The Mars Effect is the purported statistical correlation between certain positions of Mars at the time of birth and athletic prowess or aptitude. It was first reported by Michel Gauquelin, a French psychologist and statistician, in 1955. As you can imagine, this was highly controversial and people immediately set out to examine the claims.
As seems to typically occur, attempts to debunk the Mars Effect were made and when the initial replication (begun in 1956) was a success it was suggested that it was an artifact of unspecified demographic errors. In a second attempt at replication (done in 1975 at the behest of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, or CSICOP) the original data was called into question when the results came out in Gauquelin's favor. This "questioning" consisted of splitting up sample groups to the point of making a comparison pointless. There was even internal protest against this fudging of the numbers within CSICOP, seen as nothing more than shifting the subject of the experiment in order to appear in favor of CSICOP's investigation. Naturally, the detractor was booted from the committee in a less-than-transparent vote. A concurrent study of US athletes came up negative for the Mars Effect, but the study was carried out with seemingly no regard for the specifics of the effect as found in Gauquelin's initial study.
The above examples are just the first of the attempts to strike down Gauquelin's results. There seems to be something inborn that is opposed to the notion of the stars having any sway on human events at all. This probably hearkens to the idea of free will and one having control of their destiny (and free will, or the lack thereof, is a completely different discussion in itself). The idea of astrology is very threatening to so-called free thinkers because it might mean that they aren't as free as they think. In my experience, most people that are so ferociously opposed to the idea of astrology usually have the least understanding of the practice.
Enough of my ranting though; take a look at the Wikipedia page for the Mars Effect if you want all the gory details.
as much as I dislike astrology myself, I can't help but come to acknowledge it in lieu of recent events and studies.
ReplyDeleteWell, here's a simple solution: Survey enough people about 1) their birthdate and 2) whether they consider themselves to be an athlete.
ReplyDeleteGet 40 people who fall in the right spectrum of Mars' behavior. Keep the rest of the people too, and that should be well over 40 people, by probability.
After that, give me the data. I don't need names, just the "yes/no", the birthdate (or rather, what state mars was in astrologically), and well... what the heck, a survey-survey specific ID# to keep everyone straight without having to use names.
I'll crunch the data. I'll find you. You up for this?
I don't think that 40 people would be a large enough sample and I think the methodology doesn't take into account the complexity of obtaining accurate subject data.
ReplyDelete