non-science by a scientist

The universe is......oh boy, where is he going with this one?......data rich.  Data is cool.  Data can tell us things.  Sometimes data are completed unrelated.  Sometimes data are related but we don't know how.  I've been tracking Abby's growth pretty regularly since she was 3 years old.  She's now 11.  Pretty good dataset.  Overall, she averages about 2.5 inches per/year in growth (slope of the line below).  Pretty boring chart.  Small changes in the slope of the line are hard to see below, but they are important.  Matter of fact, she grew almost an inch in just the last month (see the last little blip in the line below).

But if we look at her growth rate over time.....it's a little more fun (figure below).  If you average this all out, her average growth rate is about 2.5 inches/year.  But that rate certainly fluctuates over time.  In the last 3 years it's been pretty steady at 2.5 inches/year, but before that it was fluctuating a lot to as much as +25 inches/year (most likely partly due to measurement error by dad, seriously, it's hard to get highly-precise height measurements with a tape measure).  However, almost all of these measurements were collected near the same time of day....so that's good.

On another note, I've always been fascinated by sunspots.  I've posted about this before....a few years ago.  Sunspot activity (and therefore, solar wind activity) fluctuates on 11-year cycles.  What can I compare to this cycle?.....well, how about Abby's growth?  Abby was born at the very low-point of the last sunspot cycle in 2008-2009.  She's now 11 years old....and we are at another low point in sunspot activity.

Is there any relationship of Abby's growth with sunspots?  Seems like her growth rate fluctuates more when sunspots are more common.....We know that climate responds to sunspot activity....we can actually measure it.  But does it affect biology?  Who knows....somebody may have studied it.

Wiggle matching does not prove any cause-effect in science.  To validate a wiggle match, you usually have to model the physics of the system.  Also, we are missing data in the first 3 years of her life....to see how the early growth rate changed.  But, given that she was 21 inches at birth, she grew 16 inches overall in the first 3 years (average of 5.33 in/year)!  Come to think of it....she grew 21 inches in 9 months in the womb!....that's 28 in/year in-vitro!

In summary, yes the author of this post is "off his rocker".  This is nonsensical.  But I like data and like thinking about how we harmonize with the universe.  It would be awesome to see everything in life in plots like this.