Here’s the real lesson of ‘Friday the 13th’ – leader comment

Oh no! Oh dear! It’s Friday the 13th! The date of doom, the most horrifying and unluckiest of days! How will we cope?

Humans have a tendency to see patterns in chance events (Picture: Christopher Furlong)

Superstitions about dates of the year seem particularly far-fetched, but that doesn’t stop some of us from getting a bit worried.

However, according to some rather serious research about fatal accidents in the workplace, the most common day of the week to die in this way is a Tuesday, while the most common date of the month is the 8th.

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So, time to spread panic about Tuesday the 8th next month? As sensible Scotsman readers will undoubtedly realise, the answer to this question is an unequivocal “no”.

Humans have a tendency to see patterns where they do not exist, to mistake the vagaries of chance for something more significant.

And that’s a failing we all need to be aware of, in order to guard against it.

So we shouldn’t fear Friday the 13th or Tuesday the 8th, but the flaw in our reasoning that makes us prone to such illogical thoughts.

It might seem trivial, but sometimes such thoughts can have profoundly serious consequences.