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Critics argue that superstition is not based on reason, but instead springs from religious feelings that are misdirected or unenlightened, which leads in some cases to rigor in religious opinions or practice, and in other cases to belief in extraordinary events or in charms, omens, and prognostications. Many superstitions can be prompted by misunderstandings of causality or statistics.
Any of the above can lead to unfounded fears, or excessive scrupulosity in outward observances.
Fanaticism, some argue, arises from this same displaced religious feeling, in a state of high-wrought and self-confident excitement. Such unquestioning loyalty can apply to politics and ideologiesAn ideology is a collection of ideas. The word ideology was coined by Count Destutt de Tracy in the late 18th century to define a " science of ideas. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things (compare Weltansch as well as religion; indeed, it can even be focused on sports teams and celebritiesFor the 1998 movie, see Celebrity (1998 movie). A celebrity is a famous person. The etymological origin of the word is "one who is celebrated. An alternative definition of a celebrity is a person who is famous for being famous (regardless of what first br. See Baseball superstitionBaseball is a sport with a long history of superstition . From the very famous Curse of the Bambino to some players' refusal to wash their clothes or bodies after a win, superstition is present in all parts of baseball. Many baseball players— batters, pit for a series of such examples.Whatever the cause, superstition can lead to a disregard of reason under the false assumption of a divine or paranormal form of control over the universe. A gambler might credit a winning streak in pokerTrump Taj Mahal Poker is a card game, the most popular of a class of games called vying games in which players with fully or partially concealed cards make wagers into a central pot after which the pot is awarded to the remaining player or players with th to a "lucky rabbit's foot" or to sitting in a certain chair, rather than to skill or to the law of averagesThe law of averages is a lay term used to express the view that eventually, everything "evens out. For example: Two very similar people who drive similar cars in similar circumstances over a long period of time will have roughly the same number of acciden. An airline passenger might believe that it is a medal of St Christopher (traditional patron saint of travellers) that keeps him safe in the air, rather than the fact that airplanes statistically crash very rarely.
Superstition is also used to refer to folkloric belief systems, usually as juxtaposed to another religion's idea of the spiritual world, or as juxtaposed to science.
The behaviorist psychologist B.F. Skinner placed a series of hungry pigeons in a cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food to the pigeon "at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird's behavior". He discovered that the pigeons associated the delivery of the food with whatever chance actions they had been performing as it was delivered, and that they continued to perform the same actions:
Skinner suggested that the pigeons believed that they were influencing the automatic mechanism with their "rituals" and that the experiment also shed light on human behavior:
Like the pigeons, many people associate behavior (head-turning or worship of God(s) ) with an external phenomenon (delivery of food or conquest by a foreign power) that was not necessarily connected in any way with personal behavior. Any misfortune could thus be interpreted as a sign of divine disfavor, whether or not the individuals who suffered bore direct responsibility.
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