Psi: How Open Minded are You Really?

[The Grand Nudger]

The counterpoint being that superstition may not be some thing with selective weight, but an effect of a thing with selective weight (or none). Relative selective weight is very difficult to establish, and it's difficult to establish that we ought to or need to assume that those are the parameters with which to approach the question to begin with.

Put another way, before we dive into a long discussion about the relative selective weight of some "x" - we might want to make sure that x actually has a weight.

[bennyboy]

Of course - with rising intelligence, resulting in relatively smaller environmental pressure - it makes less and less sense - in terms of evolutionary advantage, to rely on superstition to "deal" with our problems, since many of those may be solved rationally - with far greater benefits.

In an advanced and stable society like ours, there seems to be very little point to superstitious behavior: we make use of the things we know about, and the things we don't know about are kept at a distance, i.e. they don't seem to negatively affect us, at least in our mundane lives.

But what happens when most bacteria are resistant to antibiotics, when airborn super-ebola starts sweeping through cities, and when zombies start scratching at the doors? It seems to me our solutions are a product of technology and a stable culture, not specifically of rational thinking habits among the population. The day I see my kids melt into the ground is the day I start wondering if I should change my necktie on odd Tuesdays and maybe do a little Joo-joo dance before breakfast every morning.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, consider that for vast swaths of our history we didn't have a stable culture - and we didn't have technology at all. Specifically, while we were coming up with the foundation. Some might argue that inventing a scyscraper, for example...was easier than getting the whole fire thing down. I don't know if I'd agree to that very strenuously, but I can see their point. Our solutions are a product, sure...but even without those things(stable culture/tech), we still seem to produce them (well reasoned or not).

Perhaps stable culture helps to preserve more of what we come up with, and disperse it to a greater number of people. Tech facilitates tech. That sort of thing.
(maybe you'd always done the dance and sung the song, simple compulsion...but that day, your kids almost melted into the ground. Praise Bob!?)

[Homeless Nutter]

The counterpoint being that superstition may not be some thing with selective weight, but an effect of a thing with selective weight (or none). Relative selective weight is very difficult to establish, and it's difficult to establish that we ought to or need to assume that those are the parameters with which to approach the question to begin with.

Put another way, before we dive into a long discussion about the relative selective weight of some "x" - we might want to make sure that x actually has a weight.

There's no denying that. It would take way more studies, than the ones I'm (however vaguely) familiar with, to establish that.