The Fixation of Superstitious Beliefs

Superstitions can be understood as a way of fixing beliefs – in the face of an ongoing lack of control – by involving effectively untestable explanations. The explanations are untestable only in part due to their content: related social attitudes and available empirical capabilities also play a vital role. Importantly, untestability does not entail the lack of meaning but, rather, frees the meaning to be determined by the actual function of the practices related to the claim. This is particularly the case with religious practices, which differ from superstitious ones in that their effectiveness is also untestable. Science, as Haack suggests, is contrasted by its attitude to evidence and the focus on extending empirical capabilities. The scientific attitude trumps the alternatives in so far as an accurate comparison requires that the scientific attitude be adopted.