Response
to Dennis Elwell’s Comment on Gauquelin
by
Suitbert Ertel
[Note:
This paper focuses on comments in Dennis Elwell's The
Researchers Researched - for links to subsequent rounds of the ensuing
discussion between Elwell and Dean/Kelly/Smit (also referred to in the current
text) go here - GP]
Dennis
Elwell rejects the researchers’ critique of astrology. In my personal view,
which the rest of the group does not
always
share, some of Elwell’s points deserve consideration. E.g., the critics’
occasionally somewhat inflated manner
of
putting arguments should have been avoided. Perhaps it’s my fault, as a member
of the group, during the text
recycling
process, I should have insisted more energetically on using agreeable forms of
communication only. In this
regard,
however, Elwell himself can hardly be taken as a model. In addition, quite a few
of Elwell’s points need to be
contested
and this will be done by Dean, Kelly, and Smit - I will not go into this.
My present concern is Elwell’s
depreciating
the results of the Gauquelin research. This cannot go uncommented. Here Elwell
gives us an example of
reckless
reasoning, apparently common among astrologers, that we critics, justifiably,
deplore.
To
quote Elwell:
“…my
curiosity is why anyone should think it necessary to snatch the last bit of
credibility from Gauquelin, who was
no
friend of astrology, and whose work has already become so muddied as to be no
longer of use either to
astrologers
or their detractors. “
Elwell
thus contends: (1) Gauquelin’s credibility as researcher has been gravely
weakened, and this is because
(2)
Gauquelin’s work and its results have become muddied. (3) Astrologers should
therefore disregard the Gauquelin
results
just as Gauquelin opponents disregard this muddied stuff.
(4) In addition, Gauquelin’s statistics
is regarded
as
not robust enough. Here Elwell refers to an authority (an authority not in
statistics):
“As
Richard Dawkins remarked, when shown the Gauquelin data, more robust statistics
would be required before he
could
believe in planetary influences.”
I
corresponded with Dennis Elwell and he
confirmed, what I suspected, that his contentions (1) and (2) are based on
the
French sceptics’ and J. W. Nienhuys’ publications
who claimed that Gauquelin’s birth date selections of
professionals
are severely biased. His point (4), Dawkins, is
taken from someone else’s personal communication.
Is
Elwell aware of the bulk of research devoted to scrutinizing the sceptics’
three anti-Gauquelin campaigns? Yes, he
is
because he replied that he is aware of all pertinent
CORRELATION papers, and he says that he even read articles
about
this research in the Journal of
Scientific Exploration. As a member of the British Astrological
Association
he is certainly also aware of the book by Ken Irving and myself on The Tenacious
Mars Effect published
by
Urania Trust (1996). (Readers may browse abstracts of my journal publications on
Rudolf Smit’s website
Astrology
and Science):
http://www.smitpotze.demon.nl/Astrology-and-Science/se-abstr.htm
So
Elwell knows that immense empirical work was necessary to procure evidence for
the following conclusions:
(1)
The birth data of sports champions collected under the responsibility of
the Belgian sceptics
(COMITÉ
PARA) confirmed the Mars effect. The Belgians delayed, by six years, the
publication of their findings,
until
they had construed an evasive interpretation. Too many variables were involved,
they said, so an expectancy
could
impossibly be calculated. But their objections are basically misconceived, and
have been disregarded or
rejected
even by all non-Belgian sceptical communities involved in the Mars effect
debate.
(2)
The data collected under the responsibility of the US sceptics (CSICOP)
supported Gauquelin’s
Mars
effect as long as they were collecting data with much hope of success (their
first batch of data). But when
the
first batch’s result came out in favour of Gauquelin,
the US data collectors managed to select the rest of the
data
(two more batches) in such a way that
the Mars-born percentage of athletes dropped from its top to an
incredibly
low bottom, i.e., the results of batches 2 and 3
were alarmingly low, inconsistent with all other data
collections
by sceptical researchers, only consistent with what CSICOP had wanted to
achieve. Now, the rules of
scientific
methodology demand that the significantly low level of their Mars percentage
should be explained. But
CSICOP’s
chairman, Paul Kurtz, responsible for data collection, did not adhere to these
rules. He did not allow
me
or any other CSICOP-independent person to check his original data, which
might give hints, as to whether
or
not the data had been tampered with. Professor Kurtz subsequently stopped
replying to my requests for
pursuing
this issue.
(3)
The data obtained from French sports champions, collected under the
responsibility of the
French
sceptics (CFEPP), showed another selection bias. The French
included in their sample, contrary to the
protocol
with which Gauquelin had agreed, many low-eminent sports people. The Mars-born
percentage in their
total
was therefore cut down to an insignificant level. Despite all this apparent data
manipulation, a significant Mars
effect
came to the fore when I compared, within the French sample’s total, high
eminent with low eminent
sub-samples.
All data, including eminence indicators, were
taken from the sceptics’ own publication. Six
independent
researchers were invited to check this result and they confirmed that a
significant birth surplus of
eminent
champions
in the sceptics’ data really existed. My
main Dutch discussant who defended the CFEPP
assets
(the organization CFEPP itself had expired) eventually deleted my e-mail
messages without reading them.
My
last incriminating result published in Correlation (A.D. 2000) did not receive
any formal or informal reply.
(4)
As
to the credibility of Gauquelin’s own findings:
Müller and Ertel tried to replicate planetary
effects
of the French members of the Académie de Médecine, they thus used the very
first sample of Gauquelin’s
own
studies of 1955. After more than 40 years of this pioneering research
we collected birth dates and times of
the
entire Académie sample from French registry offices,
without Gauquelin’s hand in the pie,
using an updated
and
considerably extended biographical directory. Gauquelin’s Mars and Saturn
effects of physicians, reported in
1955,
were clearly replicated.
Dennis Elwell, despite being well informed, ignores all this research. He refers to a no-authority in statistical matters
(Dawkins) who has published nothing in this field. Further, he ignores most favourable judgments on Gauquelin
research by H.J. Eysenck, whose score of published statistical studies in mainstream psychology has hardly been
excelled by anyone. For me, therefore, the way Elwell uses his intellectual capacity to downgrade scientific research
on Gauquelin effects is utterly irresponsible.
The psychological why of Elwell’s denouncing Gauquelin’s life achievement is readily understandable. He simply
wants Gauquelin to be wrong – because, as he says himself, “Gauquelin was no friend of astrology”, and in his reply
to my queries he explains “one problem with the Gauquelin work was that it had no practical implications, so it did
not matter (except in an academic sense) whether it was true or not”. Surely, Gauquelin’s negative findings, at the
very least, should have strong implications for astrological practice. But Elwell, evasively, picks quotations which
serve his discrediting purpose from wherever sources offer themselves, even from “detractors of astrology” whose
prejudiced activities do not raise his concern at that moment (such as "The Strange Case of Astrology", a
"Statement of 186 Leading Scientists against Astrology" ,18 Nobel prize winners among them, that appeared in the
October 1975 issue of the Humanist1) .
I doubt that Elwell would find among his fellow astrologers many others endorsing his pact with those dogmatists
of scientism. If he would find in his community supporters of his unfounded verdict on Gauquelin’s research, then
the researchers’ critique of astrology would have to be sharpened, perhaps in a second edition of Garry Phillipson’s
Astrology in the Year Zero.
Nevertheless, I do find in Elwell’s informal reply to my queries some points that I can endorse, e.g. “The very fact
that yourself and Dean are currently in sharp disagreement over the validity of these results [the Gauquelin planetary
results] weakens the persuasive value they might have.”
Yes, this is my own main concern. Geoffrey Dean’s claim to have found evidence that a great deal or possibly all of
Gauquelin planetary effects might be man-made (i.e. that a large proportion of parents tampered the data) is likely to
add in public to the devaluation of Gauquelin’s work that Nienhuys and other sceptics have been attempting –
despite Dean’s stance that it wouldn’t.
Let me clear up my own position: If Nienhuys’, the Dutch sceptic’s, contentions regarding the credibility of
Gauquelin as researcher - or if Dean’s contentions regarding the credibility of parents as reporters of original data -
were the truth, I would not encounter any trouble. On the contrary, I am seeking the truth. Human affairs are replete
with instances of deception and self-deception which should be uncovered wherever they show up. In this regard I
myself have been active and did not even spare Michel Gauquelin (see the abstract of my 1990 paper “Scrutinizing
Gauquelin’s character trait hypothesis…” on Smit’s homepage).
But one has an exceptionally tough nut to crack whenever claims of deception - or self-deception - are themselves
nothing but an outgrowth of deception or self-deception. Tricky complications of this kind, to be sure, should be
disentangled by all legitimate means and methods. I would be happy if critical observers of the Gauquelin research
arena would support this endeavour – or else keep quiet and wait and see - instead of impeding this work by
rumour-fueling commentaries in public. Gauquelin’s discovery doesn’t fit in present-day astrological, nor in
present-day scientific frameworks. The wisest way of dealing with this discovery is to embrace it, since we can’t get
Footnote:
Note Paul Feyerabend’s comment on the document of the party from which Dennis Elwell draws his arguments:
"What surprises the reader whose image of science has been formed by the customary eulogies which emphasize
rationality, objectivity, impartiality, and so on is the religious tone of the document, the illiteracy of the arguments and
the authoritarian manner in which the arguments are being presented.'' Elwell should avoid coming too close, in his
own style and manner, to those “detractors of astrology”.
