#statistical method

[manmetaphysical]

7: Scorpio Mavericks and Poets

It should be evident by now that Scorpio is a sign that has penetrating insight and they may make good pyschologists, forensic scientists, criminal invesigtators and surgeons. Mars, the ancient ruler of Scorpio, is the knife cutting into the skin.

One of the great mavericks of history, a self-taught Renaissance man was Paracelsus (10/11/1493). His name is shortened from Philipus Aureolis Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim. His contribution to medicine was groundbreaking and not fully understood at the time. He researched deeply and observed what he saw and became known for it- Mercury conjunct Pluto in Scorpio in the 10th house of reputation. He was even  known as the 'Martin Luther of Medicine'. He was not only a scientist, but also a scholar, doctor, astrologer, magician, healer and alchemist and he loved shaking things up- he has a few planets in Sagittarius so could be a firebrand as well.

Paracelsus made many enemies as he didn't care what people thought of him. Though born a Catholic, he was was ultra anti Catholic and took every opportunity to challenge the power of Rome. He debunked the practice of blood letting as a cure and the notion of the Four Humours (Blood, Phelgm, Yellow Bile and Black Bile) as established by Galen, whose book he burned, preferring to say that the body was controlled by chemicals- Salt, Sulphur and Mercury, hinting at today's understanding of hormones and neuropeptides. He did retain the traditional notion of the four elements -Fire, Air, Water and Earth- however.   

He stated that the mind can influence the body as in the Placebo effect, so was way ahead of his time on this one too, suggesting he understood psycho-somatics long before that term was ever coined. He was also a toxicologist and knew that there's no real difference between a poison and a medicine; that it's all about the dosage- anything can be toxic, even water. This makes him the quintessential Scorpio. His legacy today is in varying fields as he seemed to be able to contain these contradictions under the same umbrella.

The continued testing only dug him in deeper into his research, and he was able to make the studies repeatable and obtained similar same results in Belgium Germany and Italy. But he was  heavily critiqued from all sides both non-astrologers and astrologers who didn't like the findings as they conflicted with 'tradition' and deeper archetypal symbolism is always resistant to quantitative statistical methods. He was accused of bias and felt under attack from all sides (Chiron conjunct Jupiter in Taurus so troubled self esteem, opposite his Juno/Mercury). After the divorce from Francoise, it was very unfortunate that he took his own life in 1991. 

Sylvia Plath (27/10/1932) is another character, a kind of maverick. Whatever you may think of her status as a woman in the shadow of her husband Ted Hughes, her poems are sharp and sardonic, and memorably worded as would be expected from a Scorpio with a stellium in Virgo. She is among the 'great' poets of the 20th century without a doubt. She did have Pluto in Cancer opposite Saturn in Capricorn and a complex mix of planets in Virgo involving Neptune (she put her head in a gas stove) the South Node, Jupiter, asteroid Eros and Venus making her role as a woman and her sexuality a clear focus for her work. There is also the Juno factor. Her Juno was conjunct the Moon in Libra which can oscillate wildly there. Remember that Juno represents equality in relationships and marriage contracts, but Juno was in fact not just wife, but also 'sister' to Jupiter, so this points to a more karmic entanglement where relationship issues burrow deep into the psyche. 

Her reasoning was not always clear, perhaps to the detriment of a full and fair evaluation of her life and talent. She decided to take her life which further obscured her intentions by a slew of other issues. The blame game goes on, but I think her work is strong enough to survive all the controversy over who did what to whom.

Understanding the symbols helps enormously to understand the sign. A scorpion is an odd little creature scuttling about under rocks, but it is much less scary than it looks. Its venom is rarely enough to kill a human, but it is something about the way it looks so ready to attack with their pointed pincer that frightens people. In the astronomical positioning the Scorpio contstellation it is the opposite of Orion the giant as in the myth, Gaia asked a lone scorpion to help her defeat Orion who was a giant on the rampage. The scorpion achieved this by sheer focus and dodging all attacks. But the associations don't stop with little creatures on the earth, they  elevate to the eagle, also an alchemical symbol,  and then to the phoenix rising from the ashes which makes sense when you think the crossover point of Scorpio and Sagittarius subsumes the so-called '13th sign' Ophiucus (the serpent bearer)- again pointing to a deeper wisdom around medical issues of the body and knowledge of healing modalities- and only then it heralds the much brighter, lighter more forward-thinking sign of Sagittarius.

It's is good to end with the feisty but memorable words of or the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (27/10/1914) who had a Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Cancer and a serious alcholol problem. But he too was a Scorpio sun sign and he gave us the line 'And death shall have no dominion' - the Death Tarot card is the one associated with Scorpio- but also these words offer a suggestion of Martial energy being the potent magic to counter the darkening days, of ageing. It's the feeling that just being alive makes you feel angry and vulnerable so you want to strike out with poisonous venom at your enemies.

But the phoenix rising from the ashes would suggest that a rebirth brings about higher potential to behave in ways that ultimately transcend all the difficulties. 

"Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light."  

[skymallnine]

Trying to crack Dominion strategy with augments feels a bit like trying to out-wrestle a Vulcan.

Fantastic idea to have your five (5) augments working on this problem! Now let’s just check if the Dominion has dabbled in any gene engineering and… oh. Oh no.

[mrcowboydeanwinchester]

🌸 Sapphicnatural Statistics Spreadsheet 🌸

link for the spreadsheet here!

hello hello! in may 2024 i completed a university essay studying the subversive shipping conventions of sapphicnatural fanfic in the Sapphicnatural Collection over on AO3, with the thesis that sapphicnatural ships are often rarepairs with little-to-no grounds in canon (e.g: a guest character/one-off character who have never met on screen), conversely to standard fanfic practice. as part of this, i gathered some statistics about the fics in the collection, got slightly carried away with the scope, and made a giant spreadsheet with 6 sheets of various data. with the project over, i thought it would be nice to share it with tumblr in case anyone else finds it helpful or just interesting!! i'm likely going to post the essay that i wrote alongside this in the next few weeks, so give me a shout too if that's something you'd like to see

to pique your interest, the spreadsheet includes:

Notes on methodology and the vocabulary used

Statistics on the popularity of each sapphicnatural ship in the collection and the frequency of characters featured

Analysis on some significiant ship factors: whether the characters have met in canon and how frequently characters re-occured in the show

'Ship potency', a new framework i'm workshopping to quantify how 'viable/strong' a ship is, specifically when measuring the makeup of femslash ships against mlm ships

i've written up some of the key points i found and some extra analysis about them under the cut, so read more if you're interested! <3

Contextual note: there are 129 fanfics in the Sapphicnatural collection.

Top 5 most popular Sapphicnatural ships:

donna/jody (10 fics)

anna/mary (7 fics)

jo/cassie (6 fics)

anna/ruby (5 fics)

kaia/claire (4 fics)

21 unique ships have 3 fics per ship. 24 unique ships have 2 fics per ship, and 52 unique ships have 1 fic per ship. So, only a quarter (25.3% of ships) have more than 3 fics written about them.

Rarepairs (and thus multishipping) are much more frequent in Sapphicnatural fanfiction than across most fandom fanfic collections which often centre around a specific ship

Have the characters met in canon?

Only 34.2% of ships involve two or more characters who have met on-screen in the show, with 59.6% of ships featuring two or more characters who have never met

4 out of the 5 top ships are between characters who met in the show's canon

BUT the most common dynamic is between two characters who could potentially meet in canon (are alive through the same seasons/at the same location (hell/heaven) at the same time) but who never meet in the show

This idea of 'canon potential' is the most exciting space for a lot of sapphicnatural writers, where finding gaps in the existing narrative and placing two similar women together to explore what their relationship could look often seems to be more inviting than those established on-screen

What is the spread of side/guest/one-off characters in ships?

A third (32.9%) of ships are made-up side/guest character

None of the characters featured are main characters (as none of the women spn characters can be realistically classed as 'main characters' lolol)

17 ships feature at least one one-off character, with 3 being one-off/one-off

Sapphicnatural fanfiction has a unique appreciation for reinforcing attention to minor characters, often as part of a feminist agenda to restore their agency

How frequently are individual characters featured?

Jo Harvelle is the most popular character in the sapphicnatural collection, involved in 15 unique ships across 34 fics. So, over a quarter (26.4%) of the fanfics in the collection feature Jo

Author's note: honestly this could be my individual impact on the collection as a jogirl oops

Mary Winchester is involved in 14 unique ships across 25 ships, so both Jo and Mary are significantly multi-shipped. Mary features twice across the top 5 ships

Sapphicnatural writers often write in service of a particular character rather than a ship - ie. exploring Jo's sapphic identity is more important than who her relationship is with

Charlie, Anna, Ruby, Claire, and Bela are the other characters involved in more than 10 fics each across the collection

Ship potency:

I explain this concept more on the sheet itself, but I essentially assign numerical values to whether a ship is (possible in) canon or not, how frequently characters re-occur in the show, and how popular a ship is respective to the fandom (as sapphicnatural is small, donna/jody is popular with 10 fics, for example)

This is to gain a measure of how 'strong' a ship is, assuming that a standard mlm ship will rank highly in most of these criteria (control variable of destiel ranks 29.5/30, whereas the average potency sum for a sapphicnatural ship is 11.8)

Across the top 5 ships, the average potency sum is 20.9

4/5 of the most popular sapphicnatural ships are in the top 5 for ship potency, with donna/jody, anna/mary, kaia/claire and anna/ruby having strong canon foundations and so high potency ratings.

jo/cassie is irregular as the third most popular ship because they only rank 14th for ship potency, as the pairing have not met on-screen in canon, and features a one-off character

Ships with higher potency sums do tend to be slightly more popular, but there isn't a clear pattern among any of the ships. I'd like to do some more work with this to fine-tune the system

Wordcount, kudos, and hits:

Average wordcount of a fic is 3,511 words. This fits with my other working theory (links to my post about my history essay on women's fiction through the feminist waves) that sapphicnatural writers utilise short stories and one-shots to most succesfully explore sapphic identities

Average kudos is 48, with a median of 13

Average hits is 353, with a median of 122

So: sapphicnatural fanfics receive a fairly low level of interaction, especially when compared to the mlm ships in the Supernatural fandom (destiel, etc). This is in-line with most fandoms and femslash as a whole - a small, dedicated community are reading and writing sapphicnatural

I didn't explore much here, but it would be interesting to go into further depth anout how many fics in the collection are written by different authors, etc

and that's it from me! if you've made it down here, you're an absolute gem and thank you for sticking with me! hope you foundd it as interesting to read through as i did to write up - and that you give the spreadsheet a nosey too if you fancy <3

[flightpolling]

From now, the 31st January, throughout the month of February we here at FlightPolling will be posting approximately 8 daily surveys of Every Flight Rising Gene, asking for you to rank them on a Love-Hate scale, until EVERY GENE HAS BEEN SURVEYED!!

(After the main event of all genes being individually polled, the Most Outstanding genes will fight HEAD to HEAD to find the Number 1 Most Bestest Gene through COMBAT, as the deities intended.)

Please feel free to lobby extensively for your favorites or slander your most beloathed. All's fair in polls and statistics gathering!! Thank you and enjoy the ULTIMATE FLIGHT RISING GENE SURVEY!!!!! Links to all currently posted polls and any results can be found here!

[bestanimal]

🐺 Mammalia Round-up and Mini Stat Post 🐺

This is a round-up of the points earned so far! Please note that I will not be determining who moves on to Round 4 yet, as that usually depends on voter turn-out. About halfway through Round 3 I’ll probably be able to come up with a cut-off point to go by.

For now, we can just observe how all the Mammalians and Chondrichthyans stack up against each other in popularity!

Results below the cut:

1. Carnivora (feliforms and caniforms) ~ 1678

2. Rodentia ~ 1675

3. Artiodactyla (“even-toed ungulates”) ~ 1320

4. Orectolobiformes (“carpet sharks”) ~ 989

5. Pilosa (“sloths” and “anteaters”) ~ 940

6. Lagomorpha (“rabbits” and “pikas”) ~ 867

7. Lamniformes (“mackerel sharks”) ~ 835

8. Chiroptera (“bats”) ~ 825

9. Myliobatiformes (“stingrays”) ~ 813

10. Monotremata (“platypus” and “echidnas”) ~ 794

11. Carcharhiniformes (“ground sharks”) ~ 758

12. Pholidota (“pangolins”) ~ 734

13. Sirenia (“sea cows”) ~ 704

14. Didelphimorphia (“opossums”) ~ 696

15. Eulipotyphla (“moles”, “shrews”, “hedgehogs”, and kin) ~ 674

16. Dasyuromorphia (“carnivorous marsupials”) ~ 669

17. Perissodactyla (“odd-toed ungulates”) ~ 654

18. Primates ~ 642

19. Cingulata (“armadillos”) ~ 578

20. Diprotodontia (all the other marsupials) ~ 576

21. Squatiniformes (“angel sharks”) ~ 568

22. Squaliformes (“sleeper sharks”, “dogfish”, “lantern sharks”, and kin) ~ 567

23. Rhinopristiformes (“guitarfish”, “wedgefish”, “sawfish”, and kin) ~ 561

24. Tubulidentata (“Aardvark”) ~ 557

25. Proboscidea (“elephants”) ~ 554

26. Heterodontiformes (“bullhead sharks”) ~ 524

27. Chimaeriformes (“chimaeras”) ~ 478

28. Hexanchiformes (“cow sharks” and “frilled sharks”) ~ 475

29. Rajiformes (“skates”) ~ 437

30. Macroscelidea (“elephant shrews”) ~ 422

31. Afrosoricida (“otter shrews”, “tenrecs”, and “golden moles”) ~ 394

32. Peramelemorphia (“bandicoots” and “bilbies”) ~ 379

33. Dermoptera (“colugos”) ~ 349

34. Pristiophoriformes (“saw sharks”) ~ 335

35. Microbiotheria (“Monito del Monte”) ~ 327

36. Hyracoidea (“hyraxes”) ~ 285

37. Scandentia (“treeshrews”) ~ 277

38. Torpediniformes (“electric rays”) ~ 268

39. Paucituberculata (“shrew opossums”) ~ 253

40. Notoryctemorphia (“marsupial moles”) ~ 208

This gives Carnivora a spot in the lead, and makes Artiodactyla, Rodentia, and Carnivora our only orders to earn over 1,000 points! How long can they hold this spot?

📈 Extra Stats 📉

Mammalian Order Monotremata (“platypus” and “echidnas”)

~ our first Mammalian order!

~ had 0 dislikes

Mammalian Order Microbiotheria (“Monito del Monte”)

~ our second single species to be ranked

~ had the highest amount of likes within Mammalia at 92

~ had the highest amount of likes of Round 3 so far

Mammalian Order Dasyuromorphia (“carnivorous marsupials”)

~ had 0 dislikes

Mammalian Order Notoryctemorphia (“marsupial moles”)

~ had the least votes within Mammalia, at 169

~ had the lowest amount of favorites within Mammalia, at 5

~ had the lowest amount of favorites of Round 3 so far

~ had the lowest amount of loves within Mammalia, at 37

~ had the lowest amount of loves of Round 3 so far

~ had the highest amount of neutral votes within Mammalia, at 51

~ had the highest amount of neutral votes of Round 3 so far

~ had the least reblogs within Mammalia, at 15

~ had the least reblogs of Round 3 so far

Mammalian Order Tubulidentata (“Aardvark”)

~ our third single species to be ranked

Mammalian Order Pilosa (“sloths” and “anteaters”)

~ had the third most reblogs within Mammalia, at 70

Mammalian Order Scandentia (“treeshrews”)

~ had the least notes within Mammalia, at 42

~ is tied with Pristiophoriformes for the least notes of Round 3 so far

Mammalian Order Primates

~ had the highest amount of dislikes within Mammalia, at 12

~ had the highest amount of dislikes of Round 3 so far

Mammalian Order Lagomorpha (“rabbits” and “pikas”)

~ had 69 likes (nice)

Mammalian Order Rodentia

~ had the most votes within Mammalia, at 492

~ had the most votes of Round 3 so far

~ had the highest amount of loves within Mammalia, at 233

~ had the highest amount of loves of Round 3 so far

~ had the most reblogs within Mammalia, at 82

~ had the most reblogs of Round 3 so far

~ had the most notes within Mammalia, at 180

~ had the most notes of Round 3 so far

Mammalian Order Eulipotyphla (“moles”, “shrews”, “hedgehogs”, and kin)

~ had 0 dislikes

Mammalian Order Pholidota (“pangolins”)

~ had 0 dislikes

Mammalian Order Carnivora (feliforms and caniforms)

~ had the highest amount of favorites within Mammalia, at 301

~ had the highest amount of favorites of Round 3 so far

~ had the lowest amount of likes within Mammalia, at 7

~ had the lowest amount of likes of Round 3 so far

~ had the lowest amount of neutral votes within Mammalia, at 2

~ had the lowest amount of neutral votes of Round 3 so far

Mammalian Order Artiodactyla (“even-toed ungulates”)

~ had the second most reblogs within Mammalia, at 72

1️⃣ Ranks of single species so far 1️⃣

1. Aardvark (Orycteropus afer) ~ 557

2. Monito del Monte (Dromiciops gliroides) ~ 327

3. Limnognathia maerski ~ 124 (Note: a new species has since been described in this phylum but as Round 1 happened before the paper it wasn’t included in Round 1)

Tomorrow we begin with Round 2’s third most popular Class: Reptilia, an ancient clade with roots in the Triassic.

They made it through the K-Pg extinction, can they make it to Round 4?

[i-will-eat-your-children]

Felt like i was going insane while doing data analysis for my statistics final, so when I saw one of the data values ending in 337, the visage of Guest 1337 flashbanged me. Like he was calling to me. Thus i made this to avoid genuinely losing my shit

[to-be-a-dreamer]

My favorite thing is when people are having a conversation and something wild happens around them but they just go back to talking like nothing ever happened

Headphone Warning: the audio is super loud for some reason idk why but turn your volume wayyyyyy down

I think this season has broken them

[amyoffline]

i’m so intrigued by this video essay you keep mentioning, i’ll be expecting a link as soon as it’s available !

it will be a while!!!! but i do plan to talk about it and document its creation as i make progress (i.e., "this video was made in consultation with tumblr"). in the past couple months, a few folks in my department who recently entered candidacy are asking me for advice on their scoping/systematic/meta-analytic/lit reviews because apparently that's my best skill lmao???? so the script will absolutely get written. maybe i'll film after the holidays? upload around the end of the tour?

here's a snip of my zotero references collection so far, if anyone has an institutional email and feels like reading some research! they say "no one reads your dissertation/thesis except your committee" - incorrect. i will read your dissertation as well, assuming i have enough technical and/or subject matter expertise to follow along and the topic interests me

[mr-ladystardust]

reading my psychology maths textbook and realising, perhaps for the first time, that I know nothing

[decompositie]

everybody form a prayer circle around me I have a test in 2,5 hours

[gaytobymeres]

Okay going to see if I can finish my methods section (mostly finish at least) before lunch (in about an hour). Will update yous all later

[a-typical]

63% of American adults are unaware that the last dinosaur died before the first human arose.

75% do not know that antibiotics kill bacteria but not viruses.

57% do not know that "electrons are smaller than atoms".

~50% of American adults do not know that the Earth goes around the Sun and takes a year to do it.

I can find in my undergraduate classes at Cornell University bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star.

These are typical questions in "scientific literacy". The results are appalling. But what do they measure? The memorization of authoritative pronouncements. What they should be asking is how we know - that antibiotics discriminate between microbes, that electrons are "smaller" than atoms, that the Sun is a star which the Earth orbits once a year. Such questions are a much truer measure of public understanding of science, and the results of such tests would doubtless be more disheartening still.

— The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan (1996)

[problematicsashawaybright]

Just used my calculator for 3 + 8 because I couldn't figure out 8 hours after 3:45pm when I have to take my next dose of antibiotics in my head. I would like to blame recovering from surgery & my migraine, but I fear I would not survive a full on STEM major

[meraki-yao]

Chinese RWRB fans are some of the most unhinged RWRB fans in the whole fandom

Remember when I said I watched a Bilibili video creator make a whole 25-minute video speculating on everything that firstprince did during their night in Paris by analysing marks on Henry/Nick's body?

Well I just saw on Weibo a RWRB fan who's a forensic analyst who wrote a "scientific" report proving Nick is scientifically a babygirl by analysing his skull structure 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

And no I'm sorry but I won't be translating this one, it's phrased too academically for me to handle it 😅

[virmire]

someone explain two way ANOVA test to me like I’m a toddler lol

[thatfrenchacademic]

Legal scholars claiming causation when all they have is weak ass correlation with massive signs of it being spurious, endogenous or caused by a missing variable is what will give me an ulcer.

Or a very complex and nuanced villain origin story, as the jurist who turned against her own peers and companions, screaming "YOU ARE THE ONE MAKING ME DO THIS" to them, as she puts on the dark cloak of political science, now forever tormented by her torn identity and a massive imposter syndrome.