-------------- A review of the article
"Is Astrology Relevant to Consciousness and Psi?" by Geoffrey Dean and Ivan W. Kelly, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 10, No. 6-7, 2003, 175-198 (Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; URL: www:astrology-and-science.com/) This article, which summarizes the most salient of over a hundred studies on astrology, is authoritative and cogent. One of the authors (Dean) was a full-time astrologer and founding president of the Federation of Australian Astrologers. The other is a professor of educational psychology. The studies reviewed fall into two classes: 1) tests of astrologers and astrological charts and 2) comparison of personal characteristics of individuals with proximate birth times and locations. All such tests were analyzed "in terms of an effect size, expressed as a correlation or similar measure, where 0 means no effect, 1 means perfect effect, and -1 means perfect inverse effect" (p. 185.) Typical tests for accuracy in the first class "generally involve astrologers matching birth charts with information such as personality profiles or case histories. To date more than forty such studies have been reported totaling nearly 700 astrologers and 1,150 birth charts. Meta-analysis gives a mean effect size of 0.051, standard deviation 0.118, for which p = 0.66" (p. 190.) Though these results seem rather definitive, they appear (it is not stated) to be only a test of the western system of astrology. Eastern (Indian) astrology, for example, is quite a different system, makes quite different predictions, and has advocates who sometimes assail western astrology as being an inaccurate corruption of a more ancient and truthful practice. Case not closed. The stars/planets might still influence humans. The second class of studies is more convincing. In one of these, 2,100 pairs of people born in London during 3-9 March 1958 were studied later on in life. Of the pairs, 73% were born 5 minutes apart or less, and only 4% were born more than 15 minutes apart. For each person in the study, measurements were made three times between 1969 and 1981 of 110 variables, including IQ test scores, teacher and parent ratings of certain personality factors, height, weight, vision, hearing, music and sports abilities, occupation, marital status, accident proneness, and more. Mean correlation was -.001 with standard deviation of .028. This study seems to close the door on the case for astrology pretty tightly. However, small uncertainties may remain. For one, Indian astrology predicts certain (planetary) periods in life ranging from 6 to 20 years each, during which certain tendencies are supposed to manifest. This does not seem to be tested anywhere. For another, this reviewer recalls hearing that Indian astrology posits the effects of one's birth chart are not yet evident in childhood. The time twins were tested at ages 11, 16, and 23. Another study by Roberts and Greengrass [The Astrology of Time Twins, Bishop Auckland: Pentland Press, 1994] reviewed by the authors seems to show a small, but significant, correlation between time twins and similarities that increases with birth time proximity. Dean and Kelly cite a refutation of this study done by French, Leadbetter, and Dean ["The astrology of time twins: a re-analysis", Jour. Sci. Explor. 11(2), pp. 147-155 with comments through p. 161], though this latter study only paired individuals down to a mean time between birth of 1.5 hours, not considered meaningfully close by most astrologers, Indian or otherwise. Finally, there is the conjectured "Dunne-Jahn effect" ["Information and Uncertainty in Remote Perception Research", Jour. Sci. Explor. 17(2), 207-241 (2003)], in which a kind of Heisenberg uncertainty principle exists between paranormal phenomena and the level of exactitude in the scientific measurements employed to quantify them. The more precise and extensive the measurement, the less apparent the phenomenon. Although skeptics might be inclined to call "foul" here, one cannot be 100% certain that such an "elusiveness" effect does not apply to astrology. Yet, from this article, replete with almost 100 references, one can draw a reasonable conclusion. If not irrefutably and wholly true that "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves", then at the least, any planetary effect on humans ascertainable by the scientific method is slight indeed.
