The Mars effect discovered by Michel Gauquelin in the charts of sports
champions is discussed and the controversy this engendered from other scientific quarters is briefly summarised. A summary of the work of Ertel in replicating the Gauquelin study is presented and the author asserts that the Mars effect holds good for people at the top of other professions. The Fourier method of analysing the Mars effect is presented as a more effective way of understanding this phenomenon.

The French sceptics’ (CFEPP’s) test of Gauquelin’s Mars hypothesis with 1066 athletes’ birth data conducted from 1982 to 1993 purportedly showed negative results. I re-analysed this data and found positive indications of a Mars effect which were statistically significant. It turned out that the CFEPP’s attempted refutation of Gaquelin’s claim resulted from biased sampling (preponderance of low eminent athletes) and from biased data analysis (wrong chance expectancy, inferior sector definition, neglected eminence subdivision). The author doubts, however, that an ongoing worldwide spread of the sceptics’ message (“The “Mars effect” doesn’t exist”) will be affected by present counter evidence. Resistance to accepting uncomfortable hard facts is considered an urgent problem for sociologists of science.

After 1700, astrology lost the respect it once commanded in medical circles. But the belief that the heavens influenced bodily health persisted – even in learned medicine – until well into the nineteenth century. The continuing vitality of these ideas owed much to the new empirical and mechanical outlook of their proponents. Taking their cue from the work of Robert Boyle and Richard Mead, a number of British practitioners amassed statistical evidence which purported to prove the influence of the moon upon fevers and other diseases. Such ideas flourished in the colonies and in the medical servives of the armed forces, but their exponents were not marginal men. Some, like James Lind were widely respected and drew support for their views from such influential figures as Erasmus Darwin.

The prosperous ironmonger Samuel Hemmings and King George III were supposedly born at the same hour and died at the same hour after lives showing striking similarities. The original source is said to be a death notice in the newspapers of February 1820 but such a notice could be found. However, a notice was found that mentioned a respectable furnishing ironmonger Richard Speer. It said he was born at the same hour as the King, died near the same time, and to show his loyalty he chose the same day to get married. It makes no menion of his prosperity or of similarities in their lives. But even the simulataneous birth and marriage may be in doubt, because there is no mention of Samuel Hemmings or Richard Speer in the baptism and marriage records for London in the International Genealogical Index. The probability of such a birth and death twin occurring by chancew when corrected for multiple endpoints is unremarkable. The life of George III is unusal, well documented and deserving of astrological study.

My first scientific analyses in medical astrology tested traditional astrological hypotheses (especially the correspondence of the signs of the zodiac with parts of the body, starting from the head down to the feet), which when scientifically tested, do not seem to be confirmed … among 423 patients. The … use of a pathology coding system, required for statistical study, could make further collaboration possible.

The distribution over the diurnal cycle of Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn was computed for both genders of 2824 Gauquelin couples. I found that the distributions of the five “Gauquelin planets” in combination are significantly different between the two genders. Wives have a higher frequency of planets near the Ascendant, especially of Venus.

Full text available at:
http://www.src.uchicago.edu/~gavr1/Season-of-Birth.pdf

I conducted a refinement of the synastry control experiment (1) in which the birth dates of married partners were shifted 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 days The surplus of aspect frequency gradually decreased with increasing shift magnitude. The maximum frequency appears at the zero shift. These findings reinforce the conclusion that the previously reported synastry effect is not due to methodological errors.

The majority of those who read their ‘star signs’ can identify aspects of their personality in what they read and it is possible that this may influence their attitudes and actions. The research literature has neglected astrological signs as possible predictors of suicidal behaviour and ideas. To see whether astrological birth signs are associated with suicide and method used, data were collected from the Public Healh Department in North Cheshire on Coroner’s verdicts of suicide and open verdicts in all deceased aged 60 and above between 1989 and 2000. The timing of suicide deaths was compared with those occurring from natural causes. Most of the comparisons were not statistically significant, except for suicide by hanging, which was significantly elevated in those with a birth sign in Virgo, and lowest in those born in Saggittarius and Scorpio. In addition suicide by violent methods showed a significant excess in thos born in summer months.

An attempt to replicate Ruis’ recent results on a further 20,000 couiples suggested that the results do not generally replicate. However, there was an excess of synastry aspects to the wives’ Suns in 5,000 non-eminent couples.