

In reverse, those that don't believe are also most likely to be Cancer (which probably shows that Cancers were the most numerous answerers of this survey).

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Personally I think your result 5. is a bit what I would call "tongue in cheek" (or anyway I hope you don't mean that one seriously) because that result could have so many different possible causes (e.g. Scorpios don't answer surveys about the zodiac, Scorpios dont use this forum etc.).

None of it needs to have an explanation. That's what the statistical tests mean. If you take 110 people of whom 18 belief in the zodiac, and you'd randomly split those people up into 12 groups of various sizes, it wouldn't be weird if their distribution looked like this. Everything after the "THAT SAID" part is for fun conclusions drawn from data that was already found to not support the hypothesis H1: our zodiac sign influences our belief in zodiac signs. Because if conclusion 1 and 2 are that this data does not show that zodiac signs influence belief in zodiac and conclusions 3 and 4 would be that it seriously totally does that would be weird.

(Granted, the "one group is smaller" would technically require a different test, but the point of the survey never was to compare how many people there are in each group and how many of them fill in surveys, so that result is if anything doubly not interesting, it's a non-result that would most likely be a negative non-result if you'd analyze it.)

I do agree with the first part of your post. Thanks NRSASD for publishing the results.

[pendell]

Hey Playground!

My fiance and I have a brilliant, stupid theory that needs testing. We need to know what your zodiac sign is, and if you believe it influences your life. Type your response below or take this survey to let us know.

Please feel free to share it with anyone who looks vaguely interested! The more data, the better!

Thanks in advance!

Very well.

Short answer: I do not.

Slightly longer answer: I know why people used to believe that. It's because back in the day people believed that the stars really were gods. When they named one dot in the sky "Jupiter" and another "Mercury", it wasn't for fun. It's because they believed these really were superhuman beings in the sky who would influence those they looked down upon.

But we now know that, whatever else they are, gods they aren't. Jupiter, being a large gas giant, does have a strong enough gravitic field that I am affected by it. But the zodiac stars are simply too far away.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Cespenar]

Very well.

Short answer: I do not.

Slightly longer answer: I know why people used to believe that. It's because back in the day people believed that the stars really were gods. When they named one dot in the sky "Jupiter" and another "Mercury", it wasn't for fun. It's because they believed these really were superhuman beings in the sky who would influence those they looked down upon.

But we now know that, whatever else they are, gods they aren't. Jupiter, being a large gas giant, does have a strong enough gravitic field that I am affected by it. But the zodiac stars are simply too far away.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

To put it into perspective, even the almighty Jupiter's gravitic pull on a person on Earth (disregarding its penchant of protecting Earth from meteors) is about half the gravitic pull of a semi-truck standing 1 meter away.

[halfeye]

To put it into perspective, even the almighty Jupiter's gravitic pull on a person on Earth (disregarding its penchant of protecting Earth from meteors) is about half the gravitic pull of a semi-truck standing 1 meter away.

The sun and the moon in that order affect the tides, the rest is barely even noise.

[Cicciograna]

This thread is suffering from a severe deficiency of ophiuchi.

[Lord Torath]

The sun and the moon in that order affect the tides, the rest is barely even noise.

Got that backwards. The Moon has about twice the effect on the tides than the Sun does. Tidal forces go as 1/distance cubed, and that 150 million kilometers does quite the number on the tidal force of the Sun's mass.

This thread is suffering from a severe deficiency of ophiuchi.

Here you go

Full size.

[warmachine]

A survey in the Mad Science and Grumpy Technology is going to suffer self-selection bias and I'm surprised a 16% Yes/No ratio believe in astrology. The general population must be worse. I weep for humanity.

[Rater202]

I am a Cancer both under the old system and the new with the snake sign.

The typical personality traits of a Cancer line up accurately to my own specific personality traits.

This singular data point is the beginning and end of my belief in the zodiac, as I have seen no evidence that horoscopes come true with any regularity outside the most vauge predictions and I don't have many other datapoints for whether the typical person has the typical persoanlity traits associated with their sign.

[halfeye]

Got that backwards. The Moon has about twice the effect on the tides than the Sun does. Tidal forces go as 1/distance cubed, and that 150 million kilometers does quite the number on the tidal force of the Sun's mass.Here you go

Hm, well, Plait probably isn't making a stupid mistake, but the if the lunar aspect of the tides is the difference between the neaps and the springs, then the remainder is definitely bigger than that difference.

[Lord Torath]

The Sun is the difference between the Neap tides and Spring tides. The average of the Neap high tide and Spring high tide is the lunar tide. The variation from that average is the effect of the Sun. So if you've got a 4-foot Spring tide and a 2-foot Neap tide, then the lunar tide is 3 feet, and the sun's effect is +/- 1 ft.

The tides follow the moon, not the sun. Here's another site explaining it: EarthSky.org