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Made By Oghenerhonor Abohweyere, Working Individually

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Definition:
This red flag involves endorsements by celebrities or a person in a lab-coat to influence a product or theory that has no scientific basis or backing.

Connection:
This Link demonstrates the appeal to authority red flag because American actor and playwright Woody Harrelson shared a link on his Instagram account with over 2 million followers stating " the negative effects of 5G". His post birthed conspiracy theories; linking 5G with covid and even resulted in phone masts being burnt in the uk.

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In the midst of a global pandemic, Woody Harrelson, John Cusack, and anti-vaxxer YouTubers are floating unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.

In early April, at least 20 cell towers in the United Kingdom had been purposely damaged or destroyed over a four-day period. The suspected reason for the vandalization? A bizarre conspiracy that's freaking out the conspiracy-minded in the U.K. and around the world.

The theory alleges a direct link between 5G equipment and the COVID-19 outbreak. Some telecoms employees have been harassed on the street for laying down 5G fiberoptic cable. In one video, viewed more than two million times, a woman confronts the workers about what they're doing, saying they're going to "kill everyone" when they're finished with their task. Many of the cell towers that have been destroyed, by the way, were actually for 3G and 4G service.

Fears about mobile phones and cell towers have existed for years, especially concerns about whether they can cause cancer. (There is currently no conclusive evidence to support this theory.) Now, as 5G networks have begun rolling out in dozens of countries, fears have renewed, and the ongoing pandemic has introduced a new set of interrelated conspiracies amplified by prominent celebrities and influencers. So how did we get here?
What is 5G?
5G stands for the "fifth generation" of mobile communication services, which promise to someday offer widespread, exponentially faster download and upload speeds than what's currently available on 4G. The 5G services have been operational since 2019 in countries including China, South Korea, the United States, Germany, and the U.K., though these services are only slowly being implemented and are not even close to fully available across any one country. According to VIAVI, a network testing company, 378 cities in 34 countries implemented 5G capabilities as of January 2020.
What is the 5G-COVID-19 conspiracy?
There are three main conspiracies centered on 5G, two of which implicate COVID-19 as well, but none of which have any evidence to substantiate them. The first conspiracy is that 5G causes COVID-19, or at least the symptoms of COVID-19 (many believers of this particular conspiracy do not believe the virus exists at all). In this sense, 5G and COVID-19 are more or less the same thing. 5G/COVID-19 is a biological weapon, and it's being released in part via 5G cell towers as a global depopulation campaign by the leaders of the New World Order.

Bill Gates is frequently mentioned as the originator of this depopulation campaign. In one popular YouTube video, a QAnon-associated conspiracy theorist, who is also an anti-vaxxer with tens of thousands of subscribers, draws a parallel between Gates's Microsoft efforts decades prior and his vaccination efforts nowadays. The theory goes that Gates's Windows program was purposely susceptible to viruses so he could make a profit on anti-virus software, and today, he's orchestrating a depopulation campaign while also speaking out about pandemic vaccination efforts so he can someday make a huge profit on a mandatory vaccine. The gist is Gates is concerned with making a profit on the vaccine-which will double as a way to track the entire human population-rather than actually designing something intended to put a stop to the deaths caused by 5G/COVID-19.

The more widespread theory is that 5G weakens the immune system through radiation, thus making you more susceptible to COVID-19. Evidence has been offered in the form of United States maps, which allegedly show that the cities with 5G coverage have been most affected by COVID-19 outbreaks. Of course, this ignores two realities: One, most of the areas in the U.S. with limited 5G coverage are major cities with denser populations more susceptible to an outbreak; and two, plenty of countries-namely Iran-don't have any 5G capabilities, yet have been hit the hardest by the virus.

And finally, there are the conspiracy theorists who don't believe 5G is connected at all to COVID-19. In actuality, they say, the media is covering this obviously false link solely as a distraction tactic. The media and government accomplices are trying to diminish and lump together the anti-5G folks who have otherwise-legitimate gripes about 5G causing non-COVID-19 health issues.
When did this start spreading?
As Buzzfeed documented, unverified videos about 5G from YouTubers and conspiracy theorists started emerging over the last year or so, dating back to the origins of 5G installations in major cities. These videos, which include titles like "Man Who Works on 5G Towers Exposes Dangers to Come," and "5G Tower insane radiation levels - Up to 21 times higher than safe limits!" have been shared hundreds of thousands of times, and have especially permeated Facebook. Their publishing dates, Buzzfeed writes, coincided with "the British telecom company EE [announcing] 5G service in six cities across the United Kingdom."

Since late January 2020, when COVID-19 morphed into an official pandemic, QAnon followers across social media platforms, as well as users on the r/conspiracy page, have spread their theories about potential links to 5G networks. The real-world results, beyond the cell tower destruction, are increasingly apparent. One Reddit user, whose husband works for a cable company, says he's been fielding calls from people who want to cancel their Internet over 5G concerns. "One guy apparently told him that he only coughs when he's on the Internet on his computer, but not when he's on his phone," the Reddit user added.

But ultimately, random posters on the Internet are only capable of stirring up so much false information. Wired notes that their echo chamber eventually "started to break out, propelled by engagement algorithms that were smart enough to spot a viral trend but dumb enough not to notice the idiocy of its content." A similar scenario unfolded about a month ago, when an obviously false, unrelated story about Oprah started trending due to engagement algorithms that amplified the voices of QAnon followers. And over the last week or so, it's been non-fringe figures who've noticed the relatively mainstreamed 5G conspiracies, who've in turn been weighing in with inaccurate commentary that draws far more attention to the made-up situation.

Which celebrities and influencers are spreading false information?
Actor Woody Harrelson has posted on Instagram (see here and here), spreading the idea to two million followers that 5G is exacerbating the COVID-19 outbreak. The first post, which features the caption "I haven't fully vetted it [but] I find it very interesting," is a screenshot of a theory posited by Martin Pall, PhD, a professor emeritus at Washington State University. Pall recently predicted that in five to seven years, "human brains will degenerate to the degree that normal functioning... will cease." (That's a summarization of a point Pall made at a conference in Germany last year, according to a scientist in attendance.) And Pall's big COVID-19 connection to 5G is a claim that Wuhan was China's first "smart city" to incorporate the faster network, which there's zero evidence to support. Pall's citation, in fact, comes from a website called 5G EMF Dangers. The second post from Harrelson is grainy footage purporting to show Chinese citizens toppling a 5G antenna.

Singer M.I.A. and actor John Cusack have gotten in on the action too, with a series of tweets including the ones below:

Meanwhile, a popular African pastor named Chris Oyakhilome, who has two million likes on his Facebook page, has been preaching about New World Order conspiracies that also manage to incorporate and link COVID-19 and 5G. Music producer Teddy Riley repeated a version of these conspiracies on Instagram Live, as transcribed by Huff Post:

"We're being bamboozled. We're being made to believe so many things that is not the truth. It's not for me to say, I feel like my brothers and sisters need to know. The corona, everybody know by now what it really is. It's really about this New World Order that they're trying to put in with these G5 connections." What is the actual origin of the novel coronavirus?
According to medical and scientific experts, like some other recent outbreaks, the novel coronavirus-a respiratory virus- most likely was transmitted to humans by animals. In the case of COVID-19, it was possibly bats, in a large market in the Wuhan, a transit hub of 11 million people, and then it was transmitted human to human by tiny respiratory droplets which travel through the air through talking, breathing, and coughing. Some previous pandemics, like the 1918 influenza, which infected about a quarter of the world's population, long predated cellular technology, and the virus had genes with avian origin.
What's being done to debunk the unsubstantiated claims?
In response to the rapid spread of false claims about 5G and COVID-19, YouTube says it's removing videos that violate a new policy about misleading COVID-19 information. Other "borderline" videos will be removed from YouTube's recommended page, according to The Guardian.

Plenty of scientists and doctors have separately and forcefully denounced the dangerous rhetoric about 5G and COVID-19. Dr. Simon Clarke, for instance, an associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, told the BBC the conspiracy theories were "complete rubbish." He adds, "The idea that 5G lowers your immune system doesn't stand up to scrutiny."

Most notably, in March, a German-based scientific organization called the International Commission on Non‐Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) deemed 5G to be safe. In an email to GQ, Eric van Rongen, the ICNIRP chairman, provided the following statement:

"There is no relation between 5G and [COVID-19]. The theory that 5G might compromise the immune system and thus enable people to get sick from coronavirus is based on nothing. There are no indications from scientific studies that 5G (or any other G) affects the immune system. If that would be the case, we would have seen effects on the scale and severity of infectious diseases already decades ago. And we don't.

"ICNIRP has just released new guidelines for exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields, and we considered all possible adverse health effects. The only proven effect is that of heating of (parts of) the body, and the guidelines are set to such a low level that this will not occur if they are observed. Adverse health effects resulting from effects on the immune system have not been found and thus also cannot form a basis for exposure guidelines."

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Here's the Bonkers Conspiracy Theory Blaming 5G for the Coronavirus

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In the midst of a global pandemic, Woody Harrelson, John Cusack, and anti-vaxxer YouTubers are floating unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. In early April, at least 20 cell towers in the United Kingdom had been purposely damaged or destroyed over a four-day period. The suspected reason for the vandalization?

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Definition:
This red flag promotes the idea that just because a supplement or product  is natural then it is safe. This is very far from the truth as there are many things provided by nature that have been proven by science to be poisonous/dangerous.

Connection:
This Video is connected to the All Natural red flag because the man in this video, just like a lot of other
people believe Vitamin water is healthier than soda and possesses numerous health benefits because it claims to contain vitamins like Zinc, Vitamin C, A. e.t.c.
However, studies have shown that vitamin water contains added sugar; no more than soda which is unhealthy when consumed in excess.

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Vitamin water is what i drink now (less sugar than most drinks)

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Definition:
This red flag involves the idea that methods, procedures or theories work just because the "ancients" believed it or it has been practiced for a long time

Connection:
This article talks about how traditional medicine is not necessarily true because it has been practiced for a long time. Traditional Chinese medicine uses five phase theory to describe the relationship between five "zang" and their psychological function. it also correlates between each part of the human body, nature and society. These claims are not science based and there is no evidence to factually prove it is real or works

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One of the themes of science-based medicine is to be suspicious of any form of medicine that is not science-based. In other words, beware of dodgy qualifiers placed before "medicine," such as: "alternative", "integrative", or "complementary" - those that imply that something other than science or evidence is being used to determine which treatments are safe and effective. I would also include "traditional Chinese" medicine in the dodgy category. A recent article defending Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) provides, ironically, an excellent argument for the rejection of TCM as a valid form of medicine. The authors, Jingqing Hua and Baoyan Liub, engage in a number of logical fallacies that are worth exploring.

Their introduction sets the tone:

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has a history of thousands of years. It is formed by summarizing the precious experience of understanding life, maintaining health, and fighting diseases accumulated in daily life, production and medical practice. It not only has systematic theories, but also has abundant preventative and therapeutic methods for disease.

It may be trivially true that TCM has a long history, but it is hard to ignore that the placement of this statement at the beginning of a scientific article implies an argument from antiquity - that TCM should be taken seriously because of this long history. I would argue that this is actually a reason to be suspicious of TCM, for it derives from a pre-scientific largely superstition-based culture, similar in this way to the pre-scientific Western culture that produced the humoral (Galenic) theory of biology.

The next line is an admission that TCM is largely based on anecdotal information, described as the "precious experience" of life. This is a point that is often overlooked or not understood by proponents but central to the scientific/skeptical position - what is the value and predictive power of "precious experience" in developing a system of medicine?

I maintain that there are many good reasons to conclude that any system which derives from everyday experience is likely to be seriously flawed and almost entirely cut off from reality. Obvious short term effects, the lowest hanging fruit of observation, are likely to be reliable. Uncontrolled observation is a reasonable way to discover which plants, for example, are deadly poisons. This is likely to produce some false positives but few false negatives, which is fine for survival.

Other obvious effects, like nausea, diarrhea, and psychedelic effects are also easy to discover. Similarly it was probably obvious that people need to eat, breathe, and drink in order to stay healthy and alive. But records of pre-scientific thinking about health and disease shows that little else was.

Pre-scientific doctors thought, for example, that pus was a good thing, a sign that a wound was healing. They also did not realize that removing blood from the body was harmful, because they did not understand the vital physiological effects of blood and had fanciful superstitious notions about its role in the body.

So there are severe practical limits to what uncontrolled life experiences could figure out about health and disease. Every culture figured out some basic things, like local plants that had some uses, how to treat some forms of trauma, and to midwife childbirth, but could not figure out the complexities of biology, physiology, anatomy, biochemistry, genetics, infection and disease pathophysiology and epidemiology.

Understanding health and disease took a more sophisticated method of observing nature - science.

How, then, could a pre-scientific culture without any knowledge of modern biology and without the methods of science develop a valid and effective system of medicine? The answer is - they couldn't. In addition, there is now a large body of psychological research showing the many ways in which people systematically deceive themselves when it comes to finding correlations and making assumptions about cause and effect.

There is nothing about the Chinese culture or the Chinese people that should make them exempt from these documented psychological effects, or that would make their culture unique among the world's cultures in stumbling upon notions about health and illness that were actually correct. It is extreme cultural hubris to think otherwise. When the institution of medicine in the West incorporated scientific methods as the standard of determining which treatments were safe and effective, and in understanding disease, over time almost everything that constituted "traditional Western medicine" was overturned. The "precious experience" of centuries of Western medicine resulted in largely worthless or harmful treatments, from blood-letting to toxic mineral-based treatments.

The same is true for every other culture, including Asian culture. As evidence for this, in my opinion, is the very description of TCM given by the authors. They give a description of TCM philosophy, breaking it down into three components. The first is yin-yang:

According to the theory of yin-yang, all opposite matters in the universe, which are interrelated with each other or two opposite aspects within one matter, can be defined as yin or yang.

This is a "push-pull" philosophy of health - but it is just that, a philosophy. Nothing has been discovered in physiology that correlates with yin-yang, that would lead to the prediction that a yin-yang systems exists, or supports the existence or effects of yin-yang. It is just a made-up notion without any basis in physical reality - just like the balancing of the four humors of Galenic medicine.

Defenders of yin-yang, however, will often make superficial comparisons to any system in the body (and other areas of science) that has a basic duality or dichotomy. They then argue that this is "yin-yang". However, such an interpretation renders yin-yang vague and non-specific enough to be worthless. As with the predictions of Nostradamus, humans are good at retrofitting - finding apparent correlations. Many systems in the body exist in a certain balance, and many systems are interrelated. Some of these systems may have two dominant components (sympathetic vs parasympathetic), but others have three or more (such as the complex interplay among the various neurotransmitters in the brain).

Any variable (blood pressure, heart rate, GI motility, temperature, etc,) can be either increased or decreased - an inherently dichotomous situation. So it is trivial to call any such variable evidence of "yin-yang". But yin-yang does not have any specific existence, nor does it provide any specific insight into physiology. In has no more of a relationship to actual biology than Galenic medicine, which can be said to have contained the insight that the body contains a balance of various fluids. This is also true, but trivially and non-specifically so.

Next is the five phases:

The five phases theory defines the nature of matters based on the related characteristics of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. The five phases maintain the generation and restriction relationship among them. TCM uses five phase theory to describe the relationship between five zang and their physiological function, five zang and structure and function of various parts of the human body, and also the correlation between each part of human body and nature and society.

Your liver, apparently, has the aspect of wood. This is an elaborate belief system, just like astrology, and has as much validity. It is rather poetic, also like astrology, and one can understand how a pre-scientific society would develop such ideas in order to attempt to understand something as complex and mysterious as the human body and illness.

There is no reason to presume, however, that such a description offers any insight into how the body functions or how to approach or treat any particular ailment. The authors give an example:

In the treatment of the syndrome of disharmony between the heart and kidney caused by deficiency of kidney-yin and hyperactivity of heart-fire, according to the law of 'water restrains fire', we can use the therapy of reducing fire and reinforcing water.

I would rather treat a problem with heart or kidney function based upon a good 'ol reductionist view of heart and renal function, understanding the role of blood pressure, body fluids, kidney function and regulation, electrolytes, etc. The notion ("law"?) that water restrains fire does not seem to offer any insight into how to treat a pre-renal syndrome.

Finally there is the visceral and meridian theories, which constitute an alternate (meaning incorrect) way of understanding the organs of the body:

Also, combining visceral manifestation theory with yin-yang and five phase theory, TCM has formed its own understanding towards the law of physiological and pathological changes of the human body. For instance, the liver matches wood, and the spleen belongs to earth. The over-acting of wood will lead to over-restraining on earth. Thus, we can see patients with transverse invasion of the stagnated liver-qi attacking the spleen.

How exactly does stagnated liver-qi attck the spleen? How would this be diagnosed? What I am saying is - what is the reductionist understanding of these concepts? It is common for proponents of such alternate ways of knowing to denigrate reductionist science, but if a way of "understanding" how something works reflects reality, then it should make sense and hold up to the evidence all the way down.

"Reductionist" really just means deeper levels of understanding how the world works. It should not be confused with "hyperreductionism" which means ignoring or minimizing higher order levels of organization and function. You cannot, for example, understand how the body works just from biochemisty, or even from studying single cells. You have to understand how tissues, organs, and the whole body works together.

Science, actually, takes the most holistic view of health and disease, for it attempts to understand how the body works at every level of organization, and recognizes the folly of ignoring any level. You cannot ignore how the system works together, nor can you ignore how the individual parts work all the way down to their most basic components.

Ancient philosophies of medicine, however, either ignore the deeper levels of function, or make up fanciful underlying concepts, like wood and earth, that have nothing to do with reality.

Finally they describe the meridians:

The meridians transport qi and blood all over the body, link up the upper and the lower, the inside and the surface of the human body, response and conduct the information.

Except, there is no evidence that the meridians actually exist. At the risk of sounding redundant, they are as made up and fictional as the ether, flogistum, Bigfoot, and unicorns. The linking of qi and blood is reflective of the fact that the notion of qi is historically tied to blood, and techniques such as acupuncture and cupping were also closely related to bleeding techniques that we are more familiar with from Galenic medicine.

This leads to the next section on therapeutics in TCM. Of course they discuss acupuncture and also moxibustion and massage, but give very quick descriptions. They state multiple times that these techniques "treat disease" - which is an odd and extraordinary claim for several reasons. There is, of course, no evidence that acupuncture or moxibustion alters the course of any disease. You have to believe in the notions of qi etc. described above to believe that there is any plausibility to the use of acupuncture for disease. Even for symptomatic treatment (the bulk of scientific acupuncture studies) the evidence is weak to negative.

The authors also describe TCM herbalism, stating:

Currently, there are over 12,800 types of Chinese medicinals known by people, including over 11,000 medicinal plants, over 1500 medicinal animals, and over 80 medicinal minerals. Also, there are approximately 1 million TCM prescriptions found.

This relates to my main point above - how could practitioners have sorted out the risks, benefit, side effects, interactions, indications, pharmacodynamics, and pharmacokinetics of one million preparations without using any systematic scientific methods? This would be a challenge for a modern scientific institution, and would have been impossible for any pre-scientific society. One has to either ignore this issue, or assume preternatural abilities on the part of TCM practitioners, at the very least making them immune to all the mechanisms of deception and bias that seem to plague modern ordinary humans.

All of this background is just a long windup to what appears to be the main point of this article - the challenge of studying these therapies and ideas with modern scientific methods. Those of us familiar with this line of reasoning can see the massive special pleading coming a mile away.

They outline four challenges to scientifically studying TCM - that TCM considers overall health (I guess rather than just one condition at a time), therapies require ongoing assessment and adjustment, multiple therapies are given simultaneously to work together, and there are multiple targets of therapy.

Let me turn this around a bit - assuming the premises of this reasoning are true (that TCM must include these higher levels of complexity) then it is true that TCM treatments would be difficult to study systematically. At the same time, however, they would make it very difficult (likely impossible) to derive any reliable conclusions about therapy from "precious experience". I would argue that the same features that make TCM difficult to study in a controlled setting make it impossible to assess in an uncontrolled setting.

So how, then, can TCM practitioners have any practical knowledge about what therapies work and are appropriate in specific situations? Something akin to "magical intuition" is the only answer.

That point aside - it is difficult, but not impossible, to study such treatments. First, I disagree with the premise and believe it is just special pleading, an excuse for the lack of scientific evidence for TCM. In modern medicine we often use multiple treatments working together to address a complex syndrome. Each individual component, however, should contribute to the overall benefit, and should be able to demonstrate its contribution in controlled studies.

Any contribution too small to detect in clinical trials is probably too small to be of clinical significance. Also, even if we accept the premise that multiple treatments only work when given together, you can still study this in a controlled setting - by individualizing a holistic treatment plan and then giving it or a placebo substitute in a blinded fashion.

You may have noticed that I left off the fifth "challenge" to studying TCM (which is often used as an excuse for a lack of evidence). The authors write:

Finally, the cultural characteristic embodied in traditional Chinese medicine requires more consideration on ecological features of data in TCM when conducting statistical analysis.

I'm not sure what to make of that statement, and the authors give no further explanation. I would just point out that science - and reality - has no cultural characteristic. If something is true about the world, it is true no matter what culture you come from. The point of science is to be transparent and universal, so that anyone doing the same experiment, no matter what culture they come from, should have the same result.

Conclusion: TCM is not medicine

TCM is a pre-scientific superstitious view of biology and illness, similar to the humoral theory of Galen, or the notions of any pre-scientific culture. It is strange and unscientific to treat TCM as anything else. Any individual diagnostic or treatment method within TCM should be evaluated according to standard principles of science and science-based medicine, and not given special treatment.

Founder and currently Executive Editor of Science-Based Medicine Steven Novella, MD is an academic clinical neurologist at the Yale University School of Medicine. He is also the host and producer of the popular weekly science podcast, The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, and the author of the NeuroLogicaBlog, a daily blog that covers news and issues in neuroscience, but also general science, scientific skepticism, philosophy of science, critical thinking, and the intersection of science with the media and society. Dr. Novella also has produced two courses with The Great Courses, and published a book on critical thinking - also called The Skeptics Guide to the Universe.

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What Is Traditional Chinese Medicine? | Science-Based Medicine

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Traditional Chinese Medicine is not actual medicine, and should not be treated as such. It has more in common with Galen's theory of the four humors than anything a doctor would recognize today.

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Post#5- Confusion of correlation and causation(Article)

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Post#5- Confusion of correlation and causation(Article)

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Definition:
This red flag occurs when two or more things happen around the same time and have an effect on each other.
Connection:
This article highlights the Hawthorne effect which is an example of the confusion of correlation and causation.
The Hawthorne effect occurs when people behave differently because they know they are being watched. It can affect all sorts of behaviors such as dietary habits, or hygiene practices because these have considerable opportunity for instantaneous modification. It can also affect study results. A study of hand-washing among medical staff found that when the staff knew they were being watched, compliance with hand-washing was 55% greater than when they were not being watched (Eckmanns 2006).

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The Hawthorne effect occurs when people behave differently because they know they are being watched. It can affect all sorts of behaviours such as dietary habits, or hygiene practices because these have considerable opportunity for instantaneous modification. It can also affect study results, e.g.

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Definition:
Confirmation Bias involves information processing accompanied by interpretations that suits or is consistent with  a persons own beliefs

Connection:
This article talks about how people in the Emergency ward believe that a full moon affects patient behavior and the order of things; especially in the mental health ward. Confirmation bias is a bias in human thinking that causes us to notice, accept, and remember information that confirms beliefs we already have, while ignoring, forgetting, or explaining away contradictory data. This is a powerful effect that can lead to the very compelling illusion that an effect is real when it isn’t.

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I gave a seminar recently to science teachers and the topic of whether or not there is a lunar effect came up. I was not surprised to find that 80% of them believed that emergency rooms and police stations are more busy during a full moon. I was also not surprised, but only because I have been there before, that they were highly resistant to my claim that the scientific evidence shows that there is no such effect.

Several questions emerge from the notion that the phases of the moon affect human behavior: what is the plausibility of such a claim, is there actually such an effect, and if not why do so many people believe that there is?
Plausibility
One of two justifications are commonly given for how the moon might influence human behavior. The moon basically has two physical effects on our environment - gravity and light. Astrological influences are not worth further discussion in this article, and I rarely hear that as a justification from the general public in any case.

Gravity is the far less plausible explanation of the two physical effects of the moon. The reasoning often goes something like this: the moon causes tides, which are powerful gravitational effects on water. Our bodies are mostly water, and in fact our brain are floating in water, therefore the moon's tidal effect might affect our brain function.

This reasoning fails on many levels. First, the moon has a tidal effect regardless of phase. The only difference with lunar phase is the relationship between the lunar tide and the solar tide (yes, the sun has a tidal effect on the Earth as well). During a full moon the lunar and solar tides are lined up, and therefore the combined effect is additive ( which is called a spring tide).

However, the same is true of the new moon, therefore if the full moon effect were due to tidal forces there should be an equal new moon effect.

The bigger problem with the gravity explanation is that tidal forces are dependent upon the difference in the distance of the near and far side of an object from another large object. So the ocean tides are caused by the different gravitational pull of the moon on the near side vs far side of the Earth. The tidal force of the moon between the near side and far side of your head is negligible. This is simply not a viable source of an effect on human behavior.

The more plausible mechanism for an alleged lunar effect is the light from the moon. It is reasonable to hypothesize that people are more willing to be outside and active during a full moon because there is more light. This effect, however, should therefore not be present when the sky is overcast or in large cities where artificial light trumps moonlight.
Is There a Lunar Effect?
This is one question that is very amenable to standard observational studies - is there a correlation between some kind of event and the lunar cycle? There have been hundreds of such studies over the last few decades, involving emergency room visits, births, accidents, crime, crisis center calls - just about any marker of human behavior you can think of. Systematic reviews of this research consistently demonstrate that there is simply no evidence for any such effect.

Many of these studies cover years or decades of data, and thousands or tens of thousands of data points. A recent German study, for example, found no lunar effect for births between 1920 and 1989. A review of studies looking at crisis center calls found:

12 studies are reviewed that have examined the relationships among crisis calls to police stations, poison centers, and crisis intervention centers and the synodic lunar cycle. On the basis of the studies considered it is concluded that no good foundation exists for the belief that lunar phase is related to the frequency of crisis calls. In addition, there is no evidence whatsoever for the contention that calls of a more emotional or "out-of-control" nature occur more often at the full moon.

An often cited 1985 review by Rotton, Kelly and Culver found no lunar effect for a long list of events, including suicide, homicide, crime, sleep walking, alcoholism, and many others. Several later studies of psychiatric hospital admission also found no effect.

The bottom line is this - this question has been asked and answered, there is no lunar effect. A massive amount of data simply shows no connection between lunar phases and human behavior.
Belief in the Lunar Effect
Why, then, does belief in this effect remain high? Surveys show that belief in this effect remains at about 40-45%, even among those highly educated. In fact, mental health workers have a greater belief in the lunar effect. The short answer as to why this is - confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is a bias in human thinking that causes us to notice, accept, and remember information that confirms beliefs we already have, while ignoring, forgetting, or explaining away contradictory data. This is a powerful effect that can lead to the very compelling illusion that an effect is real when it isn't.

Belief in a lunar effect, therefore, feeds on itself. When we encounter human behavior that seems out of the ordinary, or we are simply noticing the right side of the Bell curve of variation of crazy events, and we believe in the lunar effect, then we are likely to notice if there is a correlation.

For example, one night when I was working in the ER, and it was a busier than average night, a nurse commented, "Wow, it's really crazy tonight. Is there a full moon?" The answer was no, the moon was in a completely different phase that night. When I informed her of this fact she simply shrugged and promptly forgot the whole thing. One can imagine that on other busy ER nights that happen to fall on or near the full moon that would resonate with her and confirm her belief in a lunar effect.

Confirmation bias can make it seem like there is strong evidence (anecdotal) for something that does not exist outside of our belief.

When I informed the teachers that the evidence shows there is no lunar effect, they simply did not believe it. Their personal experience spoke much more powerfully to them then abstract data.

Of course, the essence of scientific and critical thinking is setting aside personal anecdotes, experience, and belief, and embracing more rigorous data and analysis.
Conclusion
The data is clear, there is no lunar effect for any measured human behavior or medical events. This question has been sufficiently studied that this conclusion is very firm. We can never prove with finite data that an effect size is zero, but we can say there is no evidence for the effect, and if there is such an effect it must be extremely tiny - too small to have been detected even by hundreds of studies with tens of thousands of data points.

The real phenomenon here is one of human belief that persists in the absence of a real phenomenon. The real lunar effect is confirmation bias and understanding how the human brain is a belief machine.

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I gave a seminar recently to science teachers and the topic of whether or not there is a lunar effect came up. I was not surprised to find that 80% of them believed that emergency rooms and police stations are more busy during a full moon.

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Post #7- Reason for belief: Patternicity (Link)

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Post #7- Reason for belief: Patternicity (Link)

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Definition:
patternicity is a reason for belief comprised of seeing patterns or connections in random occurences that is most times not able to be backed up by science

Connection:
This website relates to patternicity because the image in the sky that was probably caused by the light from the sun and the clouds was assumed to be "Jesus Christ". It makes sense that person thought it was " Jesus Christ" and many other Christians that see this article because the image fits the description that has been painted of God; radiating/shining in glory and arms outstretched just like the statue in Rio de Janero, Brazil.

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‘Jesus’ Appears to Walk Across Sky Between Clouds

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Post #9- Reason for belief: Ideology (Video)

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Post #9- Reason for belief: Ideology (Video)

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Definition:
Ideology as a reason for belief is a set of ideas that serve as a basis for beliefs or decisions.
Connection:
In this video, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; A Nigerian writer and radical feminist talks about feminism which is the advocacy of women's right focused on equality more than patriarchy. Feminists believe "it is a man's world and being a woman puts a human being at a disadvantage. Women have to work twice as hard to get to positions men don't have to work half as hard for. This video connects to the "ideology" reason for belief because it addresses feminism which is a strongly held belief in our society today that compels decision making

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We should all be feminists | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | TEDxEuston

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Post #8- Reason for belief: Agenticity (Image)

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Post #8- Reason for belief: Agenticity (Image)

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Definition:
Agenticity is defined as the tendency to infuse patterns with meaning or intention ; believing that there are invisible agents such as angels, spirits and they possess a higher domain that we do.
Connection:
The legend of Madam koi koi is a Nigerian urban legend about a spirit that haunts boarding houses at night. it is believed that she was a teacher at a boarding school before she was raped and killed by a fellow teacher and she now haunts boarding houses in Nigeria seeking revenge. A lot of students have reported seeing her and hearing the "Koi Koi Koi" sound of her heels hitting the tiled floors of the schools. This urban legend is connected to Agenticity because it is believed that she is a spirit and the "koi koi" sound in a boarding school is associated with a spirit out for revenge which has no basis and might just be the sound of the clock as it is very similar.

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Post #10 Critical Thinking Process Responses

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Post #10 Critical Thinking Process Responses

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I choose to evaluate the bonkers conspiracy theory blaming 5G for the coronavirus
Define problem:
Is 5G to blame for the corona virus?
Gather information:
This links talks about American actor and playwright Woody Harrelson sharing a link on his Instagram account claiming 5G is to blame for the coronavirus
Evaluate Evidence:
Woody Harrelson is an American actor and has no scientific history. his claims are not science based. Different studies have been conducted regarding the coronavirus and none of these science based research has speculated 5G as a cause of the virus.
Recognize Assumptions, Emotions and  Biases:
Many people believe that 5G is a biological weapon just like covid-19, created to depopulate the earth. An agenda believed to be led by Bill gates. These theories are proposed by people that don't believe in the severity of the virus. The more widespread theory is that 5G weakens the immune system through radiation, thus making you more susceptible to COVID-19. Evidence has been offered in the form of United States maps, which allegedly show that the cities with 5G coverage have been most affected by COVID-19 outbreaks. Of course, this ignores two realities: One, most of the areas in the U.S. with limited 5G coverage are major cities with denser populations more susceptible to an outbreak; and two, plenty of countries—namely Iran—don't have any 5G capabilities, yet have been hit the hardest by the virus. This supports the confirmation Bias red flag because they only accept beliefs that correlate to their belief system and ignore facts that don't correlate to their held beliefs.
Alternative solution 1: 5G is to blame for corona virus and weakens the immune system supported by Anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists

Alternative solution 2: 5G does not have an effect on corona virus which is caused by infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 supported by science based research

Select Best Alternative:
I conclude that 5G does not cause or have an effect on corona virus