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Appraisal of Shawn Carlson's Renowned Astrology Tests

Suitbert Ertel. Journal of Scientific Exploration 23(2), 2009, 125-137.

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Tier A Author, title, publisher and year checked against a publisher record, catalogue or scan. Entries may cite this.

Reliability

peer-reviewed

Kind

article

Identifiers

• publisher or record page

Accessed

2026-07-30

The reason this site does not repeat "Carlson disproved astrology". Ertel argues Carlson's design was unfair to the astrologers and that its analysis tested sub-samples rather than totals while ignoring power and effect size. On reanalysis the astrologers matched profiles to charts slightly better than chance, p = .054 on the three-way forced choice and p = .04 on the ten-point rating. Quote his conclusion rather than either side's summary of it, and quote it whole. The abstract's final sentence, verified verbatim against the publisher's own page: "The results are regarded as insufficient to deem astrology as empirically verified, but they are sufficient to regard Carlson's negative verdict on astrology as untenable". Both halves matter; shortened forms of that sentence are in circulation. Year: the printed issue is 2009 and that is the date used in every citation found, while the publisher's own digital record shows 2010, which is the date the back issue was posted. Given as 2009. No DOI: Crossref has no record of this paper, so the publisher's article page is the identifier.