The moon has always been a popular inspiration for myths or tales--the protagonists always have to "make it" before the full moon comes out or before it turns red, black, etc. The romantics look at it as a sign or a sentimental celestial body for their love stories while realistic people like me look at it as a mere nature thing. Most of the time, the realistic side wins in my argumentative topics, but could it be that this time, the moon is indeed that powerful enough to even influence human behavior? Also, add the fact that there are actually data that could support it...

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Triggering the Werewolves

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We all know the full moon has always been that trigger or most attached thing to the character of the werewolf. The moon allows usually a person to turn into this beast and just go completely wild. This whole legend engraved in our pop culture reflects how many people claim that in real life, even until now, that humans also start acting oddly reckless because of the full moon.

There are even statistics to support these claims from this article I read:

On Murder

At the University of Miami, psychologist Arnold Lieber and his colleagues decided to test the old belief of full-moon 'lunacy' which most scientists had written off as an old wives' tale. The researchers collected data on homicide in Dade County (Miami) over a period of 15 years -- 1,887 murders, to be exact. When they matched the incidence of homicide with the phases of the moon, they found, much to their surprise, that the two rose and fell together, almost infallibly, for the entire 15 years! As the full or the new moon approached, the murder rate rose sharply; it distinctly declined during the first and last quarters of the moon.

Did those murders just coincidentally take place during the full moon or the new moon? I'm kinda torn myself... Ask yourself now, but let me tell you, this data could have been gathered with bias as the researchers obviously had a predetermined conclusion already.

On Surgery

In the Journal of the Florida Medical Association, Dr. Edson J. Andrews writes that in a study of 1,000 tonsillectomies, 82 percent of postoperative bleeding crises occurred nearer the full than the new moon -- despite the fact that fewer operations were performed at that time!

There are a lot of kinds of surgery out there that this one particular kind might not even be enough to fit the 50%+1 statistical rule qualification for a sort of generalized conclusion just like saying that yes, the full moon has some hold on surgeries...

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The WaterxMoon Collab

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Arnold Lieber (yes, the same psychologist behind that "lunacy" effect on murder occurrences) has stated that the full moon's alleged pull on our behavior is actually due to how the moon naturally controls tides. He said that since we are about 80% of water, then the moon is indeed in control of us to somehow.

The moon's gravitational force only affects open bodies of water like the ocean, lakes, etc., but definitely not contained water like our brain. Also the gravitational force of the moon during full moon does not even differ when it's new moon or even when it's completely not visible to us.

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Conclusion

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The media is the real big influence on our behaviors that it even tricked us into thinking this whole full moon and human behavior relationship is worth all those academic studies. Yes, that's what I believe to be true.

You see, the media gives us ideas on how we want our lifestyles to be or what things to take in our lives as inspiration, precaution, or whatever that may be. Now, since Hollywood itself already has a lot of werewolf stories and other full-moon crazed productions, we can say that from all those years up to now, we have come to influence ourselves with them greatly to the point that we think humans act insanely when there's a full moon. Hell, you all even get too involved with the Kardashian family's publicity stunts to which I'm guilty myself.

(Clearly, I still defended my side more...)

references:

• Scientific American

img sources:

• Werewolf
• That's just bullshit
• Moon phases