“Old wives’ tales” and other superstitions are classic examples of confirmation bias and nonfalsifiable arguments. Many superstitions have some kind of grounding in experience. While it’s a superstition that you shouldn’t walk under ladders, for example, it’s also true that it’s dangerous to walk under a ladder. Whether you’ll have bad luck all day by annoying a house painter is a different matter, but it’s just foolish to walk under his ladder.
