Missing Floors and Violated Dolls

[jgl]

That's quite a different issue. It is possible to make a perfectly reasonable case that injecting stuff made of chicken eggs and mercury directly into your child's bloodstream is not the best course of action.

I don't really see how it's a different issue, especially given the recent news regarding the person behind the MMR scares. It is also possible to make a case that injecting stuff made of mouldy bread isn't the best of ideas either, but hey, where would we be without penicillin?

And that over-vaccinating children leads to them having dysfunctional immune systems and hence all the allergies, asthma and so on that have appeared in remarkably good correlation with the increases in vaccination.

I speak has someone who caught all of M, M and R (and chickenpox, and scarlet fever) when I was young and haven't needed to visit a doctor for nearly 30 years (sporting injuries excepted).

I'm sure that you know that correlation is different from cause. I could just as plausibly attribue another explanation- that vaccinations have lowered infant mortality rates and allowed people with weaker immune systems to actually survive into adulthood.

I speak as someone who would have been naturally deselected a century ago because I have a dysfunctional immune system, but survived because of modern medicines. But regardless, we both know that single examples are statistically insignificant.

[PDLM]

Indeed - but my point is that we could debate these issues and we could produce data, and so on. It would be a valid scientific debate.

There can be no valid scientific debate about religion or feng shui or unlucky floor numbers.

(I live on a 4th floor that is actually called the 4th floor!)

[jgl]

Indeed - but my point is that we could debate these issues and we could produce data, and so on. It would be a valid scientific debate.

That's true- there was (and may still be) scope for debate.

Though if the data has been produced and the analysis (rather than the anecdotes or individual instances) points to one conclusion and people insist on believing to the contrary, is it still a scientific debate or does it cross over into the realms of superstition?

I used to live in a 12A in the UK... the street dated back to the 1800s. It was kind of cute to have 12A instead of 13 as a residential address.

[PDLM]

Obviously that's a debatable area as well.

Some questions are black and white and once the evidence is found then that's the end of any rational debate. But many are proven only in percentages. So, for example, the fact that, on average having an MMR jab is better for you than not having one doesn't mean that there are no cases (or indeed quite a lot of cases) where the reverse is true. In fact the numbers of cases where either is bad for you are really quite small, in fact very small in the case of the vaccine and probably zero if measured relative to the risk of the separate vaccines.

My scepticism is not about MMR, it's about vaccination against low risk diseases in general; I have no problem with vaccinating against high mortality diseases. The one thing that is quite hard to quantify in this debate is the benefit in terms of a strengthened immune system of overcoming a disease naturally vs being immunised against it. But the rush to vaccinate leads to things like the swine flu vaccine which, frankly, now seems to have been hugely over-hyped by the pharmaceutical companies at great benefit to their bottom line when the benefits of the vaccines bought at huge expense is really quite debatable.

[Paranoid Elroy]

...avoiding the number for are quaint and relatively harmless. It's always easier to make fun of the less educated members of society.

Sorry to bump the thread.

I somehow remembered your words "relatively harmless" while I was watching this video: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrNIuFrso8I"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrNIuFrso8I[/ame] (Highly Recommended)

I would say it's not harmless. If we keep building places with missing floors, then we keep on spreading the tetraphobia / triskaidekaphobia, and pass it onto our children. If we continue to allow this, then the superstitious (or "the less educated members of society" as you say) have won; the rational does not get a say in this.

It's not harmless, the things we avoid everyday to continue to live in our own irrational fears. Why should irrational ideologies be forced on us?

[wcluk]

just need to teach your kid count the right way.... the rich ppl way...

10, 11, 12, 15, 16.... etc...

so what is 10 + 3 = 15.... =)

haven't u guys heard the top floor (88 floor) on a building in TST, which is only 30 stories high?

[Sigga]

I wonder whether superstitions don't have a (slightly) harmful psychological effect. For example, people could make irrational and suboptimal decisions because, say, their horoscope said not to do business today, the first taxi that came along had a "4" in the license plate or it's an unlucky day, so they're going to be withdrawn and moody, etc.

Would productivity improve, or reported happiness increase if superstition disappeared? Hmm. Would people have a more positive and fruitful attitude if they believed their destinies were in their control, instead of a god, a number or fate having that power?

Sure, live and let live, but let's not pretend there's anything positive about superstitions. Especially when they involve not cutting fingernails or hairs growing out of moles. Yuck.

[Loz_2]

Sure theres still a 13th floor if you count out the levels but its the symbolism of the number staring the superstitious lift traveller in the face which is the bit which probably freaks them out is it not?
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[Renotommy]

Is there a connection between superstition and religion? Do religions cause superstition? Will an Atheist be less superstitious?

Those local Chinese women using a shoe to smack a paper doll and hotels, corporations to skip floors, what religion(s) are those supposed to be?