I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice recently that we are lucky to witness a so-called ‘super moon’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermoon). This is essentially when the Moon is at its closest (perigee) to the Earth (some 357,000 kilometers). As you’d expect, this has promoted all kinds of nonsense. (The Moon has a long history of inspiring weirdos – hence the term ‘lunatic’)
The ‘super moon’ theory was developed by astrologer Richard Nolle in 1979. Now, read that last sentence again. Yep. Astrologer! This gets the alarm bells ringing straight away. Now, his theory claims that the ‘super moon’ coincides with natural disasters, and because the awful Japanese earthquake and tsunami occurred fairly close to a ‘super moon’, some are now claiming this to be truth.
The science however disagrees. No stand-out natural disasters or freak tides match up to the previous dates of ‘super moons’. If Richard Nolle and his followers are going to point to this disaster as proof of their theory, then it is simply a case of counting the hits and ignoring the misses. A common logical fallacy used by all psychics, astrologers and charlatans.
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this story is how the UK media (including all of the tabloid press, of course) promoted this story in relation to the Japanese earthquake. Hardly any mention is given to the failure of the theory during previous ‘super moons’. Instead, we are treated to yet more quackery on the very same pages that detail real-life death, tragedy and disaster. Putting it towards the back of the newspaper with the other star sign advice would have been more prudent.
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