Full Moon
This isn't unusual at all.. My ex-fiance's mother was a medical director in a large urban psychiatric ER.. She said that every time there was a full moon, people would just flood in. Of course, she was a very strange and superstitious person herself, but there actually was just a larger volume of people having psychiatric crises when there was a full moon.
The same is not true, however, of medical emergencies.. maybe because there's more light at night, so fewer car accidents? The rescue squad usually gets fewer calls when there's a full moon.. but I haven't been working with them that long, so maybe that's coincidental.
It's not fun, I'm generally a very calm and relaxed kind of guy.
The light of the moon is just reflected sunlight. The gravitational effects on individuals is minimal.
ruveyn
Douglas_MacNeill
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Interesting.
But talk about the full moon made me think about
a sociological study of murder rates during the
first few days after a nationally televised heavyweight
fight versus other days. It turns out that
murder rates do increase for the first four days or so after
such a match, said a sociologist from University of
California--San Diego named David Phillips.
Here's the reference:
Philllips, David P. (1983). The Impact of Mass Media Violence
on U.S. Homicides. American Sociological Review 48, 8
(August): 560-568.
I had heard about that link between violent sport on TV and murder. I have also heard the tale about people going to mental hospitals around the full moon.
But I have never noticed an effect on myself.
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Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man !
Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.
thyme
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The full moon has the opposite effect on me. It makes me happy and just full of energy! Even when I don't know its a full moon till it gets dark and I can see it. Or sometimes its so overcast you cannot see if its a full moon till it clears up. When I go to bed I open the curtains so I can look up at it as i'm falling asleep.
I've also noticed people on the roads drive carelessly and reckless when there's a full moon. That is why I try not to drive very much on those days.
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O RLY?
Could just be confirmation bias - you remember al the full moons where you felt strange, and forgot those where you felt ok.
"Confirmation bias refers to a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to notice and to look for what confirms one's beliefs, and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts one's beliefs. For example, if you believe that during a full moon there is an increase in admissions to the emergency room where you work, you will take notice of admissions during a full moon, but be inattentive to the moon when admissions occur during other nights of the month. A tendency to do this over time unjustifiably strengthens your belief in the relationship between the full moon and accidents and other lunar effects."
http://www.skepdic.com/confirmbias.html
I lack the emotion of belief [and faith]. It either is or it isn't.
If the cycle of the moon affects you due to the differences of ambient light at night, it does and is. In our dimensions, there needs to be a physical effect imparted on you to affect you; if we can't see the physical effect, we can work through the list of what we know and can see, and apply them to our current state and draw upon the most likely and probable cause.
Electric_Kite
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Have you taken note of the type of calls you do get?
When I worked for the vet, we'd get more stupid accidents around the full moon. Dogs or cats jumping off of second story balconies, or running full-tilt into fences and getting cut up, or knocking furniture over onto themselves, that sort of thing.
Well, science at least is based on demonstrable evidence. That is, someone can actually show you why they believe in gravity, for instance, or demonstrate why they believe that the acceleration of falling bodies with respect to the relation of gravity on earth is always 9.8 m/(s sq).
Now, there's reason to not believe a theory based on demonstrable evidence. Perhaps there are variables which cannot be explained by or are not fully understood by current science. This is where pseudo-science comes into the picture.
Interesting thought.
Here's a thought experiment to consider: Let's say there's a rule "If you're in Los Angeles then you're in California." If there are no exceptions to the rule and you find out that you're not in California, then deductive logic says you're not in Los Angeles (modus tollens logic). However, even if it's 100% true you're in California and "If LA then CA", that doesn't guarantee you're in Los Angeles (affirming the consequent). There could be another rule "If you're in San Francisco then you're in California". If A then B doesn't guarantee the reverse if B then A, but if B is found to be false that would mean A is also (only if starting assumptions are correct which is what deductive logic is).
In Science, we test an idea by saying "If theory A is true, then observation B will happen." If that's true and observation B doesn't happen, then theory A is false to the same extent our starting assumptions are correct. If observation B does happen, that still doesn't prove our theory correct, even if the two starting assumptions are true. That's why many say you only "fail to disprove" in Science. However saying you can only disprove but not prove applies only to deductive logic; at the same time it's not practical to know for sure you've disproved because deductive logic doesn't mean your starting assumptions are true, just that it's a "logically valid" conclusion.
So for example, in the case of gravity/gravitation: Newton said gravity is an attractive force that pulls the moon and the earth together, or an apple to the ground. Scientists would test that by making predictions. Einstein later came along saying gravity is not an external force but rather the bending of space and time. He said that the effects of gravitation are equivalent to acceleration, gravitational mass the same as inertial mass. Einstein's scientific explanation explained all of the evidence that Newton's did, plus Einstein's theory wins when they make testable hypotheses that put the two against each other. Since Newton's mathematics are simpler and still works in most situations, his is used more often, while the higher ups say Einstein's theories are closer to the truth. Also, the only way we could prove the law that objects fall 9.8m/s2 in a vacuum on earth would be to be everywhere at once and throughout all of history, to rule out any possibilities that there is an alternative physical principle saying that only in such and such situations it's that way, which the alternative would just as easily explain the evidence. In the mean time, all we can say is that it's beyond reasonable doubt, not necessarily the same as probably true.
History shows us that Science changes with new evidence, even if it's well tested, so can you really prove? However, the advantage of Science is we can say it's the best explanation that we have given the evidence, and still better than what layman have to say. Science can say that such and such is the most reasonable explanation.
"Confirmation bias refers to a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to notice and to look for what confirms one's beliefs, and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts one's beliefs. For example, if you believe that during a full moon there is an increase in admissions to the emergency room where you work, you will take notice of admissions during a full moon, but be inattentive to the moon when admissions occur during other nights of the month. A tendency to do this over time unjustifiably strengthens your belief in the relationship between the full moon and accidents and other lunar effects."
http://www.skepdic.com/confirmbias.html
Another concept that comes to my mind would be the availability heuristic, judging how likely something is by how easily any evidence/details comes to mind. People find thoughts of airplane crashes more vivid in their heads than car crashes, so some will freak out about it. Confirmation bias is a bias that confirms what you already believe, which also would be quite relevant. There may be some of both, and which come together for an interaction effect.
As an analogy to the lunar effects thread, likewise we can't see electrons directly. However, if they exist there should be physical consequences which logically follow. We come up with testable hypotheses which test these logical consequences. Although we can't use deductive logic to prove electrons exist, we can make it "falsifiable" and if it makes predictions than you can say the model is "practical". Similarly, if a full moon has any effect, then it would seem reasonable that there should be physical logical consequences that we can predict before a study and actually measure them. My thoughts: If any lunar effects are not large enough to beat the null hypothesis and the statistical power is high enough to detect a small effect sized, then although there could still be a very small effect, I would guess it's probably not significant enough to worry. Then at the same time, Science is always open to new evidence.
This is odd and very subjective , but at one time I could almost always discern about when a full moon was due .
My mood was affected by this ;within a day or two .
I take a lot of lecithin now(past 10 years) at bed time to help me sleep( as this does wonders here for me) and Ive noticed this full- moon- fever is allayed by this ; among many other things .
I have a serious moon issue I just gar at it for minutes or hours sometimes depending on t circumstance it is really regular for me toas I am in an attic room I have skylights so I can see it I often and everytime its out watch it
I do go a bit crazy in full moons though, more hyper but its logical as we are 75% water so the moo would effect us, Scientists and myself personally believe that the more clever or in some cases out of touch the greate th effect of lunar cycles
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