Comments on: Superstitions Helped Mankind Survive

By: Ian Kemmish

Ian Kemmish — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 21:19:18 +0000

Surely it’s even simpler than that. All we are, all intelligence is, is a peripatetic model of the world beyond our eyelids. We’re not just addicted to building models, we just can’t help it (listen to any piece of contrapuntal music if you doubt this). Just recently, we’ve got far enough off the ground to learn how to test our models rigourously; before that we tested them by repeated experience, let’s call it “ritual”.

To know that you get sparks from steel against flint is science, but it requires a few millennia of infrastructure before you can know that. To know that you often get sparks from a red rock against a glassy rock is superstition, but a damn sight more useful for any hunter gatherer. To recite a verse from an epic telling how a hero got sparks from a red rock against a glassy rock is ritual, but it helps you remember the useful stuff.

By: Moodindigo

Moodindigo — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 07:31:18 +0000

Of course, there was that story (on Faces of Death I believe) of the guy that bungee-jumped off his college roof, hit the floor in a messy heap and died.

The reason being that when they were working out how long the cord should be they failed to take into account the fact that the building had actually been built without a 13th floor; thus making the cord 10-13 feet too short. That’s superstition biting you in the ass (as it makes it’s way through your head).

Of courese, this story may well be apocryphal but maybe the pattern he should have recognised was college + bungee + alcohol = bad idea.

By: Christophe

Christophe — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 03:00:09 +0000

Darn. I meant : “I’m NOT superstitious. it’s bad luck”
Another comment down the drain…

By: Christophe

Christophe — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 02:59:18 +0000

I’m superstitious : it’s bad luck.

By: CheeseDuck

CheeseDuck — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:19:05 +0000

What about stepping on cracks? Ghosts? Etc?

By: Padraig

Padraig — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:37:26 +0000

I wholeheartedly agree with the article. It’s our belief that we are above animal intelligence that removes us more and more from our intrinsic, natural abilities of pattern recognition.

@Noelegy: I agree with that, too, though. The 4 black cats I have had thus far have been most wonderful and, if anything, brought me luck.

By: Noelegy

Noelegy — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:54:10 +0000

Superstition may have helped mankind survive, but it’s been notoriously hard on black cats.

By: Jerse

Jerse — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:48:29 +0000

@Larfin

Probably the prospect of morality…

By: sam

sam — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:30:27 +0000

In the example, I don’t see how being superstitious helps. The grass was rustling due to the wind, but then a big group of Lions suddenly showed up? That just means that dumb subhumans hid from nothing a million times and one time they got lucky and there was actually something out there.

By: Larfin Jackarse

Larfin Jackarse — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:04:42 +0000

I wonder how this relates to religion.