Comments on Dutch Investigations of the Gauquelin Mars Effect

The first of two Dutch skeptics' attempts at disproving the Mars effect failed (Nienhuys 1993a). Contrary to the Nienhuys view, however, the second pass of the Dutch critics at the Gauquelin claiman attempt at undermining the validity of his data baseis shown to fail as well. The critics drew apparent support from my previous unearthing of a Gauquelin biasGauquelin had exempted cases from publication (Ertel, 1988). Yet they neglected the fact that any such bias had been neutralized as a result of my pooling of published and unpublished data. Specifically, a significant eminence trend was demonstrated in the unmanufactured total sample in my 1988 report. In addition, Dutch endeavours at rendering the eminence relationship insignificant either failed (even a less sensitive scale with 12 instead of 36 sector division yielded significance) or were illegitimate (splitting up of the entire sample for that purpose violates methodological logic). Thus, the present (fourth) attempt in the history of resistance against the Gauquelin challenge by organized skeptics has added two misses to their record.