A research team developed a test that would show personality traits and life outcomes of a real person, and astrologers had to pick the birth chart they thought was a match. Spoiler alert: astrologers being tested were much more confident in their ability to determine which profile matched which birth chart than the results showed they should be. Since the ancient Mesopotamians gazed up at the night sky over 5,000 years ago, some swear that zodiac signs can determine a love match or that Mercury in retrograde means disaster, while others dismiss it as fantasy or superstition. The researchers began by working backwards and measuring life outcomes for real people while being aware of their Sun signs. Using linear regression—a method which predicts an unknown (life outcomes) with known variables (zodiac signs)—the researchers figured out how well life outcomes could be predicted by someone’s sign.