Subject: Mars Effect (Re: "Crybaby")
From: [email-masked] (James J. Lippard)
Date: 20 Jan 1992 21:06 MST
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic

Not too long ago, a copy of Philip Klass's article, "Crybaby" 
was posted to sci.skeptic and the BITNET SKEPTIC mailing 
list.  This article is an unpublished response to allegations 
made by former CSICOP executive council member Dennis Rawlins 
in his October 1981 Fate magazine article, "sTARBABY," in 
which he accuses CSICOP of a "cover-up" regarding Michel 
Gauquelin's "Mars Effect."  The impression that appears to 
have been given to some people by Klass's article is that 
CSICOP really did nothing wrong, but Dennis Rawlins did.  It 
has also been pointed out that Fate magazine refused to print 
Klass's article, but I have also heard that the Skeptical 
Inquirer also declined to print it.
	I have recently taken the time to re-read the materials 
which I possess (a partial list is given at the end of this 
article) on the "Mars Effect" controversy, and I think that 
this impression is quite mistaken.  I do not wish to defend 
Rawlins against some of the attacks in "Crybaby," but I do 
wish to point out that a number of Rawlins' charges in 
"sTARBABY" are not addressed by Klass, and these charges do 
amount to wrongdoing on the part of CSICOP members.
	I do think that (with the publication of Abell, Kurtz, & 
Zelen's 1983 "Mars Effect" reappraisal) CSICOP has admitted 
most of this wrongdoing and (with the publication of Suitbert 
Ertel's "Mars Effect" article in the latest issue of the 
Skeptical Inquirer) is now on the right track regarding fair 
and open discussion of the "Mars Effect."
 
There were two tests that CSICOP had involvement in:  the 
Zelen test (which began before CSICOP and was published in 
The Humanist but involved a number of CSICOP executive 
council members and fellows) and the U.S. champions test 
(which was conducted by CSICOP and published in the Skeptical 
Inquirer).  In this message I address only the former.
 
The Zelen test was proposed by CSICOP fellow Marvin Zelen in 
order to test a possible objection to Gauquelin's "Mars 
effect."  The test was conducted by Gauquelin and showed that 
the critique failed (i.e., that the "Mars effect" still 
stood).  Klass writes, "The only way in which CSICOP, or 
persons affiliated with it, could be guilty of Rawlins' 
charges would be if they had refused to publish Gauquelin's 
results or had intentionally altered the data in his report.   
NEITHER OCCURRED.  Nor did Gauquelin accuse CSICOP or its 
members of trying to 'cover up' his results or altering the 
data of this first test whose calculations he himself 
performed, although there were some differences of 
interpretation of the implication of these results."  Klass 
goes on to say that Gauquelin did accuse *Rawlins* of 
"distortion and misrepresentation."
	All of this ignores what Rawlins actually charges on pp. 
6-11 (esp. pp. 10-11) of "sTARBABY":  That Kurtz et al., in 
their critique of Gauquelin's results in the Zelen test, 
misused and misrepresented the statistics in order to claim 
that the test did NOT eliminate the objection to the "Mars 
effect."  (Kurtz et al. recanted, at least partially, in "The 
Abell-Kurtz-Zelen 'Mars Effect' Experiments: A Reappraisal" 
in the Spring 1983 Skeptical Inquirer.)
	Klass points out that Kurtz et al. criticized Gauquelin 
on the grounds that "the 'Mars effect' only appears in Paris, 
not in Belgium or in the rest of France," but fails to point 
out that this post-hoc division of the data resulted in two 
parts, "one very small and [therefore] very unreliable; and 
one consistent with a Mars effect, but a little too small to 
achieve significance."  (The quotation is from Eric 
Tarkington in an astrological publication, Phenomena vol. 2 
no. 2; quoted in Curry (see refs. below).)  This division of 
the data was also criticized by Elizabeth Scott, a 
statistician for the skeptical side, and by Rawlins, who had 
been opposed to the Zelen test for some time.
	Klass also fails to point out that Kurtz et al. dropped 
female sports champions (there were 9) from consideration in 
their critique of Gauquelin's results, without a clear 
rationale for doing so.  Of those 9, 3 demonstrated the "Mars 
effect."
	Rawlins asked for CSICOP corrections to these errors, 
but they were not forthcoming until two years after 
"sTARBABY" was published.  This is what his talk of a "cover 
up" refers to.
 
Partial list of sources
Rawlins, "sTARBABY"
Klass, "Crybaby"
Patrick Curry, "Research on the Mars Effect," Zetetic Scholar 
	#9 (Feb/Mar 1982):34-52.
Richard Kammann, "The True Disbelievers: Mars Effect Drives 
	Skeptics to Irrationality," Zetetic Scholar #10
	(December 1982):50-65.
Jeremy Cherfas, "Paranormal-watchers fall out over the Mars 
	effect," New Scientist 92(29 Oct 1981):294.
Michel Gauquelin, "Mars effect," New Scientist 93(7 Jan 
	1982):40.
Paul Kurtz, "Mars effect," New Scientist 93(11 Feb 1982):395-
	396.
Patrick Curry, "Mars effect: last word," New Scientist 93(4 
	Mar 1982):601.

 
Jim Lippard              [email-masked]
Dept. of Philosophy      [email-masked]
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721

Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Mars Effect (Re: "Crybaby")
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
From: [email-masked] (Jan Willem Nienhuys)
Date: 21 Jan 92 10:02:28 GMT
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In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (James J. Lippard) writes:
 
[long and interesting post deleted, in which Rawlins's main grief is 
explained clearly: the Zelen test (a rather superfluous check on a
conjectured demographic explanation of the Mars effect) gave the result
that could be expected all along (to wit: that explanation doesn't hold 
water), and subsequently CSICOP-VIPs tried to squirm out of it by improper
use of post-hoc statistical arguments].

Good post!  What a pity it will be ignored and far into the future
again and again people will say either "CSICOP tried to cover up data
and sTarbaby exposed them" or "There was no cover-up as Crybaby showed".
The real truth: "there was a cover-up, not of data, but of people's 
sillyness, and it was exposed by a raving jerk and finally admitted" will 
have to be repeated over and over over again.
 
JWN