The most straightforward assumption would be that superstition results from causal fallacies.  One event is seen to have followed another, but this sequence may simply be chance.  As Hume warned, empirical observations can easily lead to mistaken connections in the human mind.  This erroneous type of reasoning has occurred throughout history.  For example, the Greek writer Plutarch reported that maternal ingestion of specific foods and herbs would ensure male offspring, Roman citizens thought that sleeping next to pieces of iron could prevent nightmares, and the ancient Chinese believed they could predict the future by analyzing fractures in animal bones.But if causal fallacies are to blame for such beliefs, then the persistence of superstition in society seems mysterious.  Superstitions should quickly vanish after continued observations.  In colloquial terms, people surely would see that superstitious practices did not "work."  However, superstitions are not so easily dispelled.  As the early modern English scientist Francis Bacon lamented, "The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds."In light of those points, it must be remembered that a scientific mindset is essentially a modern privilege.  Standards of science-based experimentation are second nature today but were largely absent a millennium or more prior to the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Renaissance.  Still, that is not to say that such methods were entirely unheard of.  Saint Augustine rejected astrological predictions in the fourth century after learning of a slave and a noble who had been born under the same stars.  Clearly, his conclusion was based on an inference from observed fact.  Centuries earlier, the Roman thinker Lucretius attributed disease to material causes, not supernatural forces.Yet even contemporary knowledge has not eliminated magical beliefs.  For instance, adults laugh at children's reluctance to step on cracks in the pavement but build skyscrapers such as New York's Macmillan Building, where Floor 12 is followed by Floor 14.  University graduates can describe the physical laws governing the world but refuse to watch a sporting event without wearing a "lucky" shirt.One potential motive for superstitious belief does not truly stem from belief at all, but from purely pragmatic concerns like those described by William James or Blaise Pascal.  A person might decide that there is nothing to lose from acting based on a superstition; therefore, one might as well heed it "just in case" there really is an associated causal effect.  On those grounds, following the superstition would involve a sort of rationality.  If one's situation is sufficiently desperate, such thinking would be all the more appealing.  However, the rationality is a skewed one, and to act on it prizes wishful thinking over reason.Some may simply conclude that humanity is inherently prone to superstition.  In the novel Jingo, author Terry Pratchett emphasized this point by describing an exception: his character Ahmed was "substitious."  In contrast to being superstitious, Ahmed "believed instead in the things that were true in which no one else believed."  Fictional exceptions aside, superstitions still hold sway in many people's minds.  However, over time the spread of knowledge can be expected to refute magical beliefs; thus humankind can only benefit from naturalistic explanations.  For example, to walk under a ladder is indeed "unlucky" because doing so is dangerous.  An umbrella opened indoors may strike objects in the enclosed space without any mystical forces to cause this "misfortune."Given such clarifications, superstitions should lose appeal, despite what Pratchett implies about human tendencies.  Genuine causal connections can be distinguished from fallacious ones, and empirical observations can expose superstitions as errors rather than engendering them.Passage Title: Superstition Question 26The passage implies which of the following ideas about superstition?A.Superstitious beliefs are even more common in adults than they are in children.B.Thinkers such as Augustine and Lucretius played an essential role in lessening superstition among people of the past.C.Superstitious beliefs are both caused and refuted by empirical observations.D.Because of more widespread knowledge of science, modern people are rarely superstitious.