I still like the thought that the Loch Ness monster was real, but died out. That legends grew from the real thing, and occasional real sightings, then popularized with more recent faked evidence.
Of course that doesn’t mean it probably was real, just it might have been.
“center” of the universe can be picked completely arbitrarily.
IIRC there are still theories within the scientific community of the universe being non-homogenous and roughly geocentric. Usually (when I’ve come across them) presumed to be incorrect, but still possible in a, “huh, that would explain the data that we can’t otherwise explain” way.
Made up by lunatics.
Right. There’s a mix in lots of ideas, of interpreting real evidence and experience, and of making up rubbish to sell things. And just of building too big of a theory off minimal data and putting too much trust in it.
So, moonlight being a major factor to change your behaviour to evil or crazy, is presumably nonsense. But, as you say, moonlit nights affecting human behaviour, such as having social events on a moonlit night, or even working later in the fields those nights, is obvious.
And the phase of the moon causing programming bugs? Absolutely real. There’s one or two documented cases.
I’ve heard a few people say acupuncture has helped them. And saw an interesting thread on Lemmy or Reddit sometime with people citing papers against each other that it’s evidenced or not.
My guess so far is that it genuinely helps sometimes - perhaps via the nervous system, which is something scientific medicine still knows little about (compared to many other areas of medicine) - but some practitioners do it well and others not, and sometimes it works and sometimes not, and without scientific analysis and regulation it’s hard to know which.
Especially if you work on a boat, by the coast.
“I always carry my diary with me. I feel one should have something sensational to read on the train.”
(The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde)
This is hard to truly eli5, so I’ll have a go too, in case the others haven’t cleared it up for you.
The spot on the moon that moves isn’t a real thing, it’s the effect of photons hitting the left side, then other photons hitting the right side. The ‘reason’ or ‘cause’ for those photons comes from earth very much at light speed. But the left side of the moon can’t cause an effect in the right side, that fast. It just experiences a thing right before the right side experiences something similar.
Like if two cars drive from London to Manchester and Liverpool, arriving within seconds of each other. It doesn’t mean you can drive from Manchester to Liverpool in seconds.
There’s an SMBC I love on this: “The shadows of reality go as fast as they like.” https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/superluminal
Bonus: IIRC, any two events that are too close in time for light to travel from one to the other, can be viewed from a different “inertial reference frame” (someone else moving fast and analysing things with the same physics) as being the other way round. I.e. the right observer could see the right hand side of the moon get lit up before the left hand side. But the chap on earth wiggling the laser pointer is still wiggling it slower than the speed of light, so this observer would still see the laser pointer move from left to right. How does that work?
I hear rumours that cast doubt on its veracity
I mean, if you brush against their spikes every time you walk into the living room, you’d decry them as unsuitable too!