September 28, 2004

Full moon doesn't mean squat?

There's a full moon tonight, and it seems that some lady thinks it means nothing. I'd believe her more if she named at least one of "the studies" she's talking about, etc. That's bad research, man.

4 comments:

son rivers said...

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy"

Pragmatik said...

Well said, my friend. Science seems to want to convince us that our experience is faulty sometimes [and my own discipline is doubly guilty of that, to be sure:)] and that we are just imagining what we experience.

Holly Miller said...

I have not researched the effects of the moon on people so I cannot address it scientifically. However, just because you think there is a connection between two things, doesn't mean that it's there. For instance, if you want to buy a certain type of car, you may start seeing them everywhere. Without doing the control experiment where you count the number of that car model per total cars during both periods, you can't be sure that there are more, Honda Civics, for example. Perception is very strong and very biased. It doesn't prove that there aren't more either, there may be more, but you have to do it scientifically, not just casually.

Holly Miller said...

Oh, and I agree that if people are going to write something like "studies show" they better give the reference to the study. As a scientist, I really hate that. It makes it sound scientific and valid without it being either. Another problem of perception.