The Geoffery Dean and Ivan W. Kelly paper “Is Astrology Relevant to Consciousness and Psi?” describes an unpublished study. The study by Dean involved a large number of subjects born over a short period in 1958. In other words “time twins”.
The study tests the astrological assumption that if people are born at the same time they will have the same birth chart and thus have similar personality and life history characteristics.
Experiment
Subjects
2,101 persons born in London during March 3 to 9, 1958. The birth time of the subjects is known to the nearest 5 minutes or better. 73% were born within 5 minutes of each other, 4% were born more than 15 minutes apart.
Subject Selection
These subjects were part of a study unrelated to astrology.
Experiment
As part of the original study the subjects were periodically assessed.
Measurements at ages 11, 16, and 23 had provided for each person 110 relevant variables including test scores for IQ; reading and arithmetic; teacher and parent ratings of behavior such as anxiety, aggressiveness, and sociability; physical data such as height, weight, vision and hearing; self-ratings of ability such as art, music and sports; and various others such as occupation, accident proneness and marital status; all of which are supposed to be shown in the birth chart. (p. 188-189).
Not all variables were available for all subjects.
Controls
Included as a control were sixteen variables for the mother such as age, blood pressure and length of labour; seven leading astrologers agreed unanimously that these sixteen variables would definitely not be shown in the birth chart for the child. (p. 189).
Data Collected
The subjects were ordered by time of birth and correlations between pairs were measured. For example, subject 1 with 2, 2 with 3, 3 with 4, … 2100 with 2101. Separate correlations were made for the subject’s relevant variables and the mother’s control variables.
Results
- Was there a correlation between the time twins as predicted by astrology? No, the correlation was -0.003 with a standard deviation of 0.028 (N=1393 due to missing data).
- Was there a correlation between the control data from the mothers? No, the correlation was 0.001 with a standard deviation of 0.029 (N=2066).
- If the 110 variables were analyzed separately, was there any correlation? No more than expect by chance. There were 5 out of 110 at a confidence level of 95%. 5.5 would be expected by random chance.
- If the subjects were ordered randomly what was the correlation? -0.001, sd 0.0028 for both the subjects and mothers.
Summary
Astrology predicts that the date and time of birth determine personality characteristics that can be read from a birth chart. In this experiment there was no correlation between individuals born closely together (in approximately the same location). Any similarities of traits between the time twins was due to random chance.
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