Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions - James Randi [95]
Concerning accident predictions, 13,285 cases were examined in British Columbia, 4,346 aircraft mishaps were studied using naval aircraft figures, 4,063 general aviation accidents were looked into, and 400 accidents at army installations were investigated. Biorhythm failed all tests. In 181 auto accidents wherein the driver was at fault, and in 205 general highway accidents, no hint of biorhythm activity appeared. In addition, 150 "work-related" vehicular accidents and 506 fatal driving accidents were investigated. No biorhythm effects were found. At the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 112 accidents were analyzed, including a selected group of 67 in which the victim was at fault; and 400 coal mining accidents, along with 210 other on-the-job industrial accidents, were examined. No biorhythm influences were noted.*(1)
A simpler study can be made of athletic performance, which the biorhythmists tell us is greatly affected by the wondrous curves. The facts and figures needed are easily available to the investigator. Two investigators of the theory studied the performances of the University of Florida swimming and bowling teams; they also analyzed 100 no-hit baseball games, the batting performances of 70 major-league players, and golfers' records. No significant biorhythm effects were discovered.
If they were valid, biorhythm charts would make it possible to predict likely death days for humans, and such claims are widely made. But recently the death dates of 274 baseball pitchers were examined for such an influence. No correlation was found. Another study of 105 miscellaneous deaths again produced negative results. Is it any wonder that legitimate scientists have no interest in the claims of the biorhythm advocates?
The biorhythm "experts" and the countless books and articles on the subject have paid little attention to certain inevitable "super-critical" days that (their theory implies) must arrive in the life of every mortal more than 29 years old. An examination of the literature reveals that these crucial days are given no special importance, a fact that is most surprising.
The theory tells us that whenever one of the cycles (23 days, 28 days, or 33 days) reaches the zero line, a critical day is upon us. Thus, the 23-day cycle brings a critical day every eleven and a half days, and so on. But, as already mentioned, worse dangers are in store when a double-critical day arrives with two of the curves intersecting the line. And we can only shudder with apprehension at the prospect of that most terrifying moment of all, the legendary "triple-critical" day. But all is not as perilous as it seems, for triple-criticals are rather rare. I put my rudimentary mathematical skills to work and discovered that the entire three-cycle phenomenon returns to the starting point only after 58 years and 68 days (plus or minus one day), when the curves are just as they were at the moment of birth. (The one-day variable is due to an unequal number of leap years. If the subject is born in the last 10 months of a leap year or at any time during the year following a leap year, the number of days is 68. If the subject is born in any other part of any other year, the number is 67 In the case of any birth date in the nineteenth century, an extra day must be added to the figure obtained by the above rules because the leap day was dropped in the leap year 1900. This figure is given imprecisely in at least one book, Biorhythm, by Hans. J. Wernli, as "58 years plus approximately 66 days")
Of course, since critical days also arrive halfway through each cycle, there is another triple-critical day when 29 years and 34 (or 35) days is reached, and another at 87 years and about 102 days—if we are fortunate enough to reach that advanced age, when things are rather critical anyway, biorhythms or no. But at these points, the 23- and 33-day cycles are ascending,