And hello to you. It's Friday the 13th today. Hope today's been a good one for you so far,

or at least not a bad one. Humans are funny old creatures, and superstitions are a good example

of that. Where do they come from? Why do we cling to superstitions? What on earth is going on in our

brain when we avoid stepping on cracks in the pavement or we salute magpies? And superstitions. What on earth is going on in our brain when we avoid stepping on cracks in the

pavement or we salute magpies? And superstition is one of these little quirks of human behaviour

that stuck around, despite us all, pretty much I'm sure, knowing logically that there is no real

cause and effect. But that's the thing about logic, isn't it?

It's not always the dominant force in our day-to-day lives. You see, our brains are hardwired

to look for patterns. That's what helped us survive as a species and populate the planet.

If our ancestors noticed that certain berries made people sick,

then they learn to avoid them. If dark clouds led to storms, they found shelter. So over time,

this pattern-seeking tendency became one of our greatest tools. And it's also the root of

superstition. Take the classic example of your lucky pair of pants.

You wear them to a job interview and you get the job. You know, is that a coincidence?

Well, yeah, of course it is. But your brain, bless it, doesn't want to miss a pattern just in case.

So it links the pants to success. And the next time something important crops up, on go the

lucky pants again. And this is what psychologists call illusory correlation when we think that two

unrelated events are actually connected because our brain thinks, well, better safe than sorry.

And once we believe that something is lucky or unlucky, confirmation bias

kicks in. We start noticing every time the belief seems to be right, and we ignore all those times

when it very clearly isn't, and we all do it. Even those of us who think that we're far too

rational to fall for that sort of thing, if you've ever knocked on wood after saying something positive just in case you jinx it or you've crossed your fingers for look, that's superstition.

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