AIBU to be irritated with the amount of scare-mongering crap being spouted about the terrible occurrances in Japan etc.

[ArfurBrain]

all the people full of shit about the earthquake being down to the so-called mega-moon this weekend (er, a big full moon CANNOT affect tectonic plates shifting, you ignorami),apocalyptic 2012 predictions (hmm yes, the Mayans who couldn't foresee the end of their own civilisation coming...), global warming causing all the recent natural disasters (again, not recycling or turning off the lights isn't going to cause earthquakes.)etc etc etc.

Actually I don't care if you think I am BU, I just need to get this off my chest before I upset some gentle wooooooo-wafting soul, to be honest.

There is not a good reason why because it is not true. How do you imagine the moon could possibly impact on the timing of onset of women?

Answer: it can't.

LaWeasel: nuclear accident stats make very interesting reading, especially if you compare them to the stats for coal mining and oil and gas exploration. Yet people still seem to think that conventional powerplants are safer than nuclear.

confuddled: Do more women go into labour on a full moon? Or is this just one of those things that 'everyone knows' but no-one has ever actually demonstrated.

It's perfectly possible that the moon does have an effect on people's behaviour, and possibly even childbirth, but the only way this could be is via moonlight.

If it was due to a tidal effect, you would expect an equal peak at both full moon and new moon, which have equal tidal strength (spring tides).

The moon is still THERE when not full, and still exactly the same distance from earth. What difference does it (could it) make that sometimes some of it is in shadow?

Ask in your local maternity department. I'm sure they'll be able to tell you if it's their busiest time. Mine certainly has said that. They told me I'd be transferred saying "unfortunately you came in during a full moon" the MW and ambulance that took me commented that I'd chosen the wrong time.

Maybe the reason everyone knows it is because it happens. Baroque has stated it happens where she works, is she lying or just going along with what everyone says?

If the moon is going to exert a higher gravitational pull on saturday night (that much seems to be scientifically verifiable), I am taking no chances.

We will all sleep with our ankles tied to heavy items of furniture. I don't want to wake in some nightmare 'Ground Control to Major Tom' scenario.

Big Moon Plan joins Zombie Plan in our household manual.

you can ask all you like, doesn't mean its got any basis in fact.

Is it lying to say you see a difference at X time? Clearly not. It is however ridiculous to assert that obviously this difference in X time is because of the perception of the size of the moon at different times by function of er I don't know but it must be true.

Try and apply a smidge of critical thinking and you'll see the problem.

Does this mean we now have to design a Mega Moon house like the Zombie house to protect ourselves?

Ritabix, the Japanese are mostly Shinto. I know they are not atheists. It was just some lonely lunatic on youtube saying so

Lovely gibbous moon last night. We saw the man in it.

Line. You know there isn't REALLY a man, don't you

Twitter is broken. I have eaten my body weight n jaffa cakes. I blame the moon.

My hair wouldn't go right today, I blame the moon for that too.

confuddled: I'm genuinely interested by this. I would very much like to see some statistics on admissions and births vs lunar phase.

Unfortunately it's very hard to determine whether a correlation actually exists simply based on anecdotes due something called confirmation bias - that is when people remember the data that confirms their preconceptions and discount the data that doesn't.

It would be very easy to prove or disprove whether there is a correlation if we could get access to daily birth data. I'm going to have a poke around the ONS site and see if I can find it.

I went into labour with DD on mothers day. The ward was rammed and I was nearly sent away.

It was not a full moon.

I think teh actual answer is that labour wards are all understaffed!

For anyone who is interested, I'm testing the hypothesis that the phase of the moon affects births and labour onset using a daily timeseries of birth data in Quebec from 1977 to 1990 available here. This should be a big enough dataset to come up with some good results one way or the other.

The things I do to avoid housework...

I've got a hangover. Definitely the moon. Fucking bastard Mega-Moon, with his evil despotic plans*!

*Disclaimer: may be confusing it with MegaMind, the film.

I've got terrible wind. That's a weather phenomenom and I am also blaming the moon.

It was probably your wind that messed up my hair Arfur.