In general, educated people hold science and superstition as contradistinct. In reality, they belong to the same genre of human endeavours, i.e. to apply the mind to negotiate existential or inner (psychological) conditions. In earlier times as people had little protection against the elements of nature or ani-social human elements, anxious minds sought mechanisms to ward off any evil falling on them and they categorised beings, things, and occurrences as auspicious and inauspicious. Once a superstition got currency, the human mind selectively amassed pieces of evidence or imagined them to buttress the beliefs. Superstition speaks of the times when life was 'brutish, nasty, short' and the laity had little access to science.
Presently, the point is whether the institutions are able to provide their patrons, the citizens, the physical and psychological assurance. I do not wonder at the prevalence of superstitions in the present times, the times of brainy technologies. What surprises me is how systems or public institutions work in present times.
Niraj Kumar Jha
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