The putative Sun sign effect of astrological theory is re-examined in the light of present day knowledge of biology. It is hypothesised that the innate-but-non inheritable personality traits associated with the 12 sun signs are nonheterozygotic polymorphisms produced by polygenic switch mechanisms and that the seasonal entrainment of those mechanisms is the means by which the phases are stablised at their optimum ratios. The chief advantage of nonherterozygotic polymorhpism (herein called ” autogenic polymorphism”) is considered to be its ability to generate phenotypic diversity of a kind that is not subject to two critical constraints of evolutionary genetics: (1) An autogenic trait that enhances the survival fitness of the species at the cost of diminishing the adaptability or the reproductive success of affected individuals can be stabilised even if it is not balanced by any concomitant advantageous traits. (2) A tautogenic trait that enhances the survival fitness of the species by enhancing the adaptability or the reproductive success of affected individuals is not subject to hypermorphosis, even if it is not balanced by any concomitant disadvantageous traits. A hypoperiodicity, involving a seasonally entrained alternant functioning of the left and right ovaries, which are known to exhibit elements of bilateral asymmetry. A major advantage of the ovarian-alternation hypothesis is that it explains the chronobiological significance of the sun sign, or solar month, as the fundamental unit of the astrological calendar. A chronobiological periodicity is also proposed for dominance-sub dominance in man, whereby the Fire and the Earth signs are associated with dominance and the Air and the Water signs are associated with sub dominance. A simple test is described for the extraversion-introversion and the dominance-sub dominance periodicities.

Multidimensional Scaling is a set of techniques for the description of multiple variables in terms of their relative proximity; these relations, in the form of a matrix, are treated according to Euclidian principles and the solution presented as a set of Cartesian values for each variable in N dimensions, capable of spatial representation. This paper introduces the technique and applies it to the birth data of a group of individuals.

The results of national opinion polls and Mayo/Eysenck replication suggest that roughly 1 person in 3 not only believes in astrology but believes in it sufficiently to measurably shift their self-image in the corresponding direction. Observations made during a repeat of the News of the World’s test of sun sign guessing showed that the subjects had an above-average knowledge of sun signs. The level of self-attribution (determined by interview under less than ideal conditions) successfully predicted the test’s outcome for 6 out of 8 hits and 3 out of 4 misses. Successful sun sign guessing can be explained by subject selection, self attribution and cold reading.

A “time-switching” control applied to Hill and Thompson’s original 500 redheads’ birth data supported the separate significance levels claimed for their “Mars-Redhead Link” results and revealed that if a single hypothesis had been employed the significance would have been p<10-8.

Each of 122 subjects, married or in an intimate living-together relationship, ranked five descriptions, based on planetary inter-aspects only, of partners, one of which was his/her own, from “most” to “least true” of his/her actual experience. Half the sample were sent control descriptions of relationships randomly selected from the whole sample of relationships; the other half were sent control descriptions of contrived relationships between the subject and four hypothetical partners to him or her, all of whom shared the Sun-sign of the subject’s actual partner. Subjects chose the correct astrological description of their experience of their partner among the five possible positions at significantly better than chance (p<.5). Discrimination of actual partners was clearly found to be easier from random controls than from among same Sun-sign controls, though this was not statistically evaluated.

A sample of 175 mixed adults completed a 36-item questionnaire addressed to likely Pluto meanings, namely intensification, exaggeration, social power, transformation, and suppression. A comparison with Pluto aspects in the natal charts found no evidence to support any of these meanings.

Each of the authors addressed a subset of the issues raised by Dean and Loptson in Discourse for Key Topic 2: some philosophical problems of astrology (Correlation 14(2) pp32- 44). Among the points: (1) The metaphysical principle “as above, so below” can only be understood within a classical cosmology (Pierce). (2) We must be clear about our definitions of “astrology” when formulating criticisms of it. Is the critic addressing the “study of the relationships between the stars and human affairs” or the activities of astrologers? Use of the dichotomy of satisfaction versus accuracy as a way of differentiating astrology from established sciences results from blurring this distinction (Iriving). (3) As positivism became a dominant philosophy, the misapplication of the methods of natural science to other domains was a category error (Urban-Lurain) (4) The evaluation of a discipline on the basis of scientific evidence requires an understanding of the nature of such evidence and its proper interpretation. A lack of physical mechanism for phenomena in any given domain of inquiry does not preclude scientific status for the inquiry. Fate, as understood in the context of astrology, limits freedom to a lesser degree than determinism. Prediction in the context of science must not be confused with prognostication; the latter is irrelevant to evaluating the validity of scientific theories (McPherson).

Further analyses of Dwyer’s data, using aggregation to improve reliability, confirmed the conclusions of Part 1. No evidence was found that Pluto by aspect or angularity means power, suppression or transformation. The sensitivity was more than adequate to detect a worthwhile effect.

The authors tested the astrological claim that positions of planets in astrological signs at birth are related to a choice for a specific professional career. The frequencies for the position of the Sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars in sign were assessed for 5174 psychology students and 3232 engineering students. The frequencies were compared with expected frequencies but no significant relation between sun sign and profession was found. Special attention was given to the calculation of the expected frequencies. This calculation is the cause of problems in research into astrology because one has to correct for astrological factors (the time when a planet remains in a sign is not equal for all signs) and for demographic variables (births are not distributed evenly over a year). When such a correction is made figures that are striking at face value do not prove to be statistically significant. These necessary, but rather complex, corrections often are overlooked and may explain the discrepancy between lay-people who believe in astrology and researchers who cannot find any empirical evidence for astrology.

This is the second study of a series dealing with the so-called eminence hypothesis first put forward by Michel Gauquelin. Planetary effects, it was hypothesised, co-vary in extent with fame/success within samples of professions. A previous study relating degrees of sporting eminence, determined by citation frequencies, to percentages of births with Mars in key sectors had revealed a steady increase of deviation from chance for critical birth percentages with increasing eminence of sportsmen. In the present study the eminence slope hypothesis is tested with Gauquelin musicians (n=866), painters (n=1381) and writers (n=813). Increases in deviations from chance level with eminence were expected for those planet/profession combinations which had show, as a whole, in previous Gauquelin studies, significant key sector deviation. The results supported the hypotheses for Mars as well as for Saturn, in general. Overall consistent trends were also found for the Moon and for Venus. Surprisingly, however, the directions of the Venus trends were reversed for the three professions tested. This exceptional observation notwithstanding, the results remove final tenacious suspicion that planetary effects, as reported by the Gauquelins, could perhaps be due to data selection bias and/or fraud.