My Exact Birthdate - More Thoughts - The Birthday Paradox

More Thoughts

Both Western Astrology and Chinese Astrology suggest there are two romantically compatible signs for each of the twelve astrological signs (star signs, sun signs or moon signs). In the West, astrologers link Aries for instance with Leo and Sagittarius. This is "sign compatibility" and it's an increasingly popular idea... Have your partners or former partners come from compatible signs? Or how have things worked out for you when partners belonged to incompatible signs?

• Capricorn drivers tend to have fewer accidents behind the wheel while Gemini are the most accident prone, according to Suncorp Metway Ltd. In 2003, this Australian finance house looked at 160,000 accident claims over three years. Why should Capricorns and Scorpios be the best and Gemini and Taurus the worst drivers? Scorpios are also romantically compatible with Taureans. Is there some kind of strange link here? What's going on?
• The urge to find out what was happening in the world on the exact day you were born explains why 'Birthday Newspaper' sites are now so well used. It is a short step from there to wondering whether that particular day, your birthday, has any further significance for you. Astrology is one way of trying to answer those questions. So how well has astrological prediction worked for you?
• We all find coincidence interesting. We sometimes call it serendipity. Where romance and friendship are concerned, it also shades into notions like compatibility or sign compatibility. Anyway, it seems to speak to something quite fundamental about us as human beings; that we love pattern and are hard-wired to seek it out. As a result we find patterns everywhere. Is astrology just part of this chaos-avoiding impulse, this urge to seek out pattern? Do we just prefer to tell ourselves that things were 'meant to be' because that makes a better story than attributing coincidence or compatibility to mere chance?
• Some astrologers seem to have given up the battle to defend their subject from accusations of pseudo-science, and to be happy to see it characterised as a mixture of divination and counselling. In this view 'reading the stars' would just be a way of using behavioural archetypes to help explain people's actions and motivations. Not science, and with no scientific pretensions, but still an important and valuable way of achieving useful insights. Would you see this as a way forward for Astrology in the modern world?