John – I am not cherry-picking. Moon cycles with Sun, Venus, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune all returned results outside that produced by random numbers. I am not just using the probability of the most significant result in isolation, but am dividing it by 29 to recognize there are 29 samples, and then comparing this against other tests.

The results are independent. The two most significant results are different dates on the Moon-Uranus cycle, and these have no data points in common. The same applies for days 6 and 7 of the Sun-Moon cycle. Only four of the sixty rainiest days were on the significant Moon-Uranus -10 dates. These four dates only accounted for 1.97% (653mm) of total rain in the sample, proving that the same outliers are not actually responsible for multiple effects.

My multiplication of probabilities is valid. By comparison, if a result is seen in 10% of normally distributed samples, and one test produces two such results, this combined result has probability of 1%. In my test, I applied this method to assess the probability of both the Moon-Uranus peak (seen in 3.65% of random samples) and the Moon-Uranus trough (seen in 18.8% of random samples) to indicate a probability of 0.68% (~1/150) that both results would occur in one random sample.

I note that no one has asked to see my data. I assure you it is accurate, but of course looking at it would give credence to a new scientific theory which is against the mainstream.

There is no reason other than a planetary effect why this data would not be normally distributed.

For comparison, I replaced the planetary data with random numbers and over several runs as expected found all 29 results had Standard deviation less than 2. It would take 150 such random samples to see both the Moon-Uranus results observed in the Sydney rain data.

You are correct about gravity, but my aim with this crude example was to show that the miniscule planetary effect could over time aggregate to something big, even if the damping of tidal systems means such an effect would be barely detectable. If the statistical tidal variation on earth was found to change by ten nanometers in line with Uranus cycles my point would be supported, but measurement is not precise enough to detect this. Your statement “not enough to do anything” is based on faith, not evidence.

My use of the term ‘amplified’ was not intended to mean ‘increase without limit’, but a way of saying that natural systems tend over time to harmonise with the presence of regular planetary rhythms built deep within the foundations of all terrestrial systems, just as DNA adapts to its niche. For weather, my study suggests that this effect produces underlying variance in rain amounts. I have previously argued that the cumulative adaptation of DNA should in principle reflect these subtle tiny constant factors, thereby ‘amplifying’ them in terrestrial systems.

The following points summarise material linked in my previous post.

http://www.physics.ubc.ca/~berciu/TE...YS349/alex.pdf explains that when pendulums or clocks are ‘coupled’ through contact with one wall, they fall into step or are entrained, through common vibration. The description of entrainment of firefly lights is also worth reading - showing that events can be linked in surprising ways. Another good example is that soldiers break step when marching over bridges, because the natural vibratory oscillation of the bridge might become entrained with the soldiers’ steps, and the bridge could become increasingly unstable and collapse.

http://ludix.com/moriarty/entrain.html comments “The moon and sun are the most pervasive entraining influences in our environment. The entire planet is under their sway. But you don’t need a cosmic mass to initiate entrainment. Even a very modest rhythmic impulse, given the right frequency and insistent repetition, is enough to coax any elastic system into significant oscillation. The destruction of the Tacoma Narrows bridge by a passing breeze is a compelling case in point.”

James Gleick’s Chaos – Making a New Science makes a number of general comments relevant to the matters discussed here. He defines chaos as “a science of the global nature of systems” (p5) in which “The power of self similarity … is a matter of looking at the whole” (p115). The climate models of Lorenz, which “saw order masquerading as randomness” (p22) precisely describes the way in which these planetary effects are postulated. Lorenz’s observation that sensitive dependence on initial conditions was "an inescapable consequence of the way small scales intertwined with large,” (p23) and a “quality [which] lurks everywhere” (p67) illustrates the mechanism of the sensitivity of planetary inter-relations.

Gleick discusses the cultural problems of scientific change, noting that “a revolution has an inter-disciplinary character … problems that obsess these theorists are not recognized as legitimate” (p37), “the rare scholars who are nomads by choice are essential to the intellectual welfare of the settled disciplines” (90), and “non-specialists find the new things” (132-3).

Part of the problem in recognizing complexity is that “graphic images are the key” (p38). I previously offered to share graphic images which illustrate my ideas, and remain eager to do so. These images of geocentric patterns of the planets help to illustrate Gleick’s observations that “disorderly behaviour of simple systems … generate complexity: richly organized patterns … with the fascination of living things” (p43), and “the chaos Lorenz discovered … was locally unpredictable, globally stable” (p48).

As Gleick comments “Chaos is ubiquitous, it is stable, it is structured … complicated systems could be understood in terms of easy discrete maps” (p76) and “Over and over again, the world displays a regular irregularity” (98).

The conceptual universality of fractals as the geometry of nature emerges in the comment that “fractal scaling [is] … universal in morphogenesis” (p110) ie that the origin of biological form is inherently fractal, with each natural entity reflecting the larger whole of its niche.

Gleick says “Strange attractors fed the revolution in chaos by giving numerical explorers a clear program … wherever nature seemed to be behaving randomly” (152). He observes that “Phase space portraits of physical systems exposed patterns of motion that were invisible otherwise” (135), and asks “What other changes … would prove to be phase transitions?” (127). These points make me wonder about the planets as attractors.

The objective of my study here is to show that apparently chaotic events on earth correlate with planetary patterns as tabulated in the ephemeris, such that these patterns provide predictive indicators. The null case (disproof) is that no planetary patterns provide predictive indicators for events on earth. There is a steady gradient of complexity of claimed planetary effects, from the obvious (tides) to the little known (rats increased activity when moon is below horizon) to the debated (Gauquelin statistical effects of planets at eastern horizon; Tarnas correlations between outer planetary aspects and cycles of human history).