To: Skeptic Mag Internet Hotline
From: Michael Shermer
Re: Friday the 13th

Here is an Op-Ed piece I wrote for today:


Talking Twaddle on Friday the 13th

Sorry to interrupt your morning coffee with a small dose of superstitious
trivia, but today is Friday the 13th. Not just any Friday the 13th, but the
second one in as many months. This is a rarity, and in our numerological New
Age there are many who will find deep significance in this coincidence.

Well, okay, it isn’t exactly a coincidence to have two consecutive Friday the
13ths, but it isn’t fatalistic synchronicity either. As Harvey Mudd College
math professor Arthur Benjamin computed for me, every year is guaranteed to
have at least one and at most three Friday the 13ths. But Friday the 13ths in
consecutive months are relatively rare. They can only occur in February-March
(due to February’s 28 days being divisible by 7) on non-leap years that begin
on a Thursday. The probability of a random year satisfying this condition is
roughly 1/7 x 3/4 = 3/28 = .107, or slightly more than one out of every 10
years. For the record, the last three February-March Friday the 13ths occurred
in 1970, 1981, and 1987. The next double 13 will not take place until 2010.
Get ready.... 
For what? Nothing. There is nothing special about Friday the 13th, and this
particular sequence comes up no more and no less than any other numerical
combination—the above calculations work just as well for sequential Friday the
12ths, Monday the 9ths, etc. So why the focus on Friday the 13th? 

For some peculiar reason humans evolved a brain that is exceptional at finding
patterns in nature, even when they do not exist or have no real significance.
Some people turn these into mental peculiarities, such as “Triskaidekaphobia,”
or fear of the number 13. Others find patterns in history, such as Jesus was
the 13th dinner guest at the last supper, and look what happened to him on
that Friday (thus connecting the two). There is even a company in France that
provides emergency guests for dinner parties to make sure 13 people never sit
at one table. Once you start looking for “13ness” it is easy to find: Apollo
13 was launched at 1313 hours from pad 39 (3 x 13) and was aborted on April
13; for Jews age 13 is the time for a bar or bat mitzvah; and the 10
commandments plus the trinity equals 13. Some go to great lengths to make the
pattern fit, such as converting letters in the Bible to numbers where, for
example, God’s name JHVH is given as Jod = 10, He = 5, Vaw = 6, He = 5; 10 + 5
+ 6 + 5 = 26 = 2 x 13.

There is a pattern here, alright. It is that we are especially attracted to
superstitions with a spiritual or religious link, that touch our deepest
desire for there to be Something Else out there calling the shots and running
the show. For some, that Something Else is God, for others it is angels,
spirits, fate, synchronicity, collective consciousness, or some universal life
force. Several months ago the best-selling book in America was about secret
codes hidden in the Bible that allegedly predict everything from political
assassinations to comet collisions. This month the best-selling book is by a
guy who says he can talk to the dead (on Larry King Live, no less!), and so
can you (if you buy the book, of course). It turns out that they are not
really dead, just on another “spiritual plane.” Fine tune your frequencies and
you too can reach beyond the Here and Now to that Something Else. 

If only it were this easy. My sentiments are with Thomas Huxley who, a century
ago when mediums, seances, and spiritualism were also all the rage, concluded:
“Better live a crossing-sweeper than die and be made to talk twaddle by a
‘medium’ hired at a guinea a seance.” As Marx observed, history repeats
itself—the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.



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