According to Dean’s parental tampering hypothesis (PTH) Gauquelin planetary effects of AD 1800 – 1950 are due mainly or entirely to the reporting of wrong birth hours by superstitious parents. Parental superstition is also deemed manifest in various other ways of tampering with birth dates and birth times such as midnight avoidance, or full Moon, lucky number, Christian feast adjustment etc. It is well-known that due to increased population, education, and urbanization, superstition declined in European countries from AD1800 to 1950. I calculated Dean’s eight purported indicators of superstition individually for successive birth cohorts of Gauquelin professionals. If Dean’s hypothesis holds, his indicators of superstition should decline accordingly. An analysis of successive birth cohorts, however, showed that Dean’s purported superstition variables did not decline. Hence they do not indicate superstition. Dean’s parental tampering hypothesis, devoid of validity of its key variables, cannot possibly be right.

(1) Is the scientific approach relevant to astrology? Yes, but only to those parts testable by observation. No distinction between Material and Formal cuases is necessary. Thus to test whether a person fits his chart better than a control requires no causal assumpitons whatever. (2) Why are scientists and astrologers in conflict over whether astrology works? Mainly because they tend to look at different things. Scientists are mostly concerned with accuracy (controlled tests) whereas astrologers are mostly conerned with satisfaction (client acceptance). But accuracy is unrelated to satisfaction. So their views can conflict yet both can be right. In particular cases a more important reason on either side may be dishonesty, ignorance and arrogance.

The hypothesis that ordinary (I.e., unexceptional) people should show a planetary effect in personality similar to that shown by famous people was tested by three studies involving, respectively, vocational interest (300 subjects), planetary psychology self-reports (846 subjects), and scorers on the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (561 subjects). Only the last showed (marginally) significant results: Mars correlated in the expected direction with E+ and P+, and the Moon with L+. Results for the other planets, and for N+, were either inconsistent or not significant. The deficiencies of some existing personality questionaires are discussed and alternate approaches are suggested. The best approach seems to be the same as for famous people, namely the generation of biographical data followed by the character-traits method

From the conclusions on KI-37, after reviewing a variety of studies which have attempted to disprove Gauquelin’s findings:

“So forty years after Michel Gauquelin first announced the discovery of his planetary effects to the world, and twenty seven years after the beginning of the Mars effect controversy, we see Gauquelin’s findings are essentially as he specified them in his first two books. The sideshow of the controversy continues even as I write this, but the voice of the debunker hustling his own version of the truth is like a carnival barker and beginning to crack.”

Studies of astrology with univariate statistical designs have yielded inconclusive results. This thesis proposes the use of a multidimensional statistical model to examine astronomical concomitancies of human behavior

Birth data for the study were obtained from Alcoholics Anonymous members (n = 53) and a sample of the general population of Michigan (n = 217). The model was evaluated with these data using Discriminant Function Analysis. Hypotheses derived from the model were supported for group centroids (p < .00001) and group covariances (p < .03). The resulting function correctly classified 80.7 percent of the data from which it was derived (p < 10-16). The function also correctly classified 72.2 percent of a second sample (n = 230) of Michigan births (p < 10-10). By comparison, T-tests using the same data found 9.4 percent of the variables significant at the .05 level (p < .05). The findings support the use of a multidimensional model to evaluate astrological hypotheses about human behavior.

From the Conclusion on p. SE46:

“The Mars effect, having shaken off three skeptics’ attacks, needs to be reassessed by those who failed to disarm it. For the skeptic committees this should not pose much of a problem. They merely need to live up to their own principles of ‘methodological skepticism’ … The present study has shown that the results do survive all rechecks. Are the researchers now ready to accept planetary correlations as an objective for science?”

Ertel’s argument is that when the new studies by the skeptics are carefully considered and interpreted, Gauquelin’s original findings are supported.

“Of all the astrological problems which beckon to us from the future there is one which must excite the thoughtful astrologer more than any other. It is also the problem the solution of which may prove to
be of greatest practical scientific value to mankind. This is the question of how astrology and genetics are to be related and, specifically perhaps, how the genetic code is expressed astrologically.
To put the matter in a nutshell, we know that there are laws of heredity by which natural characteristics are transmitted from generation to generation; we also know that the natural characteristics of each person are described by the horoscope
calculated for his date, time and place of birth. It therefore follows – and we must be clear about this, it does inevitably follow – that the astrological code, by which the horoscope is interpreted, must be in agreement from one generation to the next …
On the most basic scientific level Michel Gauquelin has demonstrated the existence of an astrological relationship between the nativities of parents and children in a massive scientific experiment involving the horoscopes (all calculated for the time of birth) of some 25,000 parents and children.”

All deaths occurring in North Cheshire, UK were logged by cause of death, and month of birth. In this period 502 individuals killed themselves. Suicides differed in months of birth from non-suicides to a highly significant degree (p<.01). Suicide from hanging was significantly more frequent in those born in September and July (p<.005). Those whose suicide was caused by a violent method were significantly more likely to have been born in Summer months. While astrological or planetary factors at time of birth were not considered as causal possibilities, such explanations are open to exploration.

Pelligrini (J. Psychology, 1973, 85, 21-28) found a strong relationship between femininity as indicated by the California Personality Inventory (CPI), and birth under ‘feminine’ signs July 24th through January 20th. This Australian replication reasoned that the effect would be reversed in the Southern Hemisphere. 126 students gave their birth date and completed the CPI. Students born at a cusp, or who had immigrated from Northern Hemisphere were excluded. No statistically significant effects were found, except that males generally scored significantly lower on ‘feminine’ dimensions, regardless of period of birth. The conclusion is that Pelligrini’s findings cannot be replicated in this study.

2324 adults completed the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, yielding scores on the dimensions of Extraverson-Introversion, and Emotionality-Stability. The traditional astrological descriptions of personality according to Earth, Air, Fire and Water groupings were tested, in particular the hypothesis that those born under earth signs (Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn) would be practical and stable, while the water signs (Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces) would be emotional and intuitive. Findings indicated a statistically significant departure from random distribution which strongly supported the astrological hypotheses, except that Aries-born individuals were wrongly depicted as highly emotional.