Comments on: AAS #14: Galaxy zoo finds people are screwed up, not the Universe

By: Brownian Motion, March 20, 2009 « Skeptically Speaking

Brownian Motion, March 20, 2009 « Skeptically Speaking — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:32:23 +0000

[...] an interesting aside, the researchers found that there seems to be a bias among their volunteers to classify galaxies as rotating counter-clockwise, rather than clock-wise. Some back checking has revealed this to be a function of our human brains, [...]

By: Willem Vogel

Willem Vogel — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:32:16 +0000

Isn’t it so that if you could observe a clockwise galaxy from the backside it is rotating counter clockwise? Looking on a transparant watch from the backside makes it seem rotating counter clockwise. So every galaxy rotates both clockwise and anti clockwise at the same time and the direction of rotation of a galaxy depends on the position of the observer and not the galaxy! All we have to do now is find a different position…

By: Hugo

Hugo — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 06:59:19 +0000

Ah, there’s no news like old news.

Improbable.com has a nod towards this post…albeit it’s six months late.

See here: http://improbable.com/2008/07/15/in-the-stars-in-their-heads/

By: Earth Crowds Classifying Space Galaxies « Crowdstorming

Earth Crowds Classifying Space Galaxies « Crowdstorming — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:17:27 +0000

[...] prior tendencies of the specific colour) and spiral-bias were noted. The second one, as noted in Galaxy zoo finds people are screwed up, not the Universe, appears to people a product of human psychology, where users would tend to classify a galaxy as [...]

By: Ox. docs shocks!

Ox. docs shocks! — Fri, 02 May 2008 23:16:20 +0000

[...] That’s just one of many surprising results from the Galaxy Zoo collaboration, including an odd discovery in neurology aptly summed up as “People are screwed up, not the universe.” [...]

By: Robert Carnegie

Robert Carnegie — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 03:58:51 +0000

Thanks for the suggestion about breasts. I now inevitably see this web page as Chris Lintott somehow holding up a very large pair of galactic breasts. We should, of course, remember where the word “galaxy” comes from. At least according to Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy It is from Hera’s happybags. (Clockwiseness not specified.)

Since the suggestion of flipping pictures has already been made… how about trying other angles too?

By: john

john — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 02:36:05 +0000

Nice! Thanks for update.
But what I really want to know is why did they call it GalaxyZoo instead of ZwickyPedia?