Superstitious beliefs, given their irrational nature, should have receded with the arrival of education and the advent of science. Yet even today, when objective evidence is valued highly, most people would admit to secretly cherishing one, or two, or many superstitions. Across America, tens of thousands of lottery tickets are pencilled in every day based on nothing more or less than people's lucky numbers. Though we now have scientific explanations for a number of once- mysterious phenomena, daily life still holds enough unpredictability that we turn to superstitions to account for the implausible.