Shawn Carlson (born 1960) is an American physicist, science writer, and a STEM educator.

[citation needed] As a post doc, Carlson ran the Leuschner Observatory for the Center for Particle Astrophysics at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and was chief observer for the Berkeley Automated Supernovae Search.

[3] Carlson's experiment involved twenty-eight astrologers who were held in high esteem by their peers.

[4] They agreed to match over 100 natal charts to psychological profiles that were generated by the California Psychological Inventory (CPI), a standard and well accepted personality test, which the astrologers themselves identified as the scientific instrument that was best aligned with type of information they believed they could divine from their art.

The study found that astrologers were unable to match natal charts to their corresponding personality tests better than chance.