The Tenacious Mars Effect

Suitbert Ertel & Kenneth Irving
London, UK: Urania, 1996. 163+pp. Hardcover.

The "Mars Effect": A French Test of Over 1000 Sports Champions

Claude Benski, Dominique Caudron, Yves Galifret, Jean-Paul Krivine, Jean-Claude Pecker, Michael Rouze', Evry Schatzman. With a commentary by J.W. Nienhuys
Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1996. 157pp. Softcover.

Reviewed by Taner Edis

It has been more than 40 years since M. Gauquelin presented evidence for a "Mars Effect" in the birth times of sports champions. Two new books inadvertently show that the controversy will continue indefinitely. Supporters of the ME claim that it is an objectively replicable (and replicated!) effect, and that it is past time it should be scientifically recognized. They have an impressive array of evidence and statistical argumentation to back this up. Skeptics counter that their test shows no sign of an effect, and that bias and mistakes explain previous positive results. They have an impressive array of evidence and statistical argumentation to back this up.

The difficulty with previous ME tests was selecting a sample of champions who were properly eminent in their sport. That is the big issue with the latest French data as well. S. Ertel claims that the ME is present here, though he also charges the French Skeptics with various kinds of scientific incompetence in assembling their data. J.W. Nienhuys argues that Ertel's "Eminence Effect" -- stronger ME signal with increasing eminence of the champions -- is an artifact with no real evidence in support. Charges of bias in selecting the samples and deciding on "eminence" fly freely. Something is wrong with at least one interpretation here, but without definite and obviously objective "eminence" criteria, it will be hard to find out exactly what. Neither book, for all their dense tables of data and statistical arcana, are satisfying on such matters. There is too much room for skeptics and proponents to inadvertently screw up.

The Mars Effect, then, currently resides in limbo. It is an unexpected result if true, but also a marginal effect and not one with clear occult implications. So we get a purely statistical research program taking on a complex world with no theoretical guidance. One expects confusion. Furthermore, incompetence seems to have plagued teams of skeptics throughout the affair, and Gauquelin evidently had his own biases affect his data set. As things stand now, the ME is more interesting for the sociology of science than science per se. There is perhaps no comfort for astrologers in these books, but they also reveal skeptics to be all too human.