Comments
From the point of view of astrologers
The results are not fully in compliance with current astrological teachings
They are: in astrology Mars is typically related to sports and soldiers, Saturn to research, moon to creative writing, Jupiter to journalism; they also correspond to the personality traits that are believed to be essential to excel in these professions
They are not: according to Western astrology planets become particularly important when they are just below (not above) the eastern horizon and just before (not after) the zenith. However, this is not true for Vedic astrology that considers the planet important if it falls within the same sign as the Easter horizon line of the meridian of the zenith and therefore includes position before and after the lines.
From the point of view of scientists
As has
been mentioned before, replication is essential in science. The findings of a scientist are accepted by
the scientific community only if other scientists carry out similar research
and obtain identical or at least similar findings. After all, a single research team might
inadvertently commit a systematic error in good faith and therefore support
erroneous findings.
Unfortunately,
most researchers will not have anything to do with astrology and refuse to
carry out any work in the field. As the
astronomer who wrote the Foreword of the book “Cosmic influences on human
behavior” says, they “proclaim the falseness of astrology on purely
authoritarian grounds”. Indeed, he was able to comment on the book because he
had actually carried out research in the field, but was forbidden to publish
his results. He examined the position of
Mercury in 20,000 charts of American scientists and was unable to find any
significant positions, such as the ones found by Gauquelin.
The Director of his Institute forbade him to publish his research,
notwithstanding the fact that the findings were negative and therefore against
astrology, ”lest it be thought that his staff spent any time in matters of this
sort!”).
In the book the Gauquelins claim that another group of Belgian scientists, the “Comitè
Para” was able to replicate their results on Mars in 535 French and Belgian
champions. Dr Seymour in his book "The evidence of Science" confirms this and goes on to explain why they did not publish their corroborating results: they were fully convinced that they must have made a mistake and were unwilling to publish until they found it. Evidently they never did, since they never published their work.
Another group attempted to reproduce the Mars effect in the US -: the US Committee for the Scientific Investigations of Claims of the Paranormal. Dr Seymour reports in his book "The evidence of Scient that "They ran into difficulties when most states refused to provide the necessary information on account of the privacy laws of America. Their first sample consisted only of 128 sports champions, and so to increase their sample they included some sports people who were not in the international class. They viewed their resulting negative conclusions as an indication of a flaw in Gauquelin's work"
In
conclusion, in the absence of further research on planetary positions published
by other authors I have to conclude that the work by Gauquelin suggests that
there really is relationship between the position of the planets and
personality traits / occupation, but it cannot be claimed that the relationship
has been proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Indeed, doubt there is, because how could the position of the planets affect man? What mechanism could be involved? If you are interested in finding out what potential explanations have been provided, click here.
An interesting discussion on the findings of Gauquelin was published on the website of The Astrology Podcast.
You can find a detailed report on the history of the research carried out by the Gauquelins on the website of Astrology and Science. Within the report the issue of the small extent of the planetary effects is raised, as well as the suspicion that bias crept into the findings related to personality traits