The Hindu: News Source
Saturday, February 17, 2007 : 1400 Hrs
Zodiac signs have medical disorders associated with them:study
Houston, Feb. 17 (PTI): People born under the zodiac sign Virgo vomit more during pregnancy, Pisces have greater risk of heart failure, while Libras have an increased risk of fracturing their pelvises. 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, according to a new survey. Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council grantee Peter Austin and three other researchers at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto, conducted a survey with tongue firmly ij cheek, using data from 10,000,000 Ontario residents in 2000.
"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 discussed his results at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Conference in San Francisco, which runs from February 15 to 19, 2007. What he found was 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.
