If so, then the analysis should be based on age in school year, and not astrological sign.
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)
>>> Matt Williams <[log in to unmask]> 10/15/2007 12:02 PM >>>
Except that....
Age in school year is correlated with educational success up to the age
of 18 (1) and the risk of mental illness (2). It is reasonable to
suggest that educational success could be correlated with choices and
success in career-entry.
Career entry is correlated with socio-economic status (and to some
extent is so by definition)
SE status is correlated with life expectancy.(e.g. The Whitehall Study
- (3))
It seems a weak, but plausible chain of inference. I have no time for
astrology, but as a surrogate for age of entry to school, there may none
the less be some statistical significance.
Matt
(1) Lien at al, BMC Public Health, 2005:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/5/102)
(2) e.g. Goodman et al., BMJ, 2003
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7413/472)
(3) e.g. Marmot & Shipley, BMJ 1996:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/313/7066/1177)
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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