Science & Superstitions
Many buildings around the world don’t have the 13th Floor. Instead the elevator may be a label 12B or 14A. So also in some airlines like Air France and Lufthansa, don’t be surprised if the 13th row or 17th row happen to be missing, because people of countries like Italy and Brazil considered them as unlucky….
If someone dear to you sneezes, immediately you respond saying “bless you”. You don’t want the devil lurking around to steal their soul after the sneeze, just as your ancestors believed. Else If you are about to start a new venture or undertake an auspicious activity you wouldn’t want to see a black cat cross your path or see a mirror suddenly break or walk underneath a ladder
In each of the above cases, there appears to be a general belief that some supernatural forces are at work and that they are just about to influence something really undesirable, and one ought to best avoid it before things really go haywire.
While most people prefer calling it their ‘gut feeling’, universally believers of pure logic and science would without mincing any words blatantly call it a ‘superstition’. Decisions that appear to be grossly irrational on the part of the decision maker, and entirely based on one’s belief of an eventual ‘good luck’ and ‘destiny’. And to top it all, one may resort to carrying of charms, wearing certain clothes, visiting places associated with good fortune, preferring specific colours or using of a particular number/sign…
Though most of the listed choices and actions appear to be ‘trivial’ in nature, yet the conviction with which one goes about doing it may surprise one and all. Now at a time when science is making life easy and contributing to much of mankind’s progress and advancement, people have begun questioning one’s blind faith on ‘superstitions’, especially those that have been passed onto us by our ancestors.
While it may not be prudent to junk everything that out-rightly appears to be superstitious, instead one should try to follow the ones which have a scientific and logical basis and not let fear and anxiety push us to accept or do something forcibly. But before calling a spade, a ‘spade’, it is critical that one first develops the requisite scientific outlook and temper to identify a prevailing practice as being a ‘superstition’ and only then do away with it.
While taking a decision, one ought to be conscious of the fact that when ancient Indian scriptures and Aryabhatta put forth the assumption that Earth was round and it revolved around the Sun, the entire western world believed otherwise terming it ‘superstition’.
So also, whenever people in India suffered from communicable or infectious disease, traditionally householders performed some rituals using neem leaves on the affected person, which again was considered to be ‘superstition’ by the elite and learned. However, later when the same people who questioned these practices began discovering the amazing medicinal values of neem plant, they found some sense and logic in these age-old practices. In short, ‘superstitions’ are time tested assumptions – some passed down from generation to generation.
While it is true that unless these so called ‘assumptions’ are empirically found to be correct and eventually explained using some theory or principle, one need not accept them as ‘logical’ or ‘scientific’. But there exist many superstitions which may not have been proved scientifically, yet we cannot call these practices as ‘unscientific’ simply because there is every possibility of mankind not having evolved with as much knowledge to reason its veracity or we may not have the requisite technology to debunk them scientifically.
Though some of the superstitions appear to be quite hilarious, there are a few that are really very interesting and connect to heritage and ethos. In such a scenario, it’s best to do away with those which appear out-rightly ridiculous, but as for those where decision making is very tricky, leave it alone. With the passage of time, as the reasoning behind its origin gradually erodes, the truth will appear all by itself. What is scientific will remain, and what’s superstition will fade out into history. So let’s not try to reason out every superstition, at least for now!
-Dr Shobha Tawde
Team ScienceNow
