38. Superstition and Mindfulness

2014-07-30

Many things are supposed to be good or bad luck, but are we gaining or losing something by playing along?

Audio Version MP3

A breakdown of the most superstitious demographic groups - http://therapyevanston.com/2010/10/who-is-superstitious/

An article extolling some of the fun that can be had in apophenia - http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/reality-play/201207/being-amused-apophenia

An interesting study about how superstitions can actually help people focus on performance - http://soco.uni-koeln.de/files/PsychS21_7.pdf

Any discussion of superstition would be incomplete without a reference to Tim Minchin’s poem “Storm” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U

Matthew Crist’s response to THUNK - 35. Health Care Crazy Talk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaayoW4E9x4

The report on existential risks highlighted by Samuel Stringman - http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/gcr-report.pdf

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