Friggatriskaidekaphobia - this is not an easy word to work into your average cocktail conversation. Or your average blog, come to that. It's not all that easy to say out loud either, what with the Norse and Greek etymology. Friggatriskaidekaphobia is the fear of Friday the 13th.
Many years ago I worked with a fabulous student from Colombia, Carlos by name. When Friday the 13th inevitably came 'round, as it inevitably does at least once each and every year, I asked him whether he was perturbed by this development. Carlos was confused. Discussion ensued. At the end of the meaning-negotiation, an amazing piece of trivia emerged.
In Spanish and Latin American cultures, Friday th 13th is not unlucky; it's Tuesday the 13th - what is called "martes y trece". So scientifically speaking, we can't be holding the weekday accountable for bad luck. Thus we are left with triskaidekaphobia, fear of the number 13.
Looking into numerology in various cultures, it turns out that number significance is highly variable. The Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese are very much worried about the number 4. The Saudi Arabians are biased enough in favour of the number 5, that they tell me the auction for the vanity license plate with that digit on it is quite vigorous since it is associated with luck and wealth. These various perspectives on the importance of numbers in the universe can't hold much water in the real scientific, law-of-physics kind of way, since they are inconsistent. Incommensurate even.
Still, superstition is very common, even among the well-educated. I have this discussion with my MBA students, when I talk about the epistemology of information systems. You know what I mean, that whole data-information-knowledge-action model you see all over the internet. In my lectures I add a vertical dimension to classify particular quantitative considerations to the model, wise, irrelevant, foolish, as in (wise/irrelevant/foolish) categories of (data/information/knowledge/action). Send me an email to sunny.marche@dal.ca if you want the PowerPoint on this.
This inevitably invites the question from a student. What do you mean by "foolish knowledge"? The answer is "superstition" as a category. Can you be more specific, they ask. At this point, I choose the sport that lines up with the season. For Canada in May it is the Stanley Cup, emblematic of supremacy in Canada's national religion - ice hockey. Does anyone believe whether the goalie puts on his left skate before his right one has any impact on the outcome?
Students take immediate issue with the implied view in this question. They are not shy about debating the professor, especially given their clearly superior knowledge of the game. If the expression of superstition gives the goalie confidence they say, it is entirely possible the so-called superstitious practice could improve self-confidence and therefore performance. In other words, it’s functional not superstitious.
It turns out this argument has empirical evidence. Simply go to scholar.google.com and enter the term "superstition" and "performance".
I am not done with them. How many of you put on your favourite team's sweater and cross your fingers during the double overtime when you are watching on TV, I ask. There is uncomfortable shuffling of feet. I press the point. How many of you imagine that wearing the favoured jersey and the crossing of fingers can have an impact on the outcome? Especially when there is likely an equal number of fans for the other team executing exactly the same superstitious behaviours.
Superstition is when you "know" something, and especially when you act on it, when there is no reason or real evidence to support this knowledge or action. For example driving extra carefully on Friday the 13th, or Tuesday the 13th as the case may be. Or throwing salt over your left shoulder after you spilled it.
No-one know who said it, and it's a damn shame. "It ain't what we don't know that gets us into trouble; it's what we know that ain't so." That phrase is not far from my thoughts as an academic administrator. For example, which applicant is most likely to be successful in a given program, whether the student is really guilty of plagiarism, where our limited scholarship money will do the most good, whether a given examination is a fair assessment of appropriate learning outcomes, etc.
I 'm pretty sure that most of the decisions I made this week have good reason and real evidence.
Knock on wood.
Sunny
PS I prepared this blog and previewed its publication at the end of the workday on May 13, 2011 – Friday. I duly assigned the appropriate categories and pressed the “publish” button. By 9:00 p.m., it had vanished into cyberspace. It is exactly these kind of events that produce superstitious beliefs in the first place. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.