OT: Phases of the moon [was Re: A Moronicity of Guido van Rossum]

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 18:02:14 -0400, Sherm Pendley wrote:

> axel at white-eagle.invalid.uk writes:
> 
>> I wonder if his postings are related to the phases of the moon? It
>> might explain a lot.
> 
> Yes, it would. Note that the word lunatic is derived from the Latin word
> luna, meaning moon.

Yes, lunatic is derived from luna, but that doesn't mean the two are
connected. The ancients believed a lot of crap (the world is flat, black
people aren't human, thunder is the sound of god's fighting, buying
over-valued dot-com stock is a good investment) and "phases of the moon
affecting behaviour" was one of them.

People are really bad at connecting cause and effect. See this thread for
a simple example:

http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=42;t=000228;p=1

A skeptical policeman who says he doesn't actually believe the moon
affects behaviour nevertheless reports that "last weekend" things were
really crazy, and it was a full moon. Somebody writes in to correct him:
no, the full moon is actually "tomorrow".

This shows how cognitive biases can fool us. Even though he was skeptical,
the cop noticed the extra crazy behaviour on this particular weekend, and
manged to fool himself into thinking it matched a full moon.

See here for more details, plus references to research:

http://skepdic.com/fullmoon.html


-- 
Steven.