Hardwired for Superstition

[FightingFat]

An experimental psychologist is claiming “supernatural beliefs are hardwired into our brains from birth”, “almost everyone entertains some form of irrational beliefs even if they are not religious”
It makes sense, spotting patterns that do not exist is definitely a human trait, and I’ve never encountered any one who denounced the illogical thinking of others but did not entertain beliefs not confirmed by scientific experimentation themselves.
guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,1864748,00.html
There’s a link to a video of one of his lectures at danacentre.org.uk/events/2006/02/16/76 summarised as follows
“One way to understand adult magical beliefs is to consider how our children are born with intuitive reasoning processes that infer patterns, forces and essences to account for the unobservable.
These inferences and intuitions explain much of the world, but also lead us to assume that it is inhabited by magical forces. Furthermore, many of aspects of human intimacy are based on the inference of magical properties that connect us together.
In this presentation, Bruce Hood will be demonstrating some intuitive mechanisms in children that form the basis for adult magical beliefs, from the benign to the truly bizarre. Though scientific education may correct many of these notions, by their nature, magical beliefs based on such intuitive theories are difficult to eradicate, even in the rational adult.”
What do you think? Can we, should we, erradicate “superstition”? Which superstitions are harmful and why? When are these intuitive reasoning patterns a good thing, when a bad one?

 

[puzzleannie]

bad science because it begins with agenda and preconceptions–namely that religious beliefs equate with superstition–and uses available data to promote and support the agenda. If the researcher began with the presupposition that religious ideas and spirituality are innate, he could use the same research to support that conclusion.

 

[Scott_Waddell]

Mark Shea had some interesting comments on this: What a superbly arrogant specimen of scientism!

Scott

 

[Hastrman]

Yes, for instance, we entertain the totall unproveable thesis of the reality of matter, or of the existence of people other than ourselves.

But then, maybe they should teach scientists this little thing called logic…

 

[jman507]

We’d have to throw out all logic and rational thought, if we did not take some unproveable assumptions as givens. I would think it hard for science to disprove supernatural events, when it by definition does not claim to take the supernatural into account.