How a Lack of Control Leads to Superstition: Scientific American

We're just wired that way. Yet another study that points to the human brain's inherent drift toward superstition and magical thinking as a way to assert some amount of control and, thereby, feel better about things. Some will see this a negative. I see it as quite affirming of my stance on things. "If it helps make things happen and doesn't hurt anyone, then there's no problem." The problem comes in when the same mechanism kicks in to reaffirm the negative things and gets someone locked into a feeling of helplessness. Best way out of that? Fight fire with fire, I say--create new patterns, no matter how illogical or practically useless to get the brain on a more positive track.