Does superstitions about comets and asteroids have scientific basis?

Answer 1

No. By definition, a superstition is irrational and has no scientific basis.

The actual threats posed by comets and meteors are much greater than the "portents" that are seen in Astrology. But no known civilization is known to have experienced them. Eclipses, moon phases, and the alignments of planets are other celestial phenomena that became associated with either fortunate or unfortunate occurrences.

Superstitious beliefs draw connections between phenomena and objects that, based on scientific evidence, are unrelated. If a belief in such a connection has a scientific basis, then by definition the belief is not superstitious.
No.

In Japan, the superstitions that are related to comet and asteroid is that it brings death. People therefore are usually afraid to see the comets and asteroids. In reality no actual events of this kind are directly associated with just seeing a comet or meteor, however, the actual impact of either would make the superstition seem legitimate.

Answer 2

Superstitions about comets and asteroids have no scientific basis at all. However, some of them could be somewhat realistic just because of the situation:

If you are warned to "be careful in staring at a comet, because death may be a few inches away," that could be quite true, depending on what you are doing. If you are crossing a road, doing a dangerous job, or just not looking where you are going because you're staring at the comet, something bad may happen to you.

Answer 3

Superstitions about comets and asteroids, such as the fear that bad luck will arrive with Halley's Comet, are based in science only so far as that these phenomena do occur. The bad luck that comes along with them, however, has little to do with reality. Superstitions about comets and asteroids have absolutely no scientific basis whatsoever.

Answer 4

Part of it is simply language. Superstitious beliefs are beliefs that cannot be proven by scientific methods. Something that can be proven by science isn't superstition.

Take Friday 13th as an example. If Friday the 13th really brought bad luck, you'd expect firefighters, hospitals, on-call plumbers etc etc to see more business on those days than any other Friday - but they don't. Time of year, if Friday is a pay day, weather, things like that has a far bigger impact than if it's the 13th.

Likewise Comets and asteroids. Comets do their rounds regardless of what's going down here. Sometimes they pass when something bad happens, Sometimes they pass when nothing special was happening.

One thing us humans are prone to is something called "confirmation bias". If you already know that bad things are supposed to happen either on Friday 13th, or when comets or asteroids are passing by, then you're more likely to notice and remember those things compared to equally bad stuff that happened on any other day.

Even without Confirmation Bias, it's often easier to remember stuff that happens together with something unusual. A colder-than-average winter that coincides with an easily visible comet will be easier to remember than a colder-than-average winter when nothing else in particular happened.

Answer 5

No. By definition, a superstition does not have a scientific basis.

Answer 6

No. Superstitions have no scientific basis, but are based on unscientific beliefs.

Answer 7

For comets, no.

Asteroids never had any superstitions associated with them.

Answer 8

If something is called a "superstition", then it has no scientific basis - and is in fact usually false. If something has a scientific basis, it is not generally called a superstition.

Answer 9

They don't. If anything is called "superstitious", that means it does NOT have a scientific basis.