Hein (fub) wrote,
Hein
fub
  • Mood: amused

Superstitions

The psycholog of superstitions is well-known: it's a way for people to feel in control of things that they really can have any influence on. For instance, the outcome of the World Cup soccer finals later this evening. But most of these superstitions are based on coincidence -- something coincided with a favourable outcome, and us silly humans tend to think that this unrelated thing caused the favourable outcome. This gives rise to things like "I wore this shirt when my team won, so I'm wearing it again for the next match".

So how on earth does one dream up a way to have an octopus predict the winners of a game? Did they once by accident have two feeding trays with flags of the playing countries in his aquarium!? And why do they think that it's actually predicting something?
I find it very puzzling and amusing that a prank like this makes the world headlines.
Tags: society
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  • Troubles restarting

    As ‘the troubles’ seem to be restarting (which anyone could have foreseen), I am thinking about my visit to Northern Ireland in 2015. I…

  • Things that happened this week

    A power interruption. We had gotten a letter from the company that manages the power lines that they’d be working on the infrastructure on…

  • Karen Sparck Jones, one of the greats

    If you’re on Twitter, you should follow the account OnThisDayShe, which highlights an (often overlooked) woman who helped shape our world.…