According to a Huffington Post survey published earlier this year, 33 percent of Americans believe in their horoscope — but how accurate are horoscopes, really? Breaking them down scientifically, it seems that there’s little reason to have faith in them: how probable is it that all of humanity can be broken down into 12 personality types?

Those falling into that 33 percent — myself included — might take this moment to point out that an accurate astrological analysis takes into account not just one’s moon sign (the typically thought of zodiac sign), but also their sun and rising signs — and still, that’s a maximum 1,728 combinations attempting to categorize the nature of not only everyone currently living, but everyone who has ever or will ever live. I’m neither a statistician nor a psychologist, but something about those numbers still just doesn’t seem all that likely.

If those numbers alone aren’t enough, here’s further proof: while no formal studies into the legitimacy of horoscopes have been conducted in the past sixty years, online skeptics often cite astrologist Dr. Geoffrey Dean’s 1958 “time twin” study: a study attempting to prove the legitimacy of horoscopes that ended up turning Dean himself into a skeptic. Dean examined pairs of people born 18 minutes to 20 hours apart, thus sharing a complete astrological profile. Dean then graded the pairs on a variety of personality traits, finding that only between one and four percent of the “time twins” had traits that could be considered more similar than between two people selected by random chance.

So, why do 33 percent of Americans keep faith in something that has been proven completely and overwhelmingly to be nonsense?

Here’s my take: while it may be nonsense, if your horoscope says you’re going to have a great week and thinking about that helps you make it true, or if your horoscope says that this week you should work on open communication and this is the push you need to be honest with your friends about something that’s bugging you, I fail to see the harm.

While I’m not advocating anyone pin serious life decisions on the fact Cosmopolitan said it’s a lucky week for Capricorn (especially since Cosmo’s horoscopes are whatever comes to the mind of the journalist writing them and have no astrological legitimacy whatsoever, let alone scientific), if you do have a serious decision in front of you and your horoscope suggests it’s a good week to go with your gut, what’s so bad about that?

Sure, it’s a pseudo-science at best and the mutation of primitive meteorology at worst, but even if these benefits are more confirmation bias than anything else (and honestly, I make no claims they aren’t), I think there’s something beautiful in the concept that however good or bad you’re feeling, you can never be alone in it — 1/12th or 1/1728th of the world has felt the same way.