Lunar Madness As A Pseudoscience

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Pseudoscience has long since been a nuisance of real science, even today in the 21st century some people believe in it because it can offer an easy solution to an extraordinary claim. But easier doesn’t always mean right. Basing things off ancient traditions, false causation, the mass media, misunderstood science, and ignorance can lead to this belief in pseudoscience. Lunar effect or lunar madness is a pseudoscience thats was once widely accepted. Think about it, the word lunatic, describes a crazy person, luna being after the roman goddess of the moon. Lunar Madness is a pseudoscience because it is based on ancient traditions, misunderstood science, and false causation.
Lunar madness is in associated with astrology, which is tied to ancient beliefs in the position of the planets correlating with the science of the body. Hippocrates once wrote “no physician should be entrusted with the treatment of disease who was ignorant of the science of astronomy.” Even in the 17th century, when Johannes Kepler discovered that the motions of the planets followed mathematical laws, seperating the disciplines of astrology and astronomy, the moon's influence still lingered (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1316181/). Today it still is around, with phrases such as “it must be a full moon” when things start going crazy.
Before the 1970’s it was a widely believed the moon lead to a higher crime rate, as well as increased fertility,traffic accidents, crisis calls to police or fire stations, higher birth rate, increased blood loss, increased violent human behavior,suicide, mental breaks, major disasters, alcoholism, and poor sleep quality. In the book How the Moon Affects Us by Arnold Lieber, he states “the moon, via the effects of grav...

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...ese studies, some people still believe in the pseudoscience of lunar effect. Some cherry pick the data that can’t be replicated to prove their point, to hold on to an idea they believe true. An idea that is based on ancient traditions, old folklore, and myths. Maybe they just want an excuse to act a little crazy or they feel like they don’t have control and need to find something, anything to place this loss of control on, or they believe whatever they hear and see. But the truth is there is no lunar madness, it is a pseudoscience. It is false science, backed by, Appeals to ancient, or natural, wisdom, Single, or isolated, group conducting research, new laws of nature are invented to explain observations, all signs of pseudoscience. All you need is a little science and critical thinking to see what is really is true, and most likely it is the simplest explanation.

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