Superstitious Beliefs Cemented Before Birth

Two words to this hogwashery: digitus impudicus

(oh but no doubt the length of my earlobes is a genetic indication of extremely saucy androgen-induced attitude..)

Now that is a load of old rubbish.

What is the paranormal doing on a site that is aimed at critical thinkers?

Oh, I think it's just a bit of Halloween fluff. Boo.

Pthppppth, snort. Puhleeze.

There is a possibility that relational thinking may lead to believing in some sort of supernatural belief... And taken to its extreme, probably results in OCD.

Og stubs his toe just before fishing. It turns out to be a rather good day for fishing. Is Og inclined to associate stubbing his toe with a good fish catch???

"Og stubs his toe just before fishing. It turns out to be a rather good day for fishing. Is Og inclined to associate stubbing his toe with a good fish catch???"

No, silly. By the time Og is born, Og already associates stubbing his toe with a good fish catch. What remains is for Og to learn what "toe" means, and how to fish.

No. It's our minds characteristic to draw associations between things. No matter how odd.

Chillax, mate! Poking fun at the completely misleading Blog title.

Author Martin Voracek should get together with Murray A. Straus and Mallie J. Paschall, publish a book and call it Science Made Stupid - A Who's Who's Guide to 21st Century Psychology.

It just goes to show that with bias you can prove anything you want using statistics and call it "research".

The previously mentioned study relating relative finger length ("higher feminized" digit ratio <sigh>) to superstitious beliefs really proves this point well.

Voracek found that "higher feminized" digit ratio in men correlated with stronger paranormal and superstitious beliefs, "even when controlled for age, education, adult height and weight, and birth length and weight."

"Shorter feminized" digit ratios in women also correlated with a greater likelihood of superstitious beliefs, as did a woman's lighter weight at birth. For both sexes, shorter body length at birth was associated with later beliefs in superstitions and the paranormal.

I can't resist the red flag - here goes.

I'm a woman with a longer ring finger and I've had psychic experiences. I think quantum entanglement may offer a provisional explanation. Supposedly this does occur on the macro level, but its effects are ostensibly so diffuse that its pathways can't be accessed. I believe they can be, via emotions, which "hard science" is so quick to discount, simply because its affects and effects are incalculable.

I'm convinced that traditional shamans have used the pathways of affective connection for millenia, not only for interpersonal purposes (cf. "Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice" Mark J. Plotkin, among others) but to obtain knowledge about their environs. How did the Hawaiians know - long before the telescope - that Sirius (Kaulua-i-kua trans. "yoked back to back") was a binary star?

As to my own experience, while breast-feeding my youngest child, being in a half-dream/alpha state, I've been able to see (skry) what my older child was doing at school. When questioned "What did you do today?", his description matched what I had seen. Interestingly enough, I didn't see him, but as if seeing through his eyes, the pictures in the book he was reading, etc.

A possible enabler for this particular type of phenomena may be that mothers can retain cells from their babies bodies in their own brains for up to 20 odd years (and they may be odd indeed). This was from a Scientific American news brief that it would take me some time now to find again. However, that doesn't really explain why baby mice would come out of the walls and play on my feet while I was nursing. A little Edward Hicks anyone?

I'll relate another experience which was in no way as pleasant. Within the fortnight following the death of my beloved brother (mental state - sleeplessness alternating with vivid, distressing dreams) someone made a callous, dismissive remark, to which, in the social circumstance, it wasn't appropriate for me to respond in anger. However, at that instant of my intense, blinding spike of rage, the closed door of the room opened and slammed hard three times. There were witnesses, it was a real puzzler, no ascertainable cause, but I knew it was me. I felt a dark wave, like static on a black-and-white TV, go out from me. I don't know that anyone could or would want to replicate such an event. An intrepid observer may just as likely be hunting his teeth as documenting such an occurence.

Now that I've convinced you that I'm a possibly dangerous psychotic, here's a question for those of you so comfortable in your present state of "knowing". May the seemingly endless proliferation of sub-atomic particles, be the "epicycles" of contemporary physics?

Well, as far as we know, the human brain is the only quantum device that knows it's a quantum device. Thoughts are based on quantum mechanical effects. Could the human brain be able to affect the quantum field around it?

I think posters are responding to the hot buttons of "superstition" and "ESP", etc. when the upshot of the article is something else. This is maybe more a testament to the fact that the article could have included a paragraph or two that would have put this "research" (or more correctly, observations) in context.

As a matter of fact, the author of the article may have emphasized these buzz words more than Mr. Voracek.

There is an interesting book entitled, "Brain Sex" which deals with Mr. Voracek's research more clearly. The real issue here is that the brain developing in the womb is very affected by the hormonal state in the mother during that development. This helps explain tendancies towards homosexuality, etc.

The article represents Mr. Voracek's observation that, on average, the digit ratio of men vs. women is likely an indirect indicator of the hormonal influence of the brain of the individual whose hand one is examining. It isn't a hard rule without exceptions, as testified by the above poster.

The article is NOT about whether or not paranormal experience is true or false. People who have had paranormal experiences accept them as part of reality while those who have never had similar experiences generally do not.