Mars effect

[1] In his book L'influence des astres ("The Influence of the Stars", 1955),[2] Gauquelin suggested that a statistically significant number of sports champions were born just after the planet Mars rises or culminates.

Since the phenomenon in question depends upon the daily rotation of the Earth, the availability and accuracy of time and place of birth data is crucial to such studies, as is the criterion of "eminence".

[4][5][6] Gauquelin's work was not limited to the Mars effect: his calculations led him first to reject most of the conventions of natal astrology as it is practised in the modern west but he singled out "highly significant statistical correlations between planetary positions and the birth times of eminently successful people."

This claim concerned not only Mars but five planets, correlated with eminence in fields broadly compatible with the traditional "planetary rulerships" of astrology.

In 1983 Abell, Kurtz and Zelen (see below) published a reappraisal, rejecting the idea of demographic errors, saying, “Gauquelin adequately allowed for demographic and astronomical factors in predicting the expected distribution of Mars sectors for birth times in the general population.”[7] In 1975 Paul Kurtz's journal The Humanist published an article on astrology criticizing Gauquelin, to which the latter and his wife Françoise responded.

The Gauquelins also performed the test that Professor Zelen had proposed and carried out and found that the chance Mars-in-key-sector expectation for the general population (i.e., non-champions) was about 17%, significantly less than the 22% observed for athletic champions.

If the 22% correlation was an artifact partly based on factors such as rural recordkeeping, economic, class or ethnic differences in birth patterns, this fact would be blurred by this non-random selection.

Gauquelin contended the KZA group demonstrated an overall preference for mediocre athletes and ignored his criteria of eminence and that they included basketball players and people born after 1950.

In 1996 the report, with a commentary by J. W. Nienhuys and several letters from Gauquelin to the committee, was published in book form as The Mars Effect – A French Test of Over 1,000 Sports Champions.

[11] The CFEPP report was criticized by Suitbert Ertel on similar grounds as the American study – for including too many mediocre athletes – and also for using a too high chance-excpectancy level.

Some researchers argued that Gauquelin did not adjust the statistical significance of the Mars Effect for multiple comparisons and did not address the issue in his publications.

A Gauquelin diagram mapping incidence of birth time and latitude to the natal position of Mars relative to the ecliptic of the rotating Earth, showing peaks just after its daily rising and culmination in mid-heaven (horizon and mid-heaven are marked by perpendicular lines). The orbit of Mars in the sky has been represented by 12 sectors in the circle, 6 above the horizon and 6 below. The drawn line shows the purported higher birth incidence of sports champions in the key sectors 1 and 4 of Mars' orbit.