Dear Dr. Sorkin,

I agree with you that the use of astrological signs may not be 
scientific and it is hard validating any such findings. However, the 
original poster was Richard Szydlo, who did indicate that it was a far 
fetched idea, not me.

I merely provided one possible solution to convert the dates to 
astrological signs as I found the technical challenge interesting. The 
solution provided here is useful for valid purposes as well. For 
example, one can create an anniversary or birthday reminder list using 
only Steps 1-3 below.

Yes, I failed to to comment on the inappropriateness of Richard's 
proposed approach and like to thank you for pointing that out.

Regards, Adai



John Sorkin wrote:
> Adaikalavan,
> Let us assume that you find an association, what will you say about it? Any significant result you might find is undoubtedly a type I error. It is
> an abuse of statistics to test a clearly incorrect and impossible hypothesis. By doing so, you give a patina of truth to pseudoscience, and if you 
> report a significant finding diminish the trust the public will have in legitimate statistical analyses. You might have a legitimate reason to perform the test you describe (such as Prof. Peto's test of astrological sign and outcome that was performed to demonstrate to journal editors, and journal readers the hazards of ill-conceived post-hoc subgroup analyses) but you have not given one in your posting. I urge you to look (and think)  before you leap . . . 
> John
>  
> 
> John Sorkin M.D., Ph.D.
> Chief, Biostatistics and Informatics
> University of Maryland School of Medicine Division of Gerontology
> Baltimore VA Medical Center
> 10 North Greene Street
> GRECC (BT/18/GR)
> Baltimore, MD 21201-1524
> (Phone) 410-605-7119
> (Fax) 410-605-7913 (Please call phone number above prior to faxing)
> 
>>>> Adaikalavan Ramasamy <[log in to unmask]> 10/15/2007 8:31 AM >>>
> You don't have to do 600 cases by hand. If this is a one off, then it 
> would probably be faster to do by hand than a macro. Here is how:
> 
> 
> 1. Make sure your dates are stored as Date type not text etc in Excel. 
> (highlight the column and check format cells).
> 
> 
> 2. Find out the birthdays (i.e. the year is now irrelevant) for all 
> cases. You can do this in many ways. For example, by creating an 
> adjacent column with the formula "=DATE(2400,MONTH(A1),DAY(A1))" 
> assuming that you stored your date of births in column A1. It is fine to 
> store this column as either general, number or date.
> 
> Note: I choose year 2400 above as it is a leap year allowing for 29th 
> February. And why 2400 and not 2000 or any other leap year? Just as a 
> precaution in case someone accidentally uses this as the date of births.
> 
> 
> 3. Sort the entire sheet using the birthdays column.
> 
> 
> 4. Cross reference these dates with your astrological star dates and 
> fill in the star sign. For example, all birthdays that fall between 
> September 24th and October 23rd is a Libra.
> 
> 
> BTW, I am assuming the zodiac dates do not change from year to year.
> 
> Hope this helps.
> 
> Regards, Adai
> 
> 
> 
> Szydlo, Richard M wrote:
>>  
>> I know this is far fetched, but I would like to see if a patient's
>> astrological star sign is in anyway associated with survival......
>>
>> Does anyone have a macro for SPSS / Excel / SAS / Anything else -  that
>> will convert a date of birth to the appropriate astrological star
>> sign.... I could of course do it by hand, but 600 date of births will
>> take me a long time!
>>
>> Thanks, 
>>
>> Richard Szydlo
>> Imperial College School of Medicine
>> London, UK 
>>
>>
>>
> 
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