Part 3- Challenged opinions, uncovered mysteries and quantified arguments

In this next instalment of my story I will be covering what resulted from the experiment and what I had previously hypothesised as an explanation for this phenomenon.

As I carried out the experiment I forecasted that the results would turn out to be an average scoring which hovered around the 50% mark… How wrong I turned out to be!!

Here are some of the test case scores I received from the subjects:

‘An interesting report with many factual verdicts on personal traits. Some things I may have experienced at some stage of my life. Overall I recommend taking the test as it may offer personal insight and if accurate a humorous account of how we have lived, and how we are living. I will say i gave the final score some consideration and found the test an enjoyable experience. 8/10’

‘Pretty accurate - aside from a few areas, I see a lot of myself in the description. I think the reason for the discrepancies is that it is so long that it would be impossible for everything to line up! I'd give it an 8/10.’

‘I think I’d give it a 9/10 ...most of it was really accurate just one or two things that weren't, but only probably because I couldn't understand the meaning of it!
I was very impressed on the whole though :)’

‘Really interesting and very accurate...I would give it 90% mate, the sport and exercise threw me a bit lol. And gentle and softly spoken bit, apart from that it was spot on!!!!’

‘Wow! This was spooky! 9/10’

‘9 out of 10, was amazingly accurate’

The reports seemed to be generating a response of well over 80% accuracy, much higher than I had previously forecasted! But my theory had one explanation as to why the report could be totally wrong for someone- yet no one had reported a drastically low score… And then I received this:

'The 1st 2 sentences are reasonable but after that it gets ridiculous. Some parts are the opposite of me (I have a lot of internal chaos, the report seems to think I'm organised), some contradict each other (chatty/shy) & some are just too generic. An honest assessment of its accuracy would be -5(or 0 if I'm limited to natural numbers). Still, I had fun reading it :)'

This was the answer I had been waiting for! Even though I had wanted to hear positive results, I needed an extremely low test score to be able to action phase two of the experiment. I sent the test subject a private message after reading her response saying:

‘Cheers for the response!

This is a fair experiment so your rating will remain and taken as 0 (Zero) to be factored into the calculation. You can track these figures weekly in the 'Recent News' section of the group.

You fall into the second part of our experiment. Here's what we're doing and how you can further contribute to the result of this experiment.

We're studying a theory on the genomes that are switched on during the 9 month time period preceding a date of birth and radiation causing certain genes to remain switched on longer than others, causing the traits to be encoded into our DNA during our conception.

Because you scored low could we ask you how long was your mother was pregnant for when carrying you, this is so we can get a comparison time scale to go with your score. We ask this to see if the lower scores possibly results due to either premature/overdue pregnancy or an unnatural conception, leaving certain genes switched on too short or too long, causing certain traits and behaviours to dominate over others.

Your feedback on this would be greatly appreciated and your personal information will not be published in a public forum.’

To protect the identity of the test subject I have called her Miss X. I eagerly anticipated her response as it could be the pinnacle of proving that the theory could hold some weight. After twenty four long hours I finally received a response…

‘Ok, I was born 2 weeks early (not enough to be considered abnormal, usually). But I was also a test-tube baby, is that interesting? Also, are you going to ask people with high scores? Because if someone got 10, but was premature/overdue that may also be interesting for you (even if it goes against your theory)’

This was exactly what I wanted to hear!! This was now starting to become VERY INTERESTING! I replied ‘We're asking every person who scored 30% either side of the average the same question. We do find this very interesting. Thanks for the response Miss X, much appreciated!’

After also putting the question to several other test subjects I found something that seemed very interesting indeed- a pattern but not precise. Join me next time to find out what the pattern was, the final overall test results and the full theory behind the experiment in the next instalment of this journey of discovery.

Part 4 of the story will be published in the near future. I will now be publishing material I discovered during this time frame and some opinions on these topics

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Part 2 - Challenged opinions, uncovered mysteries and quantified arguments

After becoming absorbed by the words that had left Sophia’s mouth, the second man inside of me decided that this needed to be explained- but how? The bitterly cold rain battered the window outside, yet I was memorized by the warmth that was circling my body from inside the room.

How had a book written by another human being described some things inside of me, which I had never discussed with anyone before- I mean ANYONE? I’m the type of person who drives himself insane if he can’t find the answers to a question… especially if no solid answer existed.

This one hour rendition of my life switched something on in my brain. ‘I can’t believe how right that was’ I said, something I’ve never said lightly- I have objective opinions on most things, yet this threw me right off. I then generated a more ‘accurate’ birth chart using my birth details and guess what… it was even MORE ACCURATE- SACRY ACCURATE! But how?

Determined to solve this little mystery my brain devised a, seemingly, simple explanation for how this could come to be. I developed a public experiment and investigated the problem to see if my theory could be justified in any logical way.

To see things the way I see them, we must first take away all pre-conceptions of the subjects we are going to cover. This is very important as we don’t want the outcome to be effected by our pre-conceptions of this ‘hocus pocus’ world (After all, hypnosis was in the very same category until scientists understood how it worked in the 18th century). The key question we always need to be asking is ‘How?’ not ‘Why?’

So, just how could a zodiac sign or a birth chart have ‘predicted’ my personal traits and personality? First of all I investigated if it was just me who had this reaction or if it was a constant with many. I devised a small online experiment which I named ‘Are Our Lives Really Already Written? The Experiment’- Here’s what the test subjects were told…

“What would you say if I told you that everyone on this planet has a personal report already written about them, even before birth? No way right?!

This is a public experiment to see if, and how accurately a mathematical biorhythm really could generate a report on your personal traits and behaviours using your birth date, City, and Country of birth.

Here's the experiment and ways to take part-->

On the discussion board below write your date, city and country of birth:
- If you don't want to post your date of birth in the public domain you can send it to my inbox
- If you don't want to give your date of birth at all pair up with a friend and post/send each other’s date of births

Once the report is posted/sent read through it:
- If you send details through the inbox I will send your report back through the same way, so no inbox detail will be published in a public forum

After you've read the report we ask that you honestly rate the report out of 10 on its accuracy (1 being very inaccurate and 10 very accurate) and post it below, you can only rate your own report:
- Again if you don't want to post this in a public forum you can send it to my inbox
- All inbox responses will be kept 100% confidential and not published in a public forum
- The results will be published on an overall rating score of all test cases
- The report takes under a second to generate, are around 1000 words per report, and will be sent back to you without being read by anyone else first

The report is computer generated, not human written and can be replicated at any time

If the report contains behaviours that contradict each other, remember it doesn't necessarily mean both behaviours at the same time. For example: If it says you're shy and later says you're chatty- you could be chatty in your circle of friends but shy around strangers. The report talks about your behaviours in different social aspects of life

Nurture over nature can scar/influence the brain and will be a factor taken into account, this seems to make up around 15%

Can we ask only ratings and responses by people who have read their reports be posted below, feel free to use the discussion boards to chat about the experiment

If your report was accurate get your friends involved by inviting them to the experiment; the more report ratings we get, the better the idea we'll get to how accurate the biorhythm really is.

Akin Nu An”

The test subjects were then asked to read through this analogy before they scored their report:

Accuracy Versus Precision; The Target Analogy

Accuracy is the degree of veracity while precision is the degree of reproducibility.[citation needed] The analogy used here to explain the difference between accuracy and precision is the target comparison. In this analogy, repeated measurements are compared to arrows that are shot at a target. Accuracy describes the closeness of arrows to the bullseye at the target centre. Arrows that strike closer to the bullseye are considered more accurate. The closer a system's measurements to the accepted value, the more accurate the system is considered to be so to be it.

To continue the analogy, if a large number of arrows are shot, precision would be the size of the arrow cluster. (When only one arrow is shot, precision is the size of the cluster one would expect if this were repeated many times under the same conditions.) When all arrows are grouped tightly together, the cluster is considered precise since they all struck close to the same spot, if not necessarily near the bullseye. The measurements are precise, though not necessarily accurate. (See Picture below)

High Precision - Low Accuracy

However, it is not possible to reliably achieve accuracy in individual measurements without precision — if the arrows are not grouped close to one another, they cannot all be close to the bullseye. (Their average position might be an accurate estimation of the bullseye, but the individual arrows are inaccurate. See pictures below)

High Accuracy - Low Precision

The test subjects needed to score the report on its accuracy rather than its prediction. The test cases came flooding in with requests for personality reports and the results soon followed. How accurate was the ‘mathematical biorhythm’? What is the theory behind the experiment that could possibly explain how this phenomenon could be present in our genetics?

Find out when the story continues in the next instalment of the journey that changed the lives of me and many others.

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