Complex Numbers

Omen

Well, today is the Summer Solstice. Technically the moment is around 5:45pm Eastern Time (aka the Only Time That Matters). I have mixed emotions about it, of course, because that means that it's all downhill from here, at least for the next six months... and that in turn means that it's possible to go downhill from here, which is depressing.

It is also only a few hours away from a New Moon, which is a rare coincidence and very cool astronomically, but not, as some would have it, an omen.

Which kind of leads me to today's bullshit headline?

https://slate.com/health-and-science/2017/06/daryl-bem-proved-esp-is-real-showed...

Daryl Bem Proved ESP Is Real
Which means science is broken.

1. No, he didn't.
2. No, it doesn't.

I'll save you the read if you can't be arsed: A statistically improbable but not impossible result highlighted problems with accepted error bars and methodologies in scientific studies, which allowed Slate to publish an article with a sensationalist headline.

Now, look, I'm not really one of those "reject it if it doesn't fall into established logical parameters" people. By all means, study ESP, cryptozoology, astrology, ghosts, whatever. Just understand that being too credulous about such things is as bad as being stubbornly incredulous about them.

Too often, if you want a certain result, you can influence the results of studies to obtain that result, at least within accepted error parameters. I've harped on this sort of thing before in connection with, specifically, nutrition science.

But usually, you find something unexpected and just as useful. My pet hypothesis about dragons, for example, and why they seem to feature in the mythologies of widely varying cultures, is that people of old stumbled across enormous bones, and they leapt to the "dragon" conclusion. When science came along, these bones turned out to be from something even stranger, if more mundane: dinosaurs. This led to a whole new branch of science, paleontology, and lots of new mythologies such as Jurassic Park.

So, no, a new moon on (or very close to) a solstice isn't a sign or portent, but it is pretty cool, and if it gets people to learn more about astronomy? Great.