In his book, Goklin harshly criticizes some of the leading astrologers of his time, and criticizes them for the amateurism of the research they carried out. Goklin's rigorous research disproves almost every astrological claim. Although he noticed a certain legality. is that so?
Michel Gauquelin (1928-1991) was the leading scientific researcher of astrology, and his studies are among the best in the field. Much of his success must be attributed to his wife Francoise (1929-2007) who was also his research partner until 1985 (then they separated). Astrology aroused his curiosity at an early age and led him to 45 years of research whose fruits were published in a dozen popular books, 30 data books and about 150 scientific articles.
In 1955, after years of hard work, Goquelin published his first book, L'Influence des Astres. The first 100 pages detailed the birth data of nearly 6,000 doctors, outstanding athletes, military personnel, painters, actors, politicians, scientists and priests - an unprecedented scope of work in astrological research.
In his book, Goklin harshly criticizes some of the leading astrologers of his time, and criticizes them for the amateurism of the research they carried out. Goklin's rigorous research refutes almost every astrological claim: starting with the relationship between sun signs and personality, the influence of angles between the planets, and more. Goklin: "It is necessary to emphasize that the results collapse astrology more than it appears, since they attack not only the claims of certain astrologers but the deep foundation of the entire field of astrology itself" (p. 62).
At the same time, to his surprise, he recognizes a strange regularity in the many data he has collected. In the preface to the book, he states that when he started his research he was sure that the book would contain nothing but a critique of astrology, but during his work he came across amazing findings that scientific rigor requires a more in-depth investigation. He adds that his discoveries forced him to overcome his refusal to believe in them.
mars effect
Goquelin found that sports champions were born more often than expected by chance when Mars was just rising above the horizon or when it passed its peak in the sky (regions 1-2 and 6-7 in the diagram, respectively). The green line indicates the expected frequency if the births of sports champions were randomly distributed (actually Mars was in the areas in question in 22% of the birth maps of outstanding athletes, compared to about 17% expected from random distribution).
In a similar way, a connection was found between other professions and other planets found in the same areas at the time of birth. For example, there is a strengthening relationship between Mars and doctors and military personnel, a strengthening relationship between Jupiter and actors and between Saturn and scientists. After further research, Goklin summarized the five celestial bodies for which a correlation was found between their position at birth and the profession, and they are: the Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Interestingly, the Sun, Mercury, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are not included in the list.
Goquelin realized that the next step was to repeat the experiment on a larger scale, and also to go beyond the borders of France. He collected the birth details of 15,000 more people and together with his wife (who was already an active partner in research at the time) published his second book - Les Hommes et les Astres. Denoel, Paris 1960. The conclusions were unequivocal: the study yielded the same results across 5 different countries and for birth dates spanning from 1800 to 1930, despite differences in language, culture and history.
On the one hand, certain matches were found between the findings and typical characteristics that astrology attributes to the various planets, but on the other hand there were also many aspects in which there was no match with traditional astrology, for example, only certain planets were found to be related and not others (not even the sun), only certain positions in the sky were found to be related and not others (as astrology claims), and as mentioned, there is also no connection here with the sun signs and the angles between the various celestial bodies.
Goklin noticed several characteristics that had no explanation: the connection is only found for people who are very prominent in their field, for example champion athletes, and not for "average" people or even "ordinary athletes". And stranger than that - the connection disappears for those born after 1950 or so (Truth about Astrology 1983:176).
"Inheritance of professions"
Goklin tried to find an explanation for the phenomenon, and investigated whether there is a connection between the state of the celestial bodies at the time of birth of outstanding professionals and the state of the celestial bodies at the time of their parents' birth. And again, in a Sisyphean work, he collected another 25,000 birth data of children and their parents. The efforts paid off, and were published in his book L'Heredite Planetaire (Planete, Paris 1966): Indeed, parents whose Moon/Venus/Mars/Jupiter/Saturn were in one of the key areas at the time of their birth were more likely to "inherit" the same celestial element in a key area at the time of their offspring's birth as well!
This "inheritance" effect increases if both parents had the same sky gram in a key area. No other relationship was discovered between parents and their children (no sun signs, no interstellar angles, etc.). The strength of the "inherited" effect was about half of the original March effect.
Birth data and planetary positions were recorded and saved in tabs. In the end more than half a million tickets were collected. Beyond the fact that no logical explanation was found for this "star inheritance", something else didn't quite work out. It is more likely that character traits, and not a profession, will pass between parents and their children.
"Inheritance of character traits?"
Goklin rolled up his sleeves again, and over the next 10 years he collected about 2000 biographies of writers (for whom the Moon is in key areas more than usual), athletes (Mars), actors (Jupiter) and scientists (Saturn), and with the help of his wife and other assistants he extracted character traits from them. About 50,000 character traits were extracted together from all the biographies. Now it remains to find whether there is any statistical relationship between the character traits and the placement of the relevant planets. Luckily for Goklin, this time the calculations were already done with the help of computers. In 1978 the results were received: positive!
A connection was found between the attributes and the state of the heavenly bodies, even without the need for professions as mediators. Moreover, the effect found was about twice as strong! But cracks began to appear.
A repeat of the original "inheritance" experiment in 1976 with nearly 20,000 new pairs of parents and their children produced weak results. Another repeat in 1984 with 33,000 pairs showed no effect. In other words, it is not clear if there is an inheritance effect at all.
In addition, after Goklin realized that something about the way the calculations were performed regarding the features was wrong, he repeated them and the effect almost disappeared.
Furthermore, the features were translated from French to English, a fact that left room for interpretation. Also, the traits were extracted from the biographies after Goklin already knew what the appropriate star position was for each case. These two elements may cause biases in translation and selection, even if not consciously. Goklin admitted that it is very possible that there was a bias in the study of character traits. It is enough that only one out of every 12 traits would be translated differently, to create the entire effect found. Suitbert Ertel, another researcher (who indeed strongly supported Goquelin's findings regarding the original March effect all along) confirmed in his own studies that in this case a selective selection bias did occur the features, and that this bias alone can explain the entire finding.
So what are we left with? We are left with the original March effect and a weaker inheritance effect, which refer only to occupations and not to character traits.
on the size of the effect
So far the findings can sound amazing. But it is important to pay attention to the size of the effect, and not just to its (high) statistical significance. The size of the Mars effect is equivalent to flipping a coin with a 52% chance of success compared to the 50% expected by chance. If we take into account the tiny percentage of people for whom Goklin found the effect to be valid (only the most outstanding, about 0.006% of the population) we get an effect size of only 50.0001%. Additionally the effect seems to have disappeared around 1950.
In other words, if we use this "new astrology" (and take into account the position of these 5 celestial bodies at the moment of birth), we get a better guess than only about one customer out of a million, (if he was born before 1950). Not very useful. But it seems that this is the only thing that objective astrology has left to offer...
The situation was strange. The findings were extremely poor for the astrologers, but at the same time they were the last thing that stood the test of reality - they would not give it up easily.
On the other hand, even the most extreme scientists and skeptics were troubled by clear, illogical results, and those that, if interpreted as some kind of influence of heavenly bodies on the choice of professions, would shake science seriously.
Indeed, for about 40 years the winds raged around Goklin's research. A number of similar studies were carried out around the world in an attempt to confirm or refute Goklin's findings. And what were their results?
Depends on who you ask...
It is difficult to even summarize what their findings were, since the debates that have raged around them over the years have often caused the conclusions to be reversed. It seems that all parties entered into some kind of argument, and the skeptics also committed exactly the same "sins" they accused Goklin of.
You can read here How Goklin sums up the riots surrounding his findings, andYou can read here Summary of one of the leading skeptics who tried to disprove his findings. It is amazing to see how the same events are described in such a different way.
Suspicions regarding the manipulation of the data by Goklin are described here. The claim that comes up there is that in several dozens of cases where the birth data were disputed as to their accuracy, Goklin chose to include those that contribute to the effect, and to exclude those that do not strengthen the effect. This difference, of a few dozen people, is enough to explain the effect that was discovered (the devil likes to hide in the small details).
I find no point in going into all the details of the debates, since probably only professional astrologers (and only those who even bother to refer to research evidence) will be interested in them, in their attempt to stop the last nail from being driven into the coffin of known astrology.
Just to illustrate the extent of the controversy, the documents that dealt with the subject spanned no less than 3 meters on Goklin's bookshelves!
(Neo-Astrology 1991:36)
After reading a lot of material on the subject, and being impressed by the arguments of all parties, I chose to adopt the opinion that Goklin's findings were genuine, that is, the findings cannot be explained by incorrect processing of the data or charlatanism. The phenomenon exists. Now, and only now comes the next step - what could be the explanation for the strange findings?
Can anyone think of an explanation for Goklin's strange findings, one that does not assume the influence of celestial bodies on people? (Let's assume that his data processing is correct and that he did not distort or cheat in any way, not even inadvertently). Hint - pay close attention to when the effect "works" and when it doesn't.
Next time I will tell about such a possible explanation for the findings.
* This record is actually a translated summary from this source , where you will find many more details.
20 תגובות
1. Astrology has about the same amount of truth in it, like Kabbalah readings in coffee, calling people of all kinds, in fathers and other contracts and delusions. Is there a serious person who is going to conduct a real and lengthy study on all of these - let alone astrology?
2. At the end of every year, in every country, all astrologers publish their predictions for the next year, in which they indicate what will happen to the country, to this or that leader, to people with this or that luck. Their "predictions" matched him by percentages no greater than a guess. Remember that in the twenty years before Hafez Asad's death, about half of all astrologers predicted his death towards the new year, and precisely when he finally breathed his last, no one expected it.
2. Almost every newspaper in the world publishes an astrological "forecast" every day about the people of each zodiac sign. If you take a hundred newspapers from different countries - will you find any similarity in their predictions for each of the zodiac signs?
3. Today's astrologers refer to all the planets in their predictions (including Pluto), and astrologers about 200 years ago gave predictions without knowing about the existence of Neptune, Uranus and Pluto. Were their predictions correct? And if so how?
4. Would it be a mistake to say that the same Goklin who published so many books (probably bestsellers) did quite a bit "for his home"?
My opinion is that astrology is based on science to about the same extent as the program on channel 10 "Time of Mysticism"
It features 3-5 people including an astrologer, a coffee reader, a spirit communicator, a cabalist, etc., who with abysmal seriousness "predict" the present and the future on almost every subject.
They forgot to mention that there is a very strong correlation (almost 100%) between the date of birth of the people, and their level of stupidity.
It turns out that with most people, the matter is so sensitive, that the very fact that they were born at all greatly strengthened the attribute of stupidity.
The astrological effects are very negligible compared to this effect.
This effect can be scientifically proven: it can be seen that people usually, instead of looking at their level of stupidity, look for astrological effects written by other stupid people.
To the other me - exactly the first thought that came to my mind as soon as I read the article. Strengthens your opinion and generally recommends the wonderful book.
To 'the people':
This is what is called: 'underreading'..
Tongue,
And when you are already connected to the sixth sense, I recommend that you read the most successful Torah of all:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumpology
And remember that the disqualifier in Momo disqualifies...
Tongue,
And when you are already connected to the sixth sense, I recommend that you read the most successful Torah of all:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumpology
And remember that the disqualifier in Momo disqualifies
Hi Sean!
There is no doubt that there is an influence of the heavenly bodies on every event that takes place on Earth
You can see the tides as a result of the relationship between the moon and the earth
You can see the effect of the sun's rays on the earth
It is easier to detect on the surface of the skin the effect of the radiation on it is really not the wisdom of the eye, the person also suffers.
But seeing the five senses as a direct link to human behavior is already much more complicated, and that's why science is so frustrated, so what do they do, they just say it's bullshit and there are countless curses.
Shawn will be satisfied if you start reading the literature related to astrology, try to activate your sixth sense or your ability to understand the behavior of your friends and see what is in common between your understanding of the behavior and character of your friends versus what you succeed in deciphering the birth chart - so the project regarding your wife, your girlfriend, your brother as a start ,
Shawn:
There is no reason to look for a reason that will explain why what doesn't work - works.
Astrology does not work and therefore there is no reason to look for an answer to the question of how it works.
By the way - the gravitational field and the electromagnetic field of the baby's house and even of the people around him are much stronger than those of the stars.
Besides - where did you get the wink that "the human brain at birth is extremely sensitive to electrical signals picked up by the 5 senses"?
You should also read my response:
https://www.hayadan.org.il/astrology-in-a-trail-4-0012113/#comment-319036
Hello everyone 🙂 I'm thinking out loud - I'd love to hear comments:
The human brain at birth is extremely sensitive to electrical signals received by the 5 senses,
A planet in our galactic neighborhood - it has a magnetic field, gravity, mass and other properties that can generate or block electrical signals
Could it be that the relationship between the position of the stars and human characteristics is the result of prolonged exposure or the lack of exposure to a field or electric charge resulting from the position of some star (or perhaps blocking another source) and thus stimulating the brain "toward" a profession/ability?
And if we talk about chargers - maybe this is the reason that the relationship almost disappears after a certain year when the "load" of chargers and fields in modern hospitals eliminates/reduces them?
I'm just looking for something physical that can have an effect...
I do not agree with "that the scientific tools do not have the methodology to statistically find the connection between them and the external reality"
In my opinion, if we talk about "objective astrology" then the scientific tools are the method to find the connection... these are exactly the studies that appear here - and the connection is not found.
so maybe :
"...that any connection between them and external reality has never been found empirically, nor is it possible in principle to find it in any way according to the astrologers, because..."
I added "according to the astrologers" because, as mentioned, I don't think so. In my opinion, if there is a relationship, it is relatively easy to accept it.
And if no connection can be found, then how did they develop astrology in the first place?
That is, how did they come to the conclusion that metaphorical meaning is X and not the opposite of X?
I don't understand the statement "external reality"
I think it can be formulated as follows:
"Astrology is a mystical Torah designed to give meanings and guidance to its clients on the basis of metaphorical symbols, the scientific tools do not have the method to statistically find the connection between them and external reality, nor is there in principle the possibility of finding it in any way whatsoever, due to the enormous complexity of the Torah and the many internal contradictions within it, contradictions That only a skilled astrologer knows how to solve in a face-to-face meeting with the client, through discussion with him, or alternatively only the client is able to find out from the many details offered before him those that he feels are relevant to him."
I added the word "external" to reality. Now it's all right?
"Astrology is a mystical Torah designed to give meanings and guidance to its clients based on metaphorical symbols, any connection between them and external reality has never been found, nor is it possible in principle to find it in any way whatsoever, due to the enormous complexity of the Torah and the many internal contradictions within it, contradictions that only a skilled astrologer knows how to resolve In a face-to-face meeting with the client, out of discussion with him, or alternatively, only the client is able to find out from the many details offered before him the ones he feels are relevant to him."
Gilad Bravo
Most of what you wrote is acceptable to me, only the subject of reality is really a subjective matter for the client, he determines whether what I told him is realistic or not (long live the freedom of choice God gave us)
Abi C,
So can you agree with me on the following wording:
"Astrology is a mystical Torah designed to give meanings and direction to its clients based on metaphorical symbols, any connection between them and reality has never been found, nor is it possible in principle to find it in any way whatsoever, due to the enormous complexity of the Torah and the many internal contradictions within it, contradictions that only a skilled astrologer knows how to resolve in a meeting Face to face with the client, through discussion with him, or alternatively only the client is able to find out from the many details offered before him the ones he feels are relevant to him."
If not (I guess something won't show to you), I would appreciate it if you could change/update and write a short definition of astrology, as you understand it.
monument
It really doesn't convince any astrologer if Goklin feels sympathy for astrology (maybe he is a good money crowd to conduct research to scientifically prove that astrology is invalid?).
Who are the astrologers you claim are waving Goquelin's studies to prove the science of astrology.
Astrologers are really not stupid and know the limits of science to prove something beyond it.
Once again you repeat a slogan that has nothing to do with the scientific style of the site - regarding the nonsense or not of someone who believes or thought that something is true about abstract or spiritual things is so irrelevant to the method of astrology that she does not ask and is bothered that there is a public that wants to tattoo you (only if you behave Like in the Inquisition and put all the non "rational" people who are 99.9 percent of the population on the stake
In the world.
The people
You mixed two things here like a burnt cake.
1. The appeal of the research to things related to faith is limited, it is probably true.
2. So why is it less true if the research is limited - because it suits you to think so?
3. And again you repeat the negation of astrology as a fact while there is no astrologer who claims that the method of astrology is an objective fact or a fact as a rule of hashish freedom of choice and saying of astrology "everything is predictable but the permission is given"
4. What do you think and how do you know how much there is or is not for those who practice astrology - is your determination scientific??
Abi C,
Somewhat ironically, Goquelin was the most serious researcher to find something in the apparent favor of astrology, something that the good skeptics have labored for many years trying to disprove, and not quite succeeding.
The astrologers like to wave his findings (very selectively of course) to demonstrate that astrology
"Research proof".
Furthermore, many of the scholars I quote did want to believe that astrology was based on something real. Some were astrologers themselves.
People don't dedicate their lives just to prove something is utter nonsense, even though that might be the conclusion at the end of their lives.
To the people - even the biggest skeptics believe in something...
And for everyone else - there are so many factors that can influence character and life choices that it is simply unquantifiable with current technology. It is easiest to look for obvious connections such as horoscopes.
There is an interesting study about child athletes (hockey team I think) that I read about in Malcolm Gladwell's book "Excellent" where there is a connection between outstanding athletes born in January and the less successful ones born in December. If you look at this characterization simply, you can make a big mistake about why children born in January are better at sports than those born in December - Capricorn versus Sagittarius??
The real reason is of course that there is a big difference in the strength and size of children born in January and those born in December (almost a year of growth) and this is also related to the recruitment dates of the athletes for the league teams.
These connections are a little more difficult to discover when astrology and mysticism shine with all their seductive intensity...
to my father c,
Indeed, the ability of research to challenge belief is limited to say the least, but, that does not make it any less true.
People believe because people believe, people also play the lottery and do a host of other irrational actions.
Bottom line is astrology is not factually correct.
If you want to feel warm and pleasant feelings towards her - that's your right.
I will not deny that belief in astrology is inextricably linked to the current situation of astrologers.
monument
Does it mean that Goquelin was the most serious researcher in proving that astrology is not a science?
Because there are no studies by astrologers to prove that astrology is a science (just as there are no scientists trying to prove that science is mysticism/spirituality).
Gilad, you can adopt Goklin's research if it relaxes you, you can also put a nail in the coffin of astrology if it makes you sleep well.
But never you nor any research could do anything to the astrological method nor to the public who are willing to regard astrology in a positive and interested way.