Tampering with birth dates should occur morer often among rural than urban people. Scrutiny of Geoffrey Dean’s paretal tampering claim (1)

Author: Ertel, Prof. Suitbert
Abstract: Geoffrey Dean claims that parents of Gauquelin professionals, guided by superstition, tampered with birth dates and birth times of their children when they gave their obligatory reports at registration offices (Dean, 2000). In his view, therefore, Gauquelin planetary effects might be “man made” to a large extent, or even entirely, due to the parents’ efforts to enhance their children’s fortunes and to banish possible misfortune . Dean used four “avoidance” variables (unlucky day avoidance, new Moon avoidance etc) and four “preference” variables (lucky day preference, full Moon preference etc.) as superstition indicators. I tested the validity of these variables by dividing the French Gauquelin professionals N= 7,952) into seven sub-samples of equal size sorted by birth place population. Dean’s avoidance and preference indicators should be more pronounced in rural (small population) compared with urban samples (large population) because popular beliefs flourish in rural life while fading away with urbanization. The indicators did not show the expected decline across samples from urban to rural birth places. This result casts considerable doubt on Dean’s alleged superstition variables upon which his enterprise is grounded.
Keywords: Dean, Gauquelin, parental tampering
Notes:See also Comment by Edgar Wunder and author’s response in Correlation 20(1)
Publication: Correlation: Astrological Association Journal of Research In Astrology
Issue: Volume 19, Issue 2
Dated: 2000/2001
Pages: pages 37-46