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Researchers are finding evidence that superstitions may not be as pointless at all. By adopting a belief that you can - or cannot - do something to affect a desired outcome, you're among the cadre of beings that learn.
Superstition is an evolutionary surprise - it makes no sense for organisms to believe a specific action influences the future when it can't. Yet superstitious behavior can be recognized in many animals, not just humans. Superstitions are not free - there are rituals and avoidances cost. The question becomes how can natural selection create, or simply allow for, such inappropriate behavior?
"From an evolutionary perspective, superstitions seem maladaptive," said Kevin Abbott, biologist at Carleton University in Ottawa and co-author of a recent study published in Animal Behavior.
The study suggests multiple reasons for such anomalies to exist: perhaps superstition is adaptive as a placebo, or for social bonding. Or maybe it really is maladaptive now, but is "the outcome of traits that were adaptive in ancestral environment," said Abbott.
參考譯文：
研究人員正日漸發現，迷信并非毫無意義。你可以（或者不可以）做些事情來影響預期結果，這種信仰能讓你成為會學習生物中的精英。
迷信可謂進化過程給人們帶來的驚喜——相信某個特定行為可影響未來（實際并非如此）對有機系統并沒有意義。但是迷信行為不僅在人類社會可見，動物也有。迷信行為也不是免費的——種種儀式和避諱都有成本。問題在于：自然選擇怎么會創造（或者允許）這種不當行為的？
“從進化角度看，迷信似乎并不適應（進化理論），”最近發表于《動物行為》的研究論文撰稿人之一、渥太華卡爾頓大學的生物學家凱文阿伯特說道。
該研究顯示，這種異常現象存在的原因各種各樣：或許是作為安慰劑，或者是為了社會聯系。或者現在它確實沒什么意義，但卻是“古代環境適應特征的結果，”阿伯特稱。
