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Volume 7: Number 3: Article 4
Dutch Investigations of the Gauquelian Mars Effect
J. W. Nienhuys, Department of Mathematics and Computing Science,
Eindhoven University of Technology, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven,
The Netherlands
A team of Dutch skeptics investigated a new explanation for the Mars
effect with sports champions of Michel Gauquelin. They conjectured that
outstanding sports people might have diurnal and seasonal birth rhythms
different from average people and that moreover the short time base
of Gauquelin's observations might further enhance the effects. Essentially
their findings were negative. Simulations were either not possible because
of lack of data or showed that along these lines an explanation only
is possible if very implausible extra assumptions are made. However,
it is argued that the Gauquelin data suffer from a bias, namely some
artifact of the exploratory phase. The eminence effect of Ertel is shown
be too weak to draw firm conclusions about its existence. It seems plausible
that the Gauquelins did not realize that said artifact had to be tightly
controlled for.
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