I was thinking about this on the way home. The entire construct, from an ancient book hinting at celestial patterns, to the patterns themselves, to the stars affecting the evolution of life. It's a great core concept for the plot in a sci-fi or alternate reality book. I don't mean this in an insulting way. The idea is elegant, it's fun and believable.
I was also sitting there trying to feel the gravity around me. The jostling of my car and my own motion of course struck home immediately. I got to thinking, what if my son had a mutation which made him hypersensitive to gravity. On a subconscious level, a biological level. If he were to have this mutation, and sit down perfectly still, with no wind or nearby large objects, and slowed his heartbeat enough so that the motion it gave would possibly be paused for a fraction of a second at a time, maybe he could sense the gravity of the moon. His body would need to know where the sun was at, so it wouldn't interfere. If he was able to do this, what benefit would he gain? What would it be that would set him ahead of other people?
If he were able to take a 'sampling' in such a moment with all other variables minimized, his subconscious would need to remember it. He would have to sample in such a manner continuously, at the same place on Earth, at the same time of day, with the sun in the same position, in order to gain a sense of lunar gravity. Yet, that mutation that made him hypersensitive would need to be beneficial enough to warrant passing along to his children. Even then, his children would have to also gain a sense of all of his previous 'samplings', otherwise they wouldn't live long enough for the slow celestial motions to make themselves clear.
The very same concept that this is a long term, weak effect also derails this train of thought. While the steady pressure of wind doesn't require other samplings to have an effect, the gravity of celestial bodies does. Any organism with such a mutation would have to live long enough to sense the entire cycle. Otherwise the mutation is useless. This scenario applies to any organism, not just my son. He wouldn't live long enough to sense the pattern. In fact, aside from some species of trees and perhaps turtles, there is no replicator on Earth that lives long enough to sense an entire 179 year cycle.
The only possible way to be receptive to any non-Earth gravity is vicariously, through tides and perhaps the electromagnetic field. Lunar gravity affects the Earth's oceans perceptibly because the very weak effect that it has is spread over hundreds of thousands of square miles. The oceans, in this way, act as an amplifier for the detectability of lunar gravity. The rising and falling of tides is also a discrete effect, like wind. It either blows or it doesn't, it's either high or it's low. The same with the electromagnetic field. With gravity, the effect is in all directions and influenced by a thousand variables that make it undetectable unless spread across hundreds of thousands of square miles. The moon doesn't pull 'upwards', it only lessens the effect of Earth's gravity by varying degrees depending on where in the sky it is. If it is only just risen, the effect would be much less. If it's opposite the sun during a full moon, a majority of the influence would cancel out.
There is no evidence for Dean’s birth time fraud theory, it is solely a matter of clutching at straws to respond to the scientific evidence Gauquelin provided of the Mars Effect.
You have this backwards. With the Mars Effect being the last bastion of hope for astrology, it is the astrologers who are fervently grasping at straws to find some celestial link. After reading a lot about it, I no longer doubt the Mars Effect. Kudos to Gauquelin, it's terrible that he committed suicide. I also think it's almost criminal for the CSICOP to have been fraudulent in their examinations. The key problem is that although there is an effect, there is no evidence that it is from the gravity of Mars. Just like the hockey players mostly being born in January, cause and effect in such cases is exceptionally hard to pin down. Correlation does not equal causation.
Reread the first chapters of EP where Dawkin's talks about genetic determinism. He disclaims, disambiguates, and apologizes the entire time how he isn't an advocate of genetic determinism. We can't possibly know all the variables that affect people beyond their genes. To say that there is a 'gene' for eminent athletes goes against what Dawkin's is saying. Perhaps there are many genes which in combination increase the odds of someone being more athletic. However, they may only increase the odds, and even then doesn't guarantee them eminence. This is also a question of what happens during birth. Would some obscure sensitivity to gravity outweigh all other factors that contribute to when birth takes place?
Gauquelin's study can be repeated. As it stands, the current parsimonious explanation to the Mars Effect is that parents who gave birth away from hospitals(thus not having medical staff around to write down the time of birth) would fudge the time of birth. People lie about such things, it is human nature. If astrologers have any hope of rectifying Guaquelin's study, it should be repeated. I would be of a different mind if there were many other studies that also found correlations between planetary movements and biological processes. As it stands, this is the only one.
If a thousand studies are done, what are the chances that one of them would find a correlation that is 1,000 to 1 above chance? This is not me merely playing devil's advocate, it's the nature of how complex our world is. Any scientific hypothesis must be repeatable, otherwise it is useless. Repeating Gauquelin's study with the same test subjects is not what I mean, that correlation has been reexamined thoroughly. New test subjects should be used. If this is done, and there is yet again a correlation, and it rules out parsimonious causes, I will revisit your ideas. However, right now, the chance that gravity other than the sun and moon affects life on Earth is relegated to that special place right next to impossible. I'm not biased against this idea, I think it's wonderful and elegant. On the other hand, you're biased for this idea, so are blinded to the massive hurdles.