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Biorhythms

The Skeptic's Dictionary by Robert Todd Carroll

With comments by Russ Streiffert - BioMap^tm

Biorhythms con't.

Here's a test for you. Reggie Jackson, who was inaugurated into Baseball's Hall of Fame, was born on May 18, 1946. The greatest day in his brilliant career was on October 18, 1977. On that day he hit three consecutive home runs on three consecutive pitches off three different pitchers to help the New York Yankees win the game and the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The biorhythm theory predicts that Jackson should have been at a physical zenith on that day. Was he? If he was, does that prove the theory? If he wasn't does that disprove it?

The four cycles mentioned previously are calculated at right for Mr. Jackson's resources. The red line show the day in question. Studies have shown that location in the graphic data may be less important than trend or which way your going. This is a dynamic interpretation as opposed to earlier views.

Briefly starting at the bottom of the graph we have increasing resource discharge (available)...then maximum discharge across the center line...then decreasing discharge approaching the top. Starting back down we have increasing recharge (unavailable)...maximum recharge across the center line...then decreasing recharge approaching the bottom.

In the graph above, notice how Mr. Jackson's resources appear charged (available) and synchronized on October 18, 1977. While this does not constitute proof that these cycles contributed to his achievements, it appears to be an excellent correlation and is certainly not disproof.

You might wonder how such a theory ever got invented. To understand that we have to go back to the nineteenth century and Wilhelm Fliess, a Berlin physician, numerologist and good friend of Sigmund Freud. "notes 3" He worked out the 23 and 28 day cycles for health. Fliess was a nose specialist who, along with Dr. Hermann Swoboda, a psychologist and a patient of Freud's, came up with the 23 day `masculine' (physical) cycle and the 28 day `feminine' (emotional) cycle. In the 1920s and engineer named Teltscher added the `intellectual' or `mind' cycle of 33 days.

How did Fliess come up with his theory about the magic of the numbers 23 and 28? He was fascinated by the fact that no matter what number he picked he could figure out a way to express it in a formula with relation to either 23, 28 or both. Martin Gardner writes: Fliess's basic formula can be written 23x + 28y, where x and y are positive or negative integers. On almost every page Fliess fits this formula to natural phenomena, ranging from the cell to the solar system....He did not realize that if any two positive integers that have no common divisor are substituted for 23 and 28 in his basic formula, it is possible to express any positive integer whatever. Little wonder that the formula could be so readily fitted to natural phenomena! [Gardner pp. 134-135]

There's Randi's "magic" word again. Fliess was certainly not a mathematician and it may not have occurred to him that these two numbers have universal combinations although this is also untrue. More likely, he had observed a real phenomenon in the realm of physiology through observing his patients. Possibly he was seeing an artifact of circadian desynchronization - maybe a beat frequency produced by sleep deprivation in some of the patients for whom he prescribed cocaine - an experimental treatment in those days.

Much of the story that follows contains historical hearsay - some of which is sadly true. In the early days of many sciences the struggle to understand observations and to conquer the elements wandered in some fairly fanciful directions. But, most of these exercises and debates produced improved ideas over time. In 1960, at an international convention of bio-rhythm societies - there was spawned the more rigorous and respectable research efforts coined "chronobiology." These efforts have had less sensational attention yet numerous excellent benefits from their efforts are available today especially in chronopharmicology and sleep disorders.

It appears that our skeptic's personal pride was undone by what he feels was a sham. More likely his distortions of the facts arise from actual scientific ignorance while his pervasive suspicions might stem from embarrassment caused by childhood gullibility.

My introduction to the science of biorhythms came through my office mate at Sacramento City College. He held a masters degree in psychology and a doctorate in divinity from Harvard. I considered him and his wife (also a believer) to be intelligent people and people of integrity. Dr. G. loaned me Biorhythm--A Personal Science by Bernard Gittleson and the Thommen book mentioned earlier. I read what I could of them and returned them with the comment that the evidence they presented was mainly anecdotal or, what I would call, `stories and statistical numerology'. I was being charitable.

When one reads enough in the areas of science and pseudoscience one's `crap detector' [to use Hemingway's term] quickly identifies books written by people who have little understanding or concern for proper empirical investigation or for what counts as good evidence for a hypothesis or for what is a plausible explanation for data gathered. The Gittleson and Thommen books were quickly identified by me as more likely driven by fraud, error, wishful thinking, and incompetence than by objective and proper analysis of data.

This review is a great piece of work. Everything our egotistical friend just stated, oddly applies here to his own work. Remember, a skeptic does not equal (=\=) a scientist or an expert!

One day, I presented Dr. G. with an article I had clipped from the newspaper which reported on a study done by researchers at Johns Hopkins which failed to confirm one of the predictions of biorhythm theory regarding propensity to have accidents on `critical days'. To his credit, Dr. G. read the clipping. But he handed it back to me and with scornful derision said, "Well, what do you expect from people who don't want to believe!"

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