Stop Taking The Bible Out Of Context!

Is it unlucky to be unoriginal?

Although it’s original on my site:

About a dozen of us skeptics found space at a local cantina a couple nights ago to chow down on some good food and talk about how crazy other cultures are. We hit on a few strange things North Americans believe (forgot all about Bigfoot – hit on black cat concepts though – comes from Norse goddess Freya, BTW) but a couple of the girls each had trips to the East and stories to tell about their experiences in Tibet and Taiwan. We also talked about the sad state of Africa with their child witch hunts and albinos being cut up and sold for their (not so) magical parts. I left when talk turned to chiropractics, but only because I was tired. Apparently Canada has been allowing that body cracking for children and babies but is going to start insisting on some evidence that it’s scientifically useful. They never thought to insist upon evidence based treatment before? Scary thought.

Anyway, the woman who’d been to Tibet suggested an interesting theory to explain how superstitions may have developed. First she mentioned London Zoo’s behavioural click training of Lucifer, an Asiatic lion they have (catalogue number 666):

Sound quality’s poor, but when Lucifer responds to the clicks and sit commands, the actual purpose of the paws up routine is to make sure they’re not getting damaged by paddock life, and allows the trainers to eyeball his overall health, without having to drug the big guy every time they want a good look at him.

Then she mentioned some studies done with pigeons.