Mars effect - The Skeptic's Dictionary

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<div class="logo"> <img src="_images/logo_01.png" alt="The Skeptic's Dictionary" width="270" height="60" border="0" />           <br /> by <a href="http://skepdic.com/refuge/bio.html">Robert Todd Carroll</a> * est. 1994 </div> <div class="slogan"> <img src="_images/slogan_01.gif" alt="A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions" width="362" height="30" /> </div> </div> <div class="menu"> <ul> <li></li><li><a href="http://skepdic.com/">Home</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/news/">Newsletter</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/feedback.html">Feedback</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/faq.html">FAQ & Interviews</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/tour.html">Site Map</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="middle"> <div class="left"> <h2>Topical Indexes</h2> <ul class="nav_1"> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/tialtmed.html">Alternatives to Medicine</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/ticriticalthinking.html">Critical Thinking</a></li> 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href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#Y">y</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#Z">z</a></li> </ul> <webContent><h1>Mars effect</h1> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">The Mars effect is the name given to Michel Gauquelin's astrobiological claim that when Mars is in certain sectors of the sky great athletes are born in numbers indicative of a non-chance correlation. If this were true, <a href="astrolgy.html">astrologers</a> believe that it would provide support for their theories that the things in the sky are actively influencing who and what we become. However, such correlations are notoriously slippery. They are ambiguous (who counts as a "great" athlete?), and significant correlations between variables that are not significantly related are expected to occur occasionally.</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">In any case, what Gauqelin claims about Mars and athletes isn't true, according to a study by several French scientists. They took a sample of over 1,000 French athletes and compared them to thousands of others for birth times, dates and location of Mars at birth. The study didn't support the Mars effect.</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">Gauquelin preferred to call his work in this area <i>astrobiology</i> rather than astrology. He also claimed to find a significant correlation between Jupiter and military prowess, as well as between Venus and artists.</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><strong>See also</strong> <a href="astrolgy.html">astrology,</a> <a href="clustering.html">clustering illusion</a>, <a href="confirmbias.html">confirmation bias</a>, <a href="forer.html">Forer effect</a>, <a href="lawofnumbers.html">law of really large numbers</a>, <a href="occultstats.html">occult statistics</a>, <a href="posthoc.html">post hoc fallacy</a>, <a href="regressive.html">regressive fallacy</a>, and  <a href="subjectivevalidation.html">subjective validation</a>.</font></p> <hr align="left" noshade width="25%"> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><b>further reading</b> </font> <p style="text-align: left"><b><font face="Arial" size="3">books and articles</font></b><p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0879759887/roberttoddcarrolA/">Benski, Claude, et al., <em>The "Mars Effect"</em> (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1996).</a></font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font size="3" face="Arial"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1573920215/roberttoddcarrolA/">Dean, Geoffrey, Arthur Mather and Ivan W. Kelly, "Astrology,"   in <em>The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal</em>, ed. G. Stein (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1996).</a></font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font size="3" face="Arial">Ruscio, John. "The Perils of Post-Hockery," in the <em>Skeptical Inquirer</em>, November/December, 1998.</font><p style="text-align: left"> <b><font face="Arial" size="3">websites</font></b><p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.csicop.org/si/show/coincidences_remarkable_or_random/">"Coincidences: Remarkable or Random?"</a> by Bruce Martin</font><p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.skepsis.nl/mars.html">The Mars effect in retrospect</a> by J. W. Nienhuys </font> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.planetos.info/marchron.html">A Brief Chronology of the "Mars Effect" Controversy</a> by Kenneth Irving</font><p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.discord.org/~lippard/kammann.html">The True Disbelievers</a> (Read about the exciting history of this subject, complete with charges of disingenuous skepticism by Marcello Truzzi and Jim Lippard - a real potboiler!)</font><p></webContent>Last updated 19-Dec-2013 </p> </div> </div> <div class="right"> <div class="right_it"> <div class="search"> <form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom" target="_top"> <input type="hidden" name="domains" value="skepdic.com" /> <input type="text" name="q" maxlength="255" value="" size="20" /> <input type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" /> <br /> <div class="search_2"> <input type="radio" name="sitesearch" value="" /> Web     <input type="radio" name="sitesearch" value="skepdic.com" checked="checked" /> Skepdic.com <br /> <img src="_images/logo_google.gif" alt="Google" width="48" height="19" /> </div> <input type="hidden" name="client" value="pub-3542920166946725" /> <input type="hidden" name="forid" value="1" /> <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="ISO-8859-1" /> <input type="hidden" name="oe" value="ISO-8859-1" /> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="GALT:#008000;GL:1;DIV:#336699;VLC:663399;AH:center;BGC:FFFFFF;LBGC:336699;ALC:0000FF;LC:0000FF;T:000000;GFNT:0000FF;GIMP:0000FF;FORID:1;" /> <input type="hidden" name="hl" value="en" /> </form> </div> <div class="center"> <p align="right"><a href="http://skepdic.com/authorpage.html"><strong>Books by R. 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