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This is interesting. I used to work in schools and the teachers swore the swelling of the full moon was a harbinger of bad behavior. It was a predominately fema

This is interesting. I used to work in schools and the teachers swore the swelling of the full moon was a harbinger of bad behavior. It was a predominately female cohort. I wonder if it was the onset of menses sensitizing them to aggravations or if it was students misbehaving, or a combination of the two. Anyways, astrology has been kicking around for a while. Of course I wouldn't say it's the whole truth, but I expect there's something to it. Radioactive hotspots being occluded. No doubt we have a biological equivalent of bit flips. Sprinkle in some butterfly effect, viola. I do believe there were studies indicating disparate behaviors from winter-born people and their summer counterparts. Seasonality and the way that people interact with their environment in one vs another, the sensitivity to initial conditions, epigenetics... There may be more to it than meets the eye, and our ancestors just came up with an overfit model that combines an elaborate multivariate system which has been perverted.

SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
> I wonder if it was the onset of menses sensitizing them to aggravations Sorry, are you implying that women menstruate on a full moon? I'm not sure what "onset of menses" is implying otherwise.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  Just to head it off in case GP or anyone else wonders - menstrual cycles don't actually synchronize. When people see them sync it's probably just the birthday paradox
- brnaftr361 2y ago
  The article states that some women synchronize with moon cycles and even professes skeptical speculation that premodern women may have been explicitly attuned. Just putting two and two together. I know I'd be irritable if I had to deal with that kind of pain and the various other symptoms with it - certainly not trying to point blame, after all most of the "trouble" was always trivial. And it may not be my cohort directly, but various other people. It's not hard to imagine knock on effects. Though I wouldn't discount that causality may lie elsewhere if not outright bias. More curtly, yes, I'm not implying but outright stating on the basis of the article.
  - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
    The article is referencing a paper that says that sometimes women's cycles synced with lunar luminosity. They were looking at women whose cycles weren't 28 days over decades. I have my doubts.
darby_nine 2y ago
I have also run into this, but it was a nigerian male. I've heard of similar beliefs among men (and women) in certain parts of east asia, and I'm just a dilettante with little cross-cultural insight. Given how widespread the lunar calendar was before the globalized economy across entire cultures (and indeed remains so strong today), and combined with my anecdotal observations proving counter-evidence, I'd be very skeptical about any claims that suggest a dominating force of gender or phenotypic sex. Unfortunately I can't even access the article to see what the research actually says.
tcmart14 2y ago
Nurses have something similar also. At the hospital my wife works at, they say full moons are always when the patients are the craziest. Lots of nurses also call out when its a full moon at the hospital she is at.
- IshKebab 2y ago
  Almost like reporting bias is a thing. Nah must be the moon.
- dieselgate 2y ago
  My late mom was a labor and delivery nurse and worked nights. She’d always talk about how many babies are born on a full moon, or say thing like “ugh it’s gonna be such a busy shift it’s a full moon.” I believe it. I usually feel a bit “manic” and have more trouble sleeping during full moons
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
    Maybe it's harder to sleep when there's moonlight coming through your windows?
  - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
    Studies haven't found a link between births and the moon phase. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15902138/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15902138/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/758594/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/758594/
- eadler 2y ago
  this is a fun paper Rotton, J., & Kelly, I. W. (1985). Much ado about the full moon: A meta-analysis of lunar-lunacy research. Psychological Bulletin, 97(2), 286–306. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.97.2.286 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.97.2.286 Although this meta-analysis uncovered a few statistically significant relations between phases of the moon and behavior, it cannot be concluded that people behave any more (or less) strangely during one phase of the moon than another. Unfortunately, the lunar hypothesis is so general that it can handle any result. It is not enough to show that lunacy is more likely to occur during full phases of the moon than other phases, as folklore and superstition suggest. Adopting a more limited but common view of lunar influences, one must conclude that evidence for the lunar hypothesis fails to pass three crucial tests. The first and most important is replicability. For every study that has recorded more lunacy when the moon is full, another has recorded less. A second test, which should be regarded as a substitute for replicability, is statistical significance. Even when a large number of results are combined, one cannot reject the null hypothesis of no relation between phases of the moon and behavior at conventional levels of significance. A third and closely related test is predictability. Given the task of predicting people's behavior, knowingthe moon's phase reduces our uncertainty by less than 1%. Taking a cue from this review's title, some may conclude that all we have written is "much ado about nothing." Because the topic borders on the paranormal, it is easy to dismiss lunar-lunacy research as ridiculous (Levy, 1975) and unworthy of serious consideration. However, psychologists need to take the topic seriously because, if for no other reason, so many people believe that their behavior is influenced by the moon. For example, Angus (1973) found that 74% of the nurses working in one psychiatric setting believed that the moon affects mental illness.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
HPsquared 2y ago
The "star signs" thing probably has a kernel of truth to it. Someone born in winter will have a different early life to someone born in summer. In a modern context this carries through to schooling: they'll either be older or younger than their year-group peers.
- jimbob45 2y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goNYdaOMm6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goNYdaOMm6Y What you're saying does seem to have some research backing it up. There are better links for this subject but I just don't have them on-hand.
- robocat 2y ago
  There's a natural control group: population of Southern Hemisphere versus Northern Hemisphere. Anecdotally (living in the Southern Hemisphere) I have yet to hear a starsign beleiver here suggest we behave like our 180° different sign.
  - HPsquared 2y ago
    True, but the world population isn't distributed symmetrically: there aren't many living at high latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere. See graph "population by latitude" here: https://www.statsmapsnpix.com/2021/11/world-population-by-latitude.html https://www.statsmapsnpix.com/2021/11/world-population-by-la... There are quite a few people living North of 45°N, but hardly any South of 45°S.
- IncreasePosts 2y ago
  That seems more of a function of the effect of school-year cutoff timing(eg you must be 5 by Oct 1 to attend kindergarten, or whatever) more so than when someone is actually born.
concernedctzn 2y ago
We still have a common word for this: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lunatic https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lunatic

SketchySeaBeast 2y ago

> I wonder if it was the onset of menses sensitizing them to aggravations Sorry, are you implying that women menstruate on a full moon? I'm not sure what "onset of menses" is implying otherwise.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
Just to head it off in case GP or anyone else wonders - menstrual cycles don't actually synchronize. When people see them sync it's probably just the birthday paradox
brnaftr361 2y ago
The article states that some women synchronize with moon cycles and even professes skeptical speculation that premodern women may have been explicitly attuned. Just putting two and two together. I know I'd be irritable if I had to deal with that kind of pain and the various other symptoms with it - certainly not trying to point blame, after all most of the "trouble" was always trivial. And it may not be my cohort directly, but various other people. It's not hard to imagine knock on effects. Though I wouldn't discount that causality may lie elsewhere if not outright bias. More curtly, yes, I'm not implying but outright stating on the basis of the article.
- SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
  The article is referencing a paper that says that sometimes women's cycles synced with lunar luminosity. They were looking at women whose cycles weren't 28 days over decades. I have my doubts.

darby_nine 2y ago

I have also run into this, but it was a nigerian male. I've heard of similar beliefs among men (and women) in certain parts of east asia, and I'm just a dilettante with little cross-cultural insight. Given how widespread the lunar calendar was before the globalized economy across entire cultures (and indeed remains so strong today), and combined with my anecdotal observations proving counter-evidence, I'd be very skeptical about any claims that suggest a dominating force of gender or phenotypic sex. Unfortunately I can't even access the article to see what the research actually says.

tcmart14 2y ago

Nurses have something similar also. At the hospital my wife works at, they say full moons are always when the patients are the craziest. Lots of nurses also call out when its a full moon at the hospital she is at.

IshKebab 2y ago
Almost like reporting bias is a thing. Nah must be the moon.
dieselgate 2y ago
My late mom was a labor and delivery nurse and worked nights. She’d always talk about how many babies are born on a full moon, or say thing like “ugh it’s gonna be such a busy shift it’s a full moon.” I believe it. I usually feel a bit “manic” and have more trouble sleeping during full moons
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  Maybe it's harder to sleep when there's moonlight coming through your windows?
- SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
  Studies haven't found a link between births and the moon phase. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15902138/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15902138/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/758594/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/758594/
eadler 2y ago
this is a fun paper Rotton, J., & Kelly, I. W. (1985). Much ado about the full moon: A meta-analysis of lunar-lunacy research. Psychological Bulletin, 97(2), 286–306. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.97.2.286 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.97.2.286 Although this meta-analysis uncovered a few statistically significant relations between phases of the moon and behavior, it cannot be concluded that people behave any more (or less) strangely during one phase of the moon than another. Unfortunately, the lunar hypothesis is so general that it can handle any result. It is not enough to show that lunacy is more likely to occur during full phases of the moon than other phases, as folklore and superstition suggest. Adopting a more limited but common view of lunar influences, one must conclude that evidence for the lunar hypothesis fails to pass three crucial tests. The first and most important is replicability. For every study that has recorded more lunacy when the moon is full, another has recorded less. A second test, which should be regarded as a substitute for replicability, is statistical significance. Even when a large number of results are combined, one cannot reject the null hypothesis of no relation between phases of the moon and behavior at conventional levels of significance. A third and closely related test is predictability. Given the task of predicting people's behavior, knowingthe moon's phase reduces our uncertainty by less than 1%. Taking a cue from this review's title, some may conclude that all we have written is "much ado about nothing." Because the topic borders on the paranormal, it is easy to dismiss lunar-lunacy research as ridiculous (Levy, 1975) and unworthy of serious consideration. However, psychologists need to take the topic seriously because, if for no other reason, so many people believe that their behavior is influenced by the moon. For example, Angus (1973) found that 74% of the nurses working in one psychiatric setting believed that the moon affects mental illness.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

HPsquared 2y ago

The "star signs" thing probably has a kernel of truth to it. Someone born in winter will have a different early life to someone born in summer. In a modern context this carries through to schooling: they'll either be older or younger than their year-group peers.

jimbob45 2y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goNYdaOMm6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goNYdaOMm6Y What you're saying does seem to have some research backing it up. There are better links for this subject but I just don't have them on-hand.
robocat 2y ago
There's a natural control group: population of Southern Hemisphere versus Northern Hemisphere. Anecdotally (living in the Southern Hemisphere) I have yet to hear a starsign beleiver here suggest we behave like our 180° different sign.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  True, but the world population isn't distributed symmetrically: there aren't many living at high latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere. See graph "population by latitude" here: https://www.statsmapsnpix.com/2021/11/world-population-by-latitude.html https://www.statsmapsnpix.com/2021/11/world-population-by-la... There are quite a few people living North of 45°N, but hardly any South of 45°S.
IncreasePosts 2y ago
That seems more of a function of the effect of school-year cutoff timing(eg you must be 5 by Oct 1 to attend kindergarten, or whatever) more so than when someone is actually born.

concernedctzn 2y ago

We still have a common word for this: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lunatic https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lunatic