If You are an Aries, You are a Dumbass

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That’s not all! If you’re an Aquarius, Pisces, or (and this one hurts) Taurus, you’re also a total idiot. You can’t argue. It’s science!
The time of year a woman conceives may influence the future academic performance of her child, according to research reported this week at the Pediatric Academic Societies' annual meeting.

When researchers linked standardized test scores of 1,667,391 Indiana students in grades 3 through 10 with the month in which each student had been conceived, they found that children conceived May through August scored significantly lower on math and language tests than children conceived during other months of the year.
Uh oh. Another study. I know how much you guys love “studies” done by “scientists”. So we all know it’s bullshit, right? Totally. I mean, correlation does not denote causality, right? It could be caused by other factors, like race or gender or grade level.
The correlation between test scores and conception season held regardless of race, gender, and grade level.
Oh. Huh. How weird. Now I’m starting to wish I weren’t a Taurus, as I might have actually gotten into a good undergrad school then. Curse my parents for getting frisky in July! Don’t you know it’s too hot to fuck in the summer!?!? I shoulda been a Scorpio!

Wait… Now I’m not even sure if I’m doing the math on the months and zodiac signs correctly. April is Taurus, May is like Gemini or something, June is… shit! I have lost all confidence in my powers of mental acuity! Nooooooooo! What the fuck is going on here!?
Why might this be? According to Dr. Paul Winchester of Indiana University School of Medicine who led the study, says the evidence points to environmental pesticides, used most often in the summer months, as a possible player.

The lower test scores correlated with higher levels of pesticides and nitrates in the surface water (nearby streams and other bodies of water) during that same time period, he told Reuters Health.

"Exposure to pesticides and nitrates can alter the hormonal milieu of the pregnant mother and the developing fetal brain," Winchester explained in a statement. For example, past research has linked exposure to pesticides and nitrates to low thyroid hormone levels ("hypothyroidism") in pregnant women and hypothyroidism in pregnancy has been tied to lower intelligence test scores in offspring.
One can only hope that these results are limited to people from Indiana. I mean, we all knew the Hoosiers were a little slow, am I right? What the hell is a Hoosier anyway? I’ll bet they made it up.

Of course, Indiana is really close to Michigan, and my mom was pregnant with me in Michigan. Awww, man! So wait, am I sure I can blame the pesticides? Because if so, I’m totally going to sue some motherfuckers.
While the current findings do not prove that pesticides and nitrates contribute to lower test scores, "they strongly support such a hypothesis," Winchester said.

"A priori there should be no reasons particularly why the month of conception should change your (test) scores," he added in an interview, "and yet from our chain of evidence our hypothesis was that if pesticides do alter the friendly environment of the developing fetus than that might be reflected in lower scores. And unfortunately that's what we found."
OK. So it’s not conclusive, but we’re working on it. Or something. Good to know.

Now will someone tell me what the heck a “priori” is?

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