2. A Myth to be
broken!!!!

4. ABSTRACT
 Unlike the usual problems in the society we
had chosen this concept which may be
considered as less importance but if it is left
uncared may become one of the serious
issue in our society.
 Thus we had done this project with the help
of our teacher, parents and friends.
 So we just welcome to look into our ideas.

5. What is superstition ?
Superstitions are beliefs that
certain things or events will
bring good or bad luck.
Every culture has
superstitions.

6. LET US SEE
SOME OF THE
SUPERSITIONS
AROUND OUR
ENVIRONMENT !!

7. •A dog howling at night
chills the blood – a portent
of approaching death.

8. •Hiccups indicate
someone is thinking of you.
• An itchy eye refers to
someone maligning you, or
your envy of someone.

9. A barber shop remains
closed on Tuesday as
hair should not be cut
on that day

10. •Nails should not be
cut at night for fear of
evil spirits.

11. •Twitching of the eye
is highly
inauspicious.

13. THIS IS SOME OF THE SUPERSTITIONS OF
OTHER COUNTRIES
1.Some people carry a rabbit’s foot on a key ring and
think four-leaf clovers ( a clover with four leaves
instead of the usual three).
2.The Americans think that knocking on wood
prevents good luck changing to bad, so they often
use the expression “ knock on wood”.

14. Let us see some
of the Japanese
superstitions?

15. In Japan there are certain things they will not do because it may
cause bad luck.
A few examples are:
The number four:
The number four is considered inauspicious because it is
pronounced the same as the word for death (shi). Therefore, one
should not make gift that consist of four pieces, etc.
In some hotels and hospitals the room number four is skipped.
Stick chopsticks into the rice:
Do not stick your chopsicks into your food generally, but
especially not into rice, because only at funerals, chopsticks are
stuck into the rice which is put onto the altar.

16. Give food from chopstick to chopstick:
This is only done with the bones of the cremated body at
funerals .
Sleeping towards the North:
Do not sleep towards the North because bodies are laid
down like that.
Cut nails at night:
If you cut your nails at night, you will not be with your
parents when they die.
Lie down after eating:
If you lie down immediately after eating, you will become
a cow.

17. Whistle in the night:
If you whistle in the night, a snake will come to you.
Black cat:
There are also some imported superstitions such as the believe
that black cats crossing the street in front of you cause bad luck.
In many shrines, temples and souvenir shops, amulets are sold
that are supposed to bring luck, safety or good fortune. There are
amulets for money, health, love, success on exams, safety on the
streets, etc. Small pieces of paper (omikuji) that predict your
future are also available. These pieces of paper are tied around
the branch of a tree after reading; either to make the good fortune
come true or to avoid the predicted bad fortune.

18. R EFERENCE :
Since it is a vast subject to deal with we
have taken some reference from available webpage
which we feel helpful for us to make people
understand more effectively, moreover some
scientist‟s observations and thoughts are provided
here.
Let us go through it !!!

19. SUPERSTITION AS SCIENCE

20. FIRST-FOOTING
 It is lucky when a tall man walks into a house
first in the New Year
 Is this a scientific hypothesis?
 Why not?
 Is it something about the hypothesis?
 Is it something about
our attitudes?
 Is it something about
how it was reached?

21. OUTLINE
 Elements of superstitions
 Superstition, magic & religion
 3 different views of superstition
 Superstition as science
 What is the difference?
 Empirical limits
 Conclusions

22. ELEMENTS OF SUPERSTITIONS
 Superstitious
beliefs
 Superstitious
practices
 The link
between them

23. ELEMENTS OF A SUPERSTITION
 Superstitious belief
 „Action‟
 Crossing fingers
 Can be just an event – Friday 13
th
 „Effect‟
 Potentially desirable or undesirable event
 Connection
 Causation/conjuration or prediction/divination
 Explanation
 Luck
 No natural explanation
 Supernatural explanation

24. ELEMENTS OF A SUPERSTITION
 Superstitious practice
 Taking or avoiding the „action‟
 Avoiding black cats
 Success uncertain
 Function
 Manifest
 To avoid or bring
about the „effect‟
 Latent
 Can be very different
 First-footing again
 Predicting or causing?

25. ELEMENTS OF A SUPERSTITION
 The link between beliefs and practices
 Generally problematic
 Focussing on practices
 Skinner‟s behaviourism
 Beliefs secondary
 Focussing on beliefs
 Superstition satisfying internal needs
 Practices secondary

26. SUPERSTITION, MAGIC & RELIGION
Magic & religion
Magic & superstition
Religion &
superstition

27. SUPERSTITION, MAGIC & RELIGION
 Magic & religion
 E. Durkheim 1912
 Sacred vs. profane
 Religion
 Social function
 Magic
 Individual function
 D. S. Wilson 2002
 Evolutionary explanation of
religion
 Social function as group-selection

28. SUPERSTITION, MAGIC & RELIGION
 Magic & superstition
 Magic
 Traditional societies
 Superstition
 Modern society
 Relation?
 Different phenomena
 Same phenomenon / different contexts
 Education and superstition (Jahoda 1969)
 Jumper example

29. SUPERSTITION, MAGIC & RELIGION
 Religion & superstition
 Deisidaimonia
 Misplaced fear of daimons
 Theophrastus, circa 300 BC
 Superstition is false religion
 Worship of demons
 Aquinas, circa 1250 AD
 Atheist generalisation
 All religion is false
 Therefore, superstition is all religion
 Can differentiate religion & superstition
 Some religious practices superstitious
 Intercessory prayer

30. 3 VIEWS OF SUPERSTITION
 Superstition as fantasy
 Superstition as rhetoric
 Superstition as science

31. 3 VIEWS OF SUPERSTITION
 Superstition as fantasy
 Attempted retreat from threatening/
uncontrollable reality
 Anxiety-reduction (Malinowski 1925)
 Retaining feeling of control (Case et all 2004)
 “The man under the sway of impotent fury or dominated
by thwarted hate spontaneously clenches his fists and
carries out imaginary thrusts at his enemy, muttering
imprecations, casting words of hatred and anger against
him.” – Malinowski “Magic, Science, and Religion”

32. 3 VIEWS OF SUPERSTITION
 Superstition as rhetoric
 Attempted communication
 Use of language to induce motion in things (Burke
1969)
 Costly signalling (Tambiah 1990)
 Accepting authority (Palmer 1989)
 “By communicating acceptance of a supernatural claim
one is communicating a willingness to accept the
speaker‟s influence unskeptically.” - Palmer “The ritual
taboos of fishermen”

33. 3 VIEWS OF SUPERSTITION
 Superstition as science
 Attempt to understand/control
the world
 Primitive science (Frazer 1890)
 Adventitious reinforcement
(Skinner 1947)
 Biased cognitive heuristics
(Rozin & Nemeroff 1980)
 “Magic is a spurious system of natural law as well as a
fallacious guide of conduct; it is a false science as well
as an abortive art.” - Frazer, Golden Bough

34. SUPERSTITION AS SCIENCE?
Question of focus
Primitive science
Adventitious
reinforcement
Biased cognitive
heuristics

35. SUPERSTITION AS SCIENCE?
 Question of focus
 Superstitious beliefs vs. scientific beliefs
 Superstitious methods vs. scientific methods
 Both options incomplete
 Would „superstitious‟ beliefs be scientific if arrived at
scientifically?
 Could they be arrived at scientifically?
 Is there such a thing as „magical thinking‟?
 Or is it that thinking sometimes leads to magical beliefs?

36. SUPERSTITION AS SCIENCE?
 Primitive science
 Tylor 1871, Frazer 1890, Levy-Bruhl 1910
 Superstition identified with primitive societies/minds
 Science identified with modern societies/minds
 Progress seen as directed „evolution‟
 Enlightenment / Intellectualist position
 Rationality expels superstition

37. SUPERSTITION AS SCIENCE?
 Adventitious reinforcement
 B.F. Skinner 1947, S. Vyse 1997
 Superstition in a pigeon
 Skinner box
 Operant conditioning
 Independent reinforcement schedule
 „Superstitious behaviour‟
 “Operant conditioning is
not just for rats and
pigeons” - Vyse

38. SUPERSTITION AS SCIENCE?

 Adventitious reinforcement
 Matrix task
 4 x 4 matrix 
 Move dot from top left to
bottom right
 Task: Find out when points are gained
 Points awarded randomly
 Numerous theories put forward
 Similar situations
 Malfunctioning light switch
 Conditioning as basis for understanding science?

39. SUPERSTITION AS SCIENCE?
 Biased cognitive heuristics
 Domain-specific
 Generally effective
 Systematically biased
 Heuristics and biases (Kahneman & Tversky 1974)
 Bounded rationality (H. Simon 1972)
 Scientific methods as heuristics
(W. Wimsatt 2007)
 Contagion heuristic
 Rozin & Nemeroff 1980

40. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?
Truth& empirical
adequacy
Natural vs.
supernatural
Sacred vs. profane

41. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?
 Truth & empirical adequacy
 Superstitions as false causal beliefs
 Often used definition
 Many false causal beliefs, some scientific
 Superstitions not just false but (known to be) empirically
inadequate
 Scientific beliefs rejected due to empirical inadequacy
 Can not equate Newton‟s physics with his astrology
 Is „onto something‟
 But superstitious beliefs „look different‟

42. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?
 Natural vs. supernatural
 Superstitions as supernatural claims
 Problems
 Vague concept
 Circularity?
 Distinction much later than category
 Correlation between superstitious and pseudoscientific beliefs
 Succubi become aliens
 Post hoc explanations
 Is „onto something‟

43. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?
 Sacred vs. profane
 Durkheim
 Explaining a cognitive category in terms of a social
phenomenon?
 Is „onto something‟
 But, again, superstitions „look different‟

44. EMPIRICAL LIMITS
Observability &
superstitions
Observability & functions
Agnosticism about
explanations

45. EMPIRICAL LIMITS
 B. van Fraassen
 The Scientific Image 1980
 Limits of observability
 Actual empirical limitations
 Ability to discern small objects
 Limits change over time
 Agnosticism about unobservable
claims
 Challenging scientific attitudes
 Observable/detectable distinction
 Distinction generally rejected
 Is anything unobservable?
 Significance of social attitudes

46. EMPIRICAL LIMITS
 Observability & superstitions
 How observable are superstitious claims?
 Connections between „actions‟ and „events‟
 Observable as correlations
 Explanations for the connections
 The claims hard to observe
 Attitudes object to observation
 Render superstitious explanations effectively unobservable
 „Superempirical‟ rather than supernatural

47. EMPIRICAL LIMITS
 Observability and functions
 Manifest and latent function
 Manifest function requires observability
 Religious connections unobservable
 Latent (social) function more important
 In superstitions only explanations unobservable
 Scientists aim to make explanations observable
 A vital difference

48. EMPIRICAL LIMITS
 Agnosticism about explanations
 Scientific explanations?
 Scientists take realist view of explanations
 Pursue evidence for their truth
 Agnosticism not justified
 Superstitious explanations
 Explanations in practically untestable terms
 Testing of explanations discouraged
 Agnosticism is not enough
 Agnosticism about explanations is not scientific

49. CONCLUSIONS
Differences
Similarities
Methods: Development
Methods: Use of
of new heuristics
heuristics
Beliefs: A realist attitude
Beliefs: Often hard to
to explanations leading to
test explanations put
pursuit of testing
forward

50. From the above explanations and
observations it is clear that supertitions is one thing
that is related to our own attitude and thoughts
related to our enviroment. Thus we have created
some ideas to make peoples aware of this thing such
that they will urge the future generation in a correct
path.
Thank you for watching our ideas.

51. THANK YOU!!!!