Appeasing the Gods, With Insurance
It never seems to
end...
Suppose you’re preparing to travel by air.
Which of these precautions do you think is most likely to prevent your plane
from crashing?
A) Sacrificing a gilt-horned bull on an altar.
B) Sacrificing two goats on the tarmac.
C) Buying flight insurance.
I’m guessing you didn’t go for the bull sacrifice…
The goat option was tested at Katmandu Airport in September to propitiate Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god. Officials of Nepal Airlines told Reuters that they had sacrificed two goats in front of a Boeing 757 whose mechanical problems had forced the airline to suspend some flights…
We do, though, have abundant data regarding option C. Last year, tens of millions of people bought life insurance for scheduled flights of airlines in the United States. Not one of those insured passengers died in a crash — and this was not just a coincidence, at least not to many of the people who bought the insurance.
No, at some level they believed that their insurance helped keep the plane aloft, according to psychologists with new experimental evidence of just how weirdly superstitious people can be.
I’m never surprised at how superstitious our species remains. Aside from leftover Stone Age genes, it’s a profitable self-sustaining industry.
A) Sacrificing a gilt-horned bull on an altar.
B) Sacrificing two goats on the tarmac.
C) Buying flight insurance.
I’m guessing you didn’t go for the bull sacrifice…
The goat option was tested at Katmandu Airport in September to propitiate Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god. Officials of Nepal Airlines told Reuters that they had sacrificed two goats in front of a Boeing 757 whose mechanical problems had forced the airline to suspend some flights…
We do, though, have abundant data regarding option C. Last year, tens of millions of people bought life insurance for scheduled flights of airlines in the United States. Not one of those insured passengers died in a crash — and this was not just a coincidence, at least not to many of the people who bought the insurance.
No, at some level they believed that their insurance helped keep the plane aloft, according to psychologists with new experimental evidence of just how weirdly superstitious people can be.
I’m never surprised at how superstitious our species remains. Aside from leftover Stone Age genes, it’s a profitable self-sustaining industry.
Posted: Tue - May 6, 2008 at 10:55 AM