It seems that a pregnancy brings out the silliest sides of people. I've heard the occasional old wives' tale, of course, but today Darrick forwarded a link to something that is silly on so many levels, I just have to share it. He sent it knowing full well it was hooey, of course. He thought I'd get a kick out of it, and I did. Perhaps you will too: Ancient Chinese Birth Chart. Supposedly the mother's age combined with the month of conception can predict the gender of the child with a proven 93% accuracy. Wow! That's amazing! (Excuse me a moment. My sarcasm is dripping on my keyboard.)
So I wonder how the mother's age is supposed to affect gender considering it's the father who determines gender? The most that the egg does is shut out the other sperm after one gets in (in the case of a single pregnancy). There's no egg doorman letting in more females or males, blocking the others because it happens to be the month of May or August or whatever.
And somehow, I don't think the ancient Chinese used the Gregorian calendar. I suppose the people who made up this chart could claim that it has been adapted from the Chinese calendar to the Gregorian, but then the predictions wouldn't fall so neatly into Gregorian months. Consider that Chinese New Year (beginning on 1/29 this year) differs each year.
And on top of all this is the statement that the chart's predictive ability has been 93% proved without any mention of who proved it and how. Seriously, if that were the case, wouldn't the person who put together this site be listing the sources of these studies in big bold letters? Using 93% is clever because those people for whom it is untrue can just assume they are in the 7% and still believe in the calendar. Of course, if everyone for whom it is untrue actually got together, odds are they'd find they represent about 50%, give or take a bit, but the site relies on that never happening, of course.
And here's the main point of even writing this post. Birth charts like this don't even begin to compare to how amazing reality is, how remarkable pregnancy and childbirth truly are, right down to the surprise of which sperm, male or female, got through and what unique combination of genes the child will have. Birth charts, like all forms of magical thinking, just cheapen reality.
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