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Topic: The Luna Effect (Read 780 times) |
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Fox
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The Luna Effect
« on: 2007-06-26 21:19:41 » |
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Police put more officers on beat to tackle 'full-moon violence'.
Source: The Independent
Author: Tom Pugh
Date: 06 June 2007
Extra police will be deployed on the streets of Brighton during full moons after officers linked levels of violent crime and the lunar cycle.
Sussex Police said research by the force into factors which influenced people's behaviour found a correlation between violent and unruly incidents and full moons, with a rise in aggressive behaviour in pubs and nightclubs in the south coast resort. A Sussex Police spokeswoman said more officers would be assigned to street patrol duties during full moons over the summer months.
Inspector Andy Parr said: "I compared a graph of full moons and a graph of last year's violent crimes and there is a trend. People tend to be more aggressive."
The link between full moons and extremes in human behaviour has been identified in past scientific studies. Professor Michal Zimecki, of the Polish Academy of Sciences, analysed dozens of studies that take lunar activity into account, and argued that a full moon could affect criminal activity and health. One such piece of research, a three-month psychological study of 1,200 inmates at Armley jail, Leeds, in 1998, found a marked increase in violent incidents during the first and last quarter of each lunar month.
But despite the wealth of evidence suggesting a link, no one has been able to explain it. Some believe that as humans are mostly made of water, the lunar gravity pulls us just as it does the sea.
[Fox: Sounds fishy, doesn't it? What follows is my own take on the matter. Feel free to contribute.
What we have here is a common myth otherwise know as the lunar effect, of which, if you follow the link, there is more scientific data against then there are assertive observations for. Given the lack of evidence to justify these observations I’m going to suggest that events, like the one described here, are little more than hyped up coincidental illusions, possibly suffering from the observer-expectancy effect and which can be traced to three common factors: psychological bias, a lack of understanding of physics, and often enough a hyped up circus media. Another good example of lunar trickery is the moon illusion for example, where the moon appears larger then normal nearer the horizon but actually remains unchanged. Conventional observations commonly fall victim to this optical illusion.
But then the lunar cycle isn’t all mass illusion. Adaptation to periodic variations and change in conditions of certain environments can be of evident value and motivation to some animals; for instance, lunar activity can instigate secondary effect psychological changes in nature – meaning that lunar cycles can often be related to certain animals and plants via memetically developed/inherited cognitive psychological traits and stimuli when certain conditions arise. For example, we know that the moon affects the ocean tides (an effect known as the tidal force) by exerting a gravitational pull and making them stronger than usual. This type of change can affect the food supply for many types of shorebirds and marine life. As a result their behaviour/activity (such as hunting paths or perhaps types of prey) may deviate. There is also the spawning of the horseshoe crab, which seems to peak around times that correlate with full and new moon tidal patterns. In other cases organisms are simply responding to the changes in light, which may (for example) provide nocturnal predators with better hunting grounds, thus influencing their behaviour. Photoperiodic plants are also quite capable of processes that respond to light in levels much lower than those reflected by a full moon - which generates much more far-red light than sunlight. This influences the phytochrome and behavior of many flowering plants, converting them to their inactive form.
You also have some scientists who believe that, as humans are mostly made of water, the moons gravity has an effect on our bodies, brains, neurons, endocrine system, just as it does the sea.
Gravity having a tidal force type effect on us based on that around 70% of our body is made up of water? This doesn't sound at all feasible to me; the physics and mathematics just don’t add up. Reason one, by my odds, being that the force of gravity would be to weak to manipulate (with any obvious effect) the brain’s much stronger electromagnetic activity; reason two, that our brains don’t contain enough mass for lunar gravity to directly have any kind of transcranial magnetic stimulated effect (neuropsychologically). And reason three being that a person walking around New York city will be affected more by the gravitational force of the buildings around them than by the moons.
People are more likely to notice things (however imaginary) which tend to support and coincide with their “beliefs” than those that do not. All in all this sounds like little more than selective attention. It’s probably due to beliefs like this that so many differing types of moonshine became global and religious in nature, such as astrology and moon worship, which should be placed more under dualism then anthropology here I feel. Perhaps we should now add senior UK police officers to the long list of believers. ]
Fox
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I've never expected a miracle. I will get things done myself. - Gatsu
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Konetzin
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Re:The Luna Effect
« Reply #1 on: 2007-06-27 16:28:57 » |
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If anything I'd expect more crime on a moonless night (when we see the un-illuminated side), since it can be quite hard to see what is going on, especially for those living in non-urban areas. 
On the other hand, maybe people committing crimes during a full moon want the maximum amount of natural illumination during the night? They might want to consider moving to Hawaii, where there is lava. It glows in the dark, you know.
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Bass
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Re:The Luna Effect
« Reply #2 on: 2007-06-27 20:21:18 » |
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Yeah I also didn't think that it was pulling on the water in our brains. The whole density thing didn't make sense to me. Maybe it is psychological, but there are some who can say there's a full moon out when they haven't even viewed it. And some like me don't have the memory nor the desire to have the dates of the full moon programmed into our heads. A thought I hold is that it might only be a few people in tune with the full moon. I myself sense things more than a little differently due to (I think) Asperger's Syndrome, a few other conditions and a love of certain substances, and can easily pick up certain other things that others don't. So maybe there is no real connection between lunar activity and most people, but maybe there's a small percentage of people who are affected. A number small enough for the numbers to turn just the way they do. Just a thought.
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