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posted by mrpg on Friday April 19 2019, @09:09AM   Printer-friendly
from the thank-god(s)-for-science! dept.

Even seemingly irrational beliefs can become ensconced in the social norms of a society. Research by biologists in the School of Arts and Sciences shows how.

Ancient Roman leaders once made decisions about important events, such as when to hold elections or where to build new cities, based on the presence or flight patterns of birds. Builders often omit the thirteenth floor from their floor plans, and many pedestrians go well out of their way to avoid walking under a ladder.

While it's widely recognized that superstitions like these are not rational, many persist, guiding the behavior of large groups of people even today.

In a new analysis driven by game theory, two theoretical biologists devised a model that shows how superstitious beliefs can become established in a society's social norms. Their work, which appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrates how groups of individuals, each starting with distinct belief systems, can evolve a coordinated set of behaviors that are enforced by a set of consistent social norms.

How superstitions spread


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  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday April 20 2019, @08:27AM

    by Bot (3902) on Saturday April 20 2019, @08:27AM (#832482) Journal

    > "Timmy put his finger here and got hurt" isn't a superstition. It's an inference from a single fact.

    > Supersitition is a pigeon tapping its head on glass because the last time it tapped its head on glass, it was fed.

    You adopt a god POV, you shouldn't use a definition of superstition that requires you to know that "touch wire, feel bad" is inference done right and "tap head, get food" is inference done wrong. because then the definition is post facto. "Oh, looks like I find no possible correlation between action and effect, therefore it is superstition". What if one day the pigeon feeder hears the tapping and says huh maybe he wants food. Ceased to be a superstition then.

    If you adopt the point of view of timmy and the pigeon there is no whatsoever difference between what you defined as superstition and what you defined as inference. Personally I prefer to deal with a superstitious guy that counteracts before having worked out all the implications than a hollywood hero kind of guy who acts according to his necessarily limited mental models proving the establishment was wrong, especially when the superstitious guy is aware he is superstitious while the hero thinks he can always rationalize well enough to make the right choice.

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