THE MARS EFFECT

Do the planets effect us? Some believe they can influence our behaviour and development.

For many years, many scientists thought there seemed to be good scientific evidence for at least one planetary effect, that of the planet Mars. The search for the "Mars Effect", and a man who was destroyed when he discovered he was wrong, is a strange and tragic story.

The noted French writer and intellectual, Michel Gauquelin, was fascinated by astrology. Hardly a devotee, Gauquelin was a strong critic of the demonstrably foolish claims of traditional astrologers. Yet strangely, in his research intended to debunk astrology, Gauquelin discovered something puzzling. He found a direct statistical correlation between the planetary positions at the time of a person's birth and that individual's personality and eventual achievement. Gauquelin claimed to have found a relationship between Jupiter and military prowess, Venus and artists, Saturn and scientists, and Mars and sports greatness. The last of these showed the strongest correlation.

The "Mars Effect" was discovered after Gauquelin divided the sky into 12 sectors through which Mars appears to pass in its daily motion across the sky. He claimed that sports champions were born "statistically significantly" more often in the first sector (that is, during roughly the first two hours after the rise of Mars) or in the fourth sector (that is, during two hours following culmination). Gauquelin maintained that their birth rate in these two sectors was far greater than chance. Gauquelin went so far as to propose that planets played a strong role in determining personality and behaviour. He proposed a new scientific field: "Astrobiology".

In 1955, Gauquelin and his wife Francoise published data on 568 sports champions in the book, L'Influence Des Astres. In 1960, he published more data on more sports stars in Les Hommes Et Les Astres. By 1970, the number of sports champions was 2,089 in Sports Champions 1 to 2,089. Throughout these books, Gauquelin claimed that his data proved that the "Mars Effect" existed.

It is said in science that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Needless to say, Gauquelin's claim was certainly extraordinary. Scientific critics came forward in droves.

In 1967, a group of Belgium scientists known as the Para Committee carried out research on 535 sports champions. Gauquelin argued that the Para Committee's results actually backed-up his claim for the "Mars Effect". Others disputed this, including several members of the Para Committee itself. Although they admitted that their results were similar to Gauquelin's previous findings, they pointed out that there were many, many serious problems in gathering such data. For example, assigning sports champions to the 12 sectors was no easy manner. In many cases, there wasn't precise information on the exact time of birth of star athletes. Enough of these ambiguities threw the figures off, so Gauquelin's theory couldn't be proven.

What followed was a long and bitter statistical debate that became more acrimonious and nasty as the years went by.

In 1976, Marvin Zelen, a professor of statistics at Harvard, proposed a test for Gauquelin to apply to his data that would control for some of the factors that he failed to control for earlier. After applying the test, the Gauquelins reported that sports champions were born in the first or fourth sectors of Mars at the rate of 22 per cent. This compared with the 17 per cent rate for non-sports champions. This was not a big difference, but enough to sustain the "Mars Effect" at least in Michel Gauquelin's opinion. Dennis Rawlins, a fellow with the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, located in Buffalo, New York, argued that Gauquelin's data was filled with bias, that there was no real evidence that Mars effected anything on Earth, and that the "Mars Effect" and "astrobiology" were rubbish. He and Gauquelin engaged in bitter exchanges with neither budging from their respective positions.

Others joined in. Gauquelin had few defenders and his many attackers were baying and out for blood.

In 1980, Zelen and two colleagues published a study in The Skeptical Inquirer of their analysis of the births of 408 sports champions. They found that only 13.5 per cent of sport champions were born in the first or fourth sectors of Mars---far below chance. Gauquelin immediately disputed these findings and yet another bitter debate ensued. There were not only accusations of errors in gathering and interpreting data, but also of test rigging, data fudging, and intentional presentation of misinformation. It was all getting very nasty and an impasse had been reached.

In 1982, a committee of scientists in Paris, the Comite Francais pour l'Etude des Phenomenes Paranormaux, published in the journal Science and Life the results of their testing of data on 1,066 sports champions. In cooperation with Gauguelin, they used some of his data. The Comite found that only 18.7 per cent of the sports champions were born in the first or fourth sectors of Mars. Chance would place that figure at 18.2 per cent. The Comite concluded: No "Mars Effect".

Michel Gauguelin was outraged and devastated. He was seemingly proven wrong with his own figures. He expressed the view that he had been betrayed by the Comite who he believed had misused his data after he had cooperated in good faith.

After the bitter disputing, name-calling, and loss of reputation, so distraught was Gauguelin that he ordered all of his data files destroyed, suffered a nervous breakdown, and committed suicide on 20 May 1991. As a final act, in 1996, after 13 years re-analyzing data, the Comite published what may be the final book on the subject: The "Mars Effect", published by Prometheus Books. Although the book is written so that the reader can come to their own conclusion, the publisher, Paul Kurtz, writes in the Introduction that most readers should conclude that there is "insufficient evidence" for either the "Mars Effect" or "astrobiology". Sadly, Michel Gauguelin paid a high price for being wrong. As the saying goes, the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

 

Complete News Archives: 2002 August: Weird mysteries of creative giants July: How many senses do we have? June: The Samson Syndrome May: Phantom Limb Syndrome April: Can we talk to the unborn? March: Movie Revelations February: Navel Secrets January: If Whales Can Do It? 2001 December: Body Odysseys of the Famous November: The Psychology of Smell October: Light, Colour and Music Therapy September: Three Brain Mysteries August: Baldness July News June: Laughing