Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. And today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co-host, writer and researcher, Jessica Wynn. You know, every time I do this intro, I always feel like that sounds weird. And then that's when I realized you'll never be able to tell AI, because you know, AI does unnatural stuff, Jessica, where it's like, I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger.
And it's like, oh, that sounded a little weird. And that's like, no, that's actually how I really sound when I do this with my real voice for some reason. I don't know. You sound great. Thank you. I needed that.
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During the week, we have long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, and performers. On Sundays, though, it's Skeptical Sunday, where a rotating guest co-host and I break down a topic you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions about that topic, such as...
circumcision, sovereign citizens, diet supplements, the lottery, ear candling, self-help cults, bottled water, and more. And if you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on persuasion, negotiation, psychology, disinformation, junk science, crime and cults, and more.
That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today we're talking about the moon, which has been blamed for everything from crime sprees to bad haircuts to why your barista was acting sus this morning.
So the question is, is the moon actually influencing human behavior at all? Moods, actions, chaos, or are we just telling ourselves old lunar legends? The moon has always had a grip on us. It's right there. It's up there. You can see it. It shows up on a schedule. It changes shape. It feels important somehow. It has gravity, if you will. So what's actually going on up there?
Joining me to help separate real lunar effects from folklore is writer and researcher Jessica Wynn. So, Jessica, it seems like whenever something goes sideways, you get a bad mood, you get bad luck, you get a weird night, eventually someone shrugs and goes, well, it is a full moon. Like, that explains it.
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Chapter 2: What common myths about the moon are discussed?
So we're for sure this happened. This is like the accepted sciences. Wow.
Yes. Yeah. Multiple lines of evidence. Moon rocks brought back by Apollo missions are chemically identical to Earth's mantle. It's the same oxygen ratios, titanium, tungsten isotopes. And the moon has almost no iron core. So it's less than 2% compared to Earth's 30%, which makes sense if it formed from surface material.
Plus, it lacks volatile elements like water because the impact literally vaporized them into space.
I wonder if there was anything living on Earth at that time or if it was just too early. But anyway, that's a different show probably. That's a heck of an origin story. So the moon is literally born from interplanetary violence.
Yeah. And that violence changed everything. It's why Earth became habitable. So the moon sped up Earth's rotation. It stabilized Earth's axial tilt. You know, without the moon, the Earth would wobble wildly, which is what Mars does, just swings between these extreme tilts.
Ah, I didn't know that. Okay, so that would be devastating for life because we kind of need some stability. People think like, oh, winter and summer, the difference is crazy, but we don't have negative 200 degrees and positive 200 degrees or whatever. So we owe the moon the minimum. We owe it a thank you card.
Yeah, a minimum. Because it does some genuinely incredible things.
Okay, so what does the moon actually do besides give yoga instructors in LA something to discuss over matcha lattes?
Well, tides are the big one. You know, the moon's gravity pulls on Earth's oceans, creating two bulges. Oh!
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Chapter 3: How do priming and confirmation bias relate to beliefs about the moon?
It just, I don't know, it feels like it should be true.
Right. But the problem is it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how gravity and tidal forces work. The critical part is the scale. So tidal forces aren't just about gravity. They're about differential gravity. And that's different. They depend on the difference in gravitational pull across an object. So this difference in gravitational force across a large body like the ocean is
creates tidal bulges. There is a tidal force formula. It's proportional to mass times size divided by distance cubed.
Okay, so complex. Not doing that now.
The size of the object being affected is crucial. So tidal forces get stronger as objects get bigger. They get weaker very rapidly with distance. That's the distance cubed part.
Okay. So if the moon is pulling strongly on the northern part of an ocean and less so on the southern part of the ocean, the water sloshes in that direction. That totally makes sense. But your body being relatively small, we're not sloshing. We're not sloshing anywhere.
Right. It's just that oceans are massive enough for these tidal forces to matter.
Sure.
Ocean water can move freely across enormous basins, these huge connected regions of the ocean that span thousands of miles. Your body isn't like that. Water in your body is contained in cells, blood vessels, organs. It all holds water in place. So even if there were a tidal force, there's not. But even if there were, your body's structure would prevent any movement.
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Chapter 4: How does the moon influence tides on Earth?
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All my life, I've heard people say it's always crazier during a full moon, right? ERs, hospitals are supposedly more crowded on the full moon. 911 dispatchers say they're busier. Everybody's got a story. So is there any lunar effect on things like this, really?
No. But the people saying it believe it sincerely. And they're trained professionals who deal with chaos for a living. But when we look at the data, I'm talking large data sets, actual statistics, the effect just isn't there. One study looked at hundreds of thousands of ER visits. No full moon effect. Psychiatric emergencies tracked over multiple years. No correlation. Trauma admissions. Nothing.
Huh. I've also heard people swear maternity wards spike during full moons. Is there data on that? There's got to be.
That's actually been tested a lot because it is such a common claim. You know, there's millions of babies born every month from France to North Carolina to India. Hundreds of thousands of births a day. Zero correlation. And the more emergencies that are claimed, like more emergency C-sections during full moons, also show nothing. Not even a tiny blip? Nothing.
So there's another popular myth that the moon affects blood pressure. And that sounds like what you just explained with the tidal forces. And that's false, too, I'm guessing.
But I'm just surprised how much this one comes up. You know, the thing is, your blood pressure changes constantly with activity, stress, food, even your posture. So these changes are measured down to millimeters of mercury. If the moon affected blood pressure, the change would be measured in micro-units, far below anything physiological.
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