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INTRODUCTION The claim of the "Mars Effect" is based on some of the statistical analyses of Michel Gauquelin , who devoted much of his life to trying to determine whether Astrology has any scientific validity. Of all the many analyses performed by Gauquelin, all failed to conclude that astrology had any such validity — with the exception of the Diurnal Motion of the planets, which corresponds to the Astrological Houses . Although Gauquelin discovered diurnal "effects" for five planets and twelve associated professions, the correlation of Mars to sports champions is the one that has been most tested by other researchers and has become the most well known. Mars is traditionally associated with warriors and athletes, as can be seen in any astrology text, but critics have pointed out the distribution of Mars in the results is anomalous with a long standing astrological tradition and because of this, the Mars effect has been the subject of considerable controversy. While some claim that the Mars effect is unknown within astrology (i.e. prior to the statistical finding), there is actually a long tradition that goes back to the earliest strata of horoscopic astrology which holds that planets in the angles (i.e. rising, culminating, setting, and anticulminating) are said to be more active and signify the prominence of the specific Archetype or Form which is associated with the planet in question, Mars being one of them. A critical paper on this subject was published in an issue of '' Skeptical Inquirer '', the journal of the Committee On Scientific Investigation Of Claims Of The Paranormal . Astronomer and charter CSICOP member Dennis Rawlins responded to this article by claiming that the authors deliberately misrepresented the purpose of the Zelen Test . However, Rawlins' criticism was in part based on a misunderstanding of the CSICOP article. Those who study the articles on Gauquelin and the Mars effect may note that misunderstandings and miscommunications on almost everyone's part were the order of the day. The misunderstandings led to some heated arguments, fights, broken friendships, published attacks, and tarnished reputations. CRITICISM The Belgian Para Committee tested the Mars effect in 1967 and replicated it, though most of the data (473 of 535) were still collected by Gauquelin himself. The Committee suspected that the slightly skewed percentages may have been an artifact. To test this suspicion and eliminate possible demographic anomaly, Professor Marvin Zelen proposed that Gauquelin randomly pick 100 athletes from his group of 2,088 and check the birth/planet correlations of all the other babies born at the same times and places. This was NOT a test of the Mars effect, but a test of the base-rate (chance) expectation. (The 100 random athletes later evolved into a subsample of 303 athletes.) Mr. Rawlins thought the above test not worth doing, for as he stated: "... we find an inverse correlation between size and deviation in the Mars-athletes subsamples (that is, the smaller the subsample, the larger the success) — which is what one would expect if bias had infected the blocking off of the sizes of the subsamples" (The Zetetic 2, no. 1, Fall/Winter 1977, p. 81). He also thought, correctly, that general readers would mistakenly think the Zelen test was a test of the Mars effect, not of the base rate. Mr. and Mrs. Gauquelin performed the test that Professor Zelen proposed, and concluded that the chance Mars-in-key-sector expectation for the general population (i.e., nonchampions) was indeed about 17%, rather than the 22% observed for athletic champions. In his rebuttal to the Gauquelins' published conclusion, Marvin Zelen analyzed the composition, not of the resulting 17,000 nonchampions, but of the 303 champions. He split the subsample by eliminating the women and by dividing the remaining athletes into city/rural sections and Paris ian/non-Parisian sections. (His rebuttal was also signed by Paul Kurtz and George Abell.) It was this sample-splitting that so shocked Dennis Rawlins and numerous other critics. It appeared that Zelen ignored the purpose of the test, which was to check the base rate of 17,000 regular folks. It appeared also that he was trying minimize the significance of the Mars/key-sector correlations with athletes by invalidly splitting the subsample of 303. It appeared that he was trying to make it look as though the Zelen test was not a test of the expected base rate, but a test of the Mars effect. Rawlins who was a prominent figure in the organization resigned and left in outrage because he said that the debunkers who were supposed to be upholding the scientific standards where actually falsifying their studies, hiding the evidence, and exiling any colleagues who were dissenters. A closer read of Zelen's rebuttal shows that he split the sample not to examine the Mars effect, but primarily to examine the randomness of the subsample of 303 champions. He showed that the Gauquelins had not chosen their subsample randomly. As they admitted, they had trouble finding sufficient same-week and same-village births to compare with champions born in rural areas, so they chose only champions born in larger cities. (If the 22% correlation was an artifact partly based on, say, rural recordkeeping, this would be blurred in such a nonrandom selection.) Further, the Gauquelins' original total list of about 2,088 champions included exactly 42 Parisians. Their subsample of 303 athletes included exactly 42 Parisians. Paris is divided into 20 sections, called '' Arrondissements '', and different economic classes and different ethnic groups inhabit different arrondissements. The Gauquelins compared the 42 Parisian champions (who had been born throughout Paris) to nonchampions of only one arrondissement. (If the 22% correlation was an artifact partly based on, say, economic, class, or ethnic differences in birth patterns, this would be blurred in such a nonrandom selection.) A major study was undertaken by the Committee For The Study Of Paranormal Phenomenon (''Comité pour l’Étude des Phénomènes Paranormaux'', or CFEPP) in France. The protocol used was one agreed to in advance by Gauquelin before his untimely death in 1991. The results of the study, published in 1993, were that there is no evidence whatsoever of a "Mars Effect" in the births of athletes (Benski, et. al. 1993:13, 15). Jan Willem Nienhuys (Nienhuys, 1997) published a paper showing that Gauquelin's data was biased. However, using Nienhuys' methodology, Nick Kollerstrom showed in 2005 that a negative Mars Effect crept back when combining three skeptics' studies' datasets, and that the similar "Saturn Effect" for physicians was even stronger, using a stronger criteria for inclusion (namely membership in the prestigious French Academy Of Medicine ).[http://www.astrozero.co.uk/astroscience/koll1ge.pdf SEE ALSO FURTHER REFERENCE
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