What is superstitition?

Answer 1

Superstition could loosely be defined as: "The holding (and/or practising) of beliefs which have no proven basis for their truth in either knowledge gained by pure reason or by knowledge gained by scientifically valid observation."

That's a bit long-winded so I'll give some examples.

Example 1 - To believe that if x is greater than y and y is greater than z then x must be greater than z is not superstitious. This is because through the process of pure reason we know that it must be true.

Example 2 - To believe that the speed that light travels at is 186,000 miles per second (approximately) is not superstitious either. We can not know this is true through pure reason as above, but we are able to measure the speed of light in a scientifically valid manner. The experiment can be repeated numerous times and the same result is produced.

Example 3 - To believe that walking under a ladder will bring you bad luck is superstitious. This is because there is no conclusive (or even convincing) evidence through reason or experimentation which supports this belief.