SCI-ART LAB

Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication

Burning Q: Why are more and more young people who claim they are modern becoming more superstitious?


Krishna:  ‘Modern’ is becoming more competitive. More chaotic.

Believing in superstitions is somewhat a psychological universal tendency connected with high chaos and low confidence.

I read an absorbing research paper on this sometime back and wrote on it too. The study was done on fishermen.

When Trobriand (in South Pacific)Islanders went fishing their behavior changed, depending on where they fished. When they fished close to shore—where the waters were calm, the fishing was consistent, and the risk of disaster was low—superstitious behavior among them was nearly nonexistent. But when the fishermen sailed for open seas—where they were far more vulnerable and their prospects far less certain—their behavior shifted. They became very superstitious, often engaging in elaborate rituals to ensure success. In other words, a low sense of control had produced a high need for superstition. One, in effect, substituted for the other.

So, the highly competitive modern world is making people become less confident and they start depending on some start of external emotional support. That support, though temporary, comes from irrational beliefs if you are not mentally strong.

Ancient minds wrapped in high fashion’ is how we describe them.

Because in ancient times people used to connect unrelated things because they didn’t know or have knowledge on why and how something happens and therefore how to handle it. Now despite the knowledge, some people don’t have the time and mind to learn things, even if they read/hear about them, how to critically think to come out of the holes they live in or connect the knowledge correctly to our lives and use it successfully and gain from it.

Superstitious people associate a good or bad outcome at random with a circumstantial process or condition. That is loose correlation at best. Then some in today's world try to authenticate their beliefs using fanciful scientific words creating pseudo-science in the process. They get some sort of satisfaction when they use science to justify their irrationality.

Using science is modern justification for bygone era practices!

Science's rules are unyielding, they will not be bent in any way fo...

I will now tell a real story…

While I was waiting in a hotel lobby for a cab to arrive to pick me up recently, a 19-year old walked in with a hair style like that of Cristiano Ronaldo, torn jeans making a fashion statement and with a latest smart phone in his hand and struck a conversation with me.

During our chat he said he 's doing his B.Tech. but couldn't get high grades in his exams this year because somebody did black magic on him and his health got spoiled during exams because of that, so he 's taking the homeopathic medicines and his astrologer told him his charts showed he 's passing through one of the bad stages of his life.

"Do you know all these things come under superstitions and pseudo-science and don't actually work?", I asked him.

"No. They are genuine science and would definitely work", he assured me.

" Almost all scientists say they are pseudo-science", I tried to stress my point.

"Then the scientists don't know anything about science!", the teenager made a statement and laughed.

Pic source: Google images

Scream!

Somebody please save India

SO?!

We face these type of situations day in and day out.  Therefore, we are trying to lecture people whether they listen or not.

:)

Burning Q: Why are more and more young people who claim they are mo...

Science's rules are unyielding, they will not be bent in any way fo...

Science and superstitions : How rational thinking can make you work...

Burning Q: Why are more and more young people who claim they are mo...

Superstitions don't have any science behind them!

Superstitions

Q: Why do people still believe in superstitions more than scientific evidence in 2019?

Believing in superstitions is somewhat a psychological universal tendency connected with high chaos and low confidence.

I read an absorbing research paper on this sometime back and wrote on it too. The study was done on fishermen.

When Trobriand (in South Pacific)Islanders went fishing their behavior changed, depending on where they fished. When they fished close to shore—where the waters were calm, the fishing was consistent, and the risk of disaster was low—superstitious behavior among them was nearly nonexistent. But when the fishermen sailed for open seas—where they were far more vulnerable and their prospects far less certain—their behavior shifted. They became very superstitious, often engaging in elaborate rituals to ensure success. In other words, a low sense of control had produced a high need for superstition. One, in effect, substituted for the other.

So, the highly competitive modern world is making people become less confident and they start depending on some start of external emotional support. That support, though temporary, comes from irrational beliefs if you are not mentally strong.

Ancient minds wrapped in high fashion’ is how we describe them. Read more about it here:

Burning Q: Why are more and more young people who claim they are mo...

Why don’t they trust scientific evidence?

There are several reasons for this.

People can’t understand science easily like they understand silly stories told by people around.

Even if they read and hear what we write or say, they cannot analyse and perceive it the way it should be done because of conditioning of minds.

They cannot co-relate it to their situations.

Most of the people treat scientific evidence as scientists’ opinions.

Lack of critical thinking skills.

Cognitive dissonance is difficult to deal with. Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviours. This produces a feeling of mental discomfort because this can lead to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviours to reduce the discomfort and restore balance. It will be easy to discord a new one instead of the one that is already well established in ones mind.

People start using the information they have or get to support their beliefs and create pseudo-science in the process.

People find sticking with their group, family, and friends is more comfortable and safe than going against the tide.

People will interpret the facts not with their heads, but with their guts – their emotions, prior opinions and biases. Human perceptions and expectations are huge determinants in understanding things, we tend to see what we expect. We see things as we are not as they are! Research has shown that only one- tenth to one-fourth of people can really do unbiased reasoning and accept a fact based on evidence. Rest of the people will go with emotions and biases! So they resort to motivated reasoning.

So just because you have shown evidence based facts doesn't make people accept them.

We, the people of scientific community, are fighting all these things to make general public understand scientific facts and come out of their ancient mind sets.

Views: 276

© 2024   Created by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service