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Black Cats

I always thought the superstition was that if a black cat crossed your path, it meant you were already screwed.
 
EeneyMinnieMoe said:
So if a cat with all-black coat crosses my path and he turns out to have a white spot under his chin, it's not bad luck?
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Correct.

JWideman said:
I always thought the superstition was that if a black cat crossed your path, it meant you were already screwed.
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That's pretty much right (and Tom Sawyer would have waited weeks for some bad luck to blame on it, if necessary) but the effects can be lessened by various remedies - tossing three consecutive pinches of salt over the left shoulder with the right hand, for example. The cat re-crossing the path means either that the bad luck won't now happen, or the omen was given to you incorrectly - someone else is about to have bad news. Either way, you're in the clear.
 
Cello Man said:
I have two black cats, Merry and Pippin. Their bad luck force fields cancel each other out. It's very scientific, you see.
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Actually, from my studies of playing online poker while sitting with two black cats, I've discovered that the bad luck is a wave-like phenomenon, in that it produces interference fringes of good and bad luck, similar to photons in the two-slit experiment.

As the cats move about the desk top, my luck changes as the interference fringes of good and bad luck pass over me, like in an interferometer measuring a moving source.






How else to explain me winning some hands and losing others?
 
halofish2000 said:
Why is that most cats I see dead on the road are black. Not much luck on the cats part. Maybe the cat should use more luck for themselves instead of the observer.
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I would suggest that luck has less of an effect on that than visibility.
 
Ersby said:
I guess, as cats, they're about averagely lucky themselves, otherwise they'd have died out/taken over the world by now.
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Considering internet phenomenons like LOLcatz (or the money spent on cat food in "developed" countries), i'd guess they have taken over - but are just too lazy/distracted by little-things-that-move to actually care...

;)
 
Speed of Light said:
Hi
'Extraordinary' has evolved from 'extra - ordinary'.
'Extra' means 'outside'.
So 'Extraordinary' means 'Outside of the ordinary'.
An 'ordinary' point of view, is what is generally accepted, and held to be true by the majority, so it follows that an extraordinary claim would be that which is outside of the ordinary - in other words, a minority viewpoint.
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No problem with that, but I don't see the point. Are you saying that people who believe the superstition about black cats are the majority?


Speed of Light said:
The other point you made about the word 'skeptic'.
'Skeptic' is a word which refers to the way in which someone thinks. The word 'skeptic' does not imply what the person is skeptical of, and so its meaning does not by definition, correlate with any particular point of view
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Again, good dictionary definition, but here, a skeptic is one who doubts the supernatural, including the superstition that black cats are lucky/unlucky.
 
Speed of Light said:
To dogmatically state a fact without proof, is not the scientifically skeptical way of doing things, especially when it goes against the generally accepted view. I do not know of any definitive tests on this matter.
It is true that we generally use our 'common sense' or 'feelings' to decide what we believe in, (or don't believe in), but, as discussed in another thread on Quantum Mechanics and Relativity, common sense is not always a good guide, and most people judge things on their feelings.

But we skeptics know better than to do that - Don't we?
Everyone's feelings lead to different conclusions, and are far too subjective - which is why we need definitive scientific proof before adopting a 'dogmatic' stance - especially if it is against the prevailing majority ideas.
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I hope you learned your lesson, Lisa Simpson. :rolleyes:
 
Luck, as Phil Plait so eloquently puts it, is taking probability personally.
 
Complexity said:
Sorry, but you're wrong.

There is no such thing as luck. Many deluded people believe that there is, but they are also wrong.

You can make up your own definitions for things if you wish, but don't expect anyone else to respect them.
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Umm, please post your definition of 'luck' and explain why it is the only acceptable one.
 
tsg said:
Luck, as Phil Plait so eloquently puts it, is taking probability personally.
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That's as good a way as any of describing it. The fact is that because probability is random, luck exists - we have times when strings of things go well and others when strings of things go wrong.

Like lots of other things, it's a human costruct: love, hate, jealousy. They still exist as well.
 
When I grew up I was told it was lucky if a black cat crossed the road from the left, and unlucky from the right. Only that some claimed it was the other way round. So I got an early lesson in not believing in superstition.:D
 
The Atheist said:
For those who doubt "luck" exists, please explain why the following are not actually very, very bad luck:

Pulling a rip-cord at 100 feet and the 'chute not opening.

Hurtling down a straight road with a sharp corner at the end, only to find 200m from the corner, that your brakes have failed.

Diving at 180' and running out of air.
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Pulling a rip-cord at 100 feet and the 'chute not opening.
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Poor skydiving skills. You'd be very lucky indeed if it did open, however it would hurt like hell on every openning if it were designed and packed to open that fast. No parachute is going to deploy in time to arrest a fall if activated less than a second from impact (average freefall speed for skydivers is 120 mph or 176 fps). At those speeds you would be just a little less than a half second off the deck. All parachutes (even reserves) are designed to open sequentially (the canopy has to clear the bag and the lines have to reach full extension before air is allowed to inflate the canopy) to prevent, or at least minimize malfunctions (and to keep the jumper from snapping their neck)

Hurtling down a straight road with a sharp corner at the end, only to find 200m from the corner, that your brakes have failed.
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Poor maintenace practices. Car brakes don't commonly just fail. The redundancy of braking systems assures that at least two separate circuits operate independently of each other, and when one leaks or loses pressure it is very noticeable, but there is still braking capacity on at least two wheels.

Diving at 180' and running out of air
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Sheer stupidity, or nitrogen narcosis. SCUBA diving is unsafe below depths of 130 feet without special gas mixes (available only to specially trained and certified sport, military or commercial divers) as the concentration of oxygen in a standard air tank becomes toxic below 130 feet. Deep diving safety regulations require extra air tanks, not to be used except in emergency. Any certified deep diver would be foolish to ignore safety and dive with just their primary air source. Of course surviving a SCUBA dive to 180 feet with standard air tanks and back to the surface would be incredibly lucky.

Sorry about the serious answers, but I couldn't resist. I used to skydive, SCUBA dive and I have had a couple of occasions where vehicle brakes failed me (in poorly maintained company work vans) :rolleyes:

As far as the OP and black cats....my black cat is very lucky for me, though not so lucky for visitors in my house. He likes to attack feet when anyone tries to leave the house.:p
 
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Speed of Light said:
<snippage by TjW>
Us skeptics often state that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof - and as I said in another post, it is in this context that I thought the definition of 'extraordinary' meant 'against the prevailing mindset'.
For example, if everyone believed that the earth was flat, then thinking it was round, would be defined as an extraordinary view, and thus would require extraordinary proof.
But if I now claim that the earth is really flat, this would require extraordinary proof, becaue it is against the present prevailing view.
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No. As a skeptic, I am not terribly concerned with opinion. If it is against a body of evidence, then it is an extraordinary claim.

The evidence that I have seen, (from biology texts, for example) is that, other than the hair color, black cats are just like other cats. We don't give them different food, we don't give them different medicine. They're cats.
If you're going to convince me, you'll need to define luck, and show some quantifiable effect of black cats on it.
 
I had a black cat some to live with me in 1995 and she crossed my path constantly. The only effect I can think of that having on my luck was when I tripped over her after I'd been drinking.
 
UnrepentantSinner said:
I had a black cat some to live with me in 1995 and she crossed my path constantly. The only effect I can think of that having on my luck was when I tripped over her after I'd been drinking.
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Ah, but just think how much luckier you would have been without the black cat. By now, you'd be a millionaire with three Lear jets and a retinue of blondes to put Hefner to shame.
 
the confusion about black cats being unlucky or luck stems from the fact that in UK it is lucky when one crosses your path and in the USA it is unlucky.

I think.

Feel free to tell me I'm wrong.
 
The only bad luck my black cat "Squeeks" has caused is for the various things she kills.

Birds,
Bats,
Mice,
Snakes,
Lizards,
and so on.

She has never been too discriminating when comes to killing small animals.

However, when it comes to dealing with humans, she is one of the nicest cats I have ever known.
 
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