5 ms·

I’m a strong proponent for listening to your gut, but that’s very different from a bird landing on your home predicting death, especially when the correlation i

I’m a strong proponent for listening to your gut, but that’s very different from a bird landing on your home predicting death, especially when the correlation is weak (sometime later that year). It’s easy to attribute something to something else if there’s an indeterminate timeframe in between. Remember that people see what they want to see in noise too. Clouds often look like something tangible, that doesn’t mean it’s a sign. If I squint, I can see shapes in pretty much any random pattern. And people tend to remember events that they attribute meaning too (in this case the old wives tale about the birds and then the family member dying) and forget the events that have no meaning to them (how many times did the person see said birds without anything happening and just forgetting about it?) Nobody has yet managed to prove the existence of the supernatural, but many people have tried. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it seems pretty unlikely, especially when other better-understood causes exist.

monoideism 5y ago
It doesn't have to be supernatural. We know, for example, that dogs can smell various diseases. Also, someone pointed out that as people age and become ill, they tend to do less outside the house, and shy animals will start to come out and stay closer. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Blanket ridicule of such phenomena is just as irrational as are many superstitions.
- dkersten 5y ago
  Sure. But in this particular case, it sounds like there was a fairly longish period of time between seeing the "omen" and the supposed effect. Yes, the shy animals coming out was given as a reasonable explanation.
ryanmarsh 5y ago
Over a period of time enough people noticed a correlation that it became an “old farmers/wives tale”. Had a university done a study with equal or lesser N you’d probably have taken it as fact. LOL

monoideism 5y ago

It doesn't have to be supernatural. We know, for example, that dogs can smell various diseases. Also, someone pointed out that as people age and become ill, they tend to do less outside the house, and shy animals will start to come out and stay closer. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Blanket ridicule of such phenomena is just as irrational as are many superstitions.

dkersten 5y ago
Sure. But in this particular case, it sounds like there was a fairly longish period of time between seeing the "omen" and the supposed effect. Yes, the shy animals coming out was given as a reasonable explanation.

ryanmarsh 5y ago

Over a period of time enough people noticed a correlation that it became an “old farmers/wives tale”. Had a university done a study with equal or lesser N you’d probably have taken it as fact. LOL