Generally, research projects based solely on the Sun signs of individuals are not very successful.  The astrological chart is so complex and includes such a wide variety of influences that the Sun sign is often dwarfed by comparison. But this article, sent to me by a reader (thank you Tracey!) is quite fascinating in its detail and statistical significance in correlating Sun signs to Olympic specialties.  Kenneth Mitchell, a British statistician, was not expecting to find astrological correlations when he began his study of the birthdates of every Olympic winner since 1896 and discovered that those born under the sign of Pisces “received 30% more medals than expected by chance” in water events like swimming and polo, a 1 in 100,000 probability. .

Mitchell evidently knew nothing about astrology when he began this project, and when he saw that those born under an Aries Sun had a higher number of Olympic medals than expected he looked up Aries in Google.  Learning that Aries was associated with Mars and war, he looked first at Olympic events that were martial in character.  Beginning with Shooting, he found a 1 in 60 level of significance that went up to 1 in 250 when the women’s events were excluded.  When he combined all of the “martial” events, such as wrestling, archery, etc., the result was a 1 in 20,000 probability. When these events were added to the Aries results in skiing, shot puts, rope climbing, handball, lacrosse etc., the result was over 1 billion to one probability. 

One of his more interesting findings is that Aries women did not have a significantly higher percentage of medals, unlike their male counterparts.  This likely suggests that the Aries drive is muted somewhat in women, either by choice or through socialization.

I’ll look at this in a little more depth tomorrow!  Meanwhile, read more here…