Its called "Research Your Topic" and focus is on supporting your points with specific facts, examples and illustrations. Also, lessons from previous projects should be kept in mind.
It took me a long time to do this, but finally I am here for my seventh speech; I went back to my own blog to dig out some topic of my long forgotten interest and came across the one had written 2 years ago, called Rationality, Religion and India where I had argued that people in the West are as superstitious as people are in our country and therefore it’s not true that somehow we are less rational than them. But it was just my opinion and analysis not supported by any facts or stats. This project has now given me the chance to delve into this topic further and present before you some superstitions not only believed but put in practice in the “developed” world and to prove that superstition is a global phenomenon.
It took me a long time to do this, but finally I am here for my seventh speech; I went back to my own blog to dig out some topic of my long forgotten interest and came across the one had written 2 years ago, called Rationality, Religion and India where I had argued that people in the West are as superstitious as people are in our country and therefore it’s not true that somehow we are less rational than them. But it was just my opinion and analysis not supported by any facts or stats. This project has now given me the chance to delve into this topic further and present before you some superstitions not only believed but put in practice in the “developed” world and to prove that superstition is a global phenomenon.
Triskaidekaphobia – fear of the number 13
Many people in North America and in some European countries believe that 13 is an unlucky number. There is a custom not to have a 13th floor in a building. Now a sane person would obviously ask, “How is it possible?” Well, there are many answers. For one, completely omit calling the 13th floor a 13th floor in a building. You have 12th and then you go to 14th – resolved! No 13th at all. A widely known example is the “One Canada Square”, a skyscraper in London, containing 50 stories, and my dear friends; this was built quite recently, in 1991 and has had the privilege of being the tallest building in the UK till last month. People have seen its fire escape stairs that go straight from the 12th floor to the one called the 14th floor.
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| One Canada Square |
Another way is to call it 12A instead, like Santa Anita Park's horse stalls. Believe me, it really exists, it’s a racetrack in Arcadia, California. Yes, in the United States.
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| Santa Anita Park |
Other buildings often use names for certain floors to avoid the number 13 designation. Like the Radisson in Manitoba, Canada calls it the “Pool Floor”. The Sheraton in Niagara has a restaurant on the entire 13th floor. The Monroe Park Towers in Richmond, Virginia uses it for mechanical equipment only and the floor is accessible only from the freight elevators or stairs.
Paraskevidekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia - fear of Friday the 13th
According to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, about 17 to 21 million people in the United States are affected by this dread, so much that some avoid their normal routines, like driving or scheduling travel that day, or even getting out of bed! Kind of reminds me of the fear of total eclipse in our country. It has been estimated by statistical analysis that $800 to 900 million is lost in business on any Friday the 13th. True story. But at least this is a good example of a self-confuting theory. According to a study there are lower than average accidents on any given Friday the 13th as fewer people drive owing to their fear of meeting an accident this day.
Superstitions in Sports
There are many such superstitions in the field of sports as well in western countries. For example, the Terrible Curse refers to a sports superstition that holds that desecration of the Terrible Towel, a fan symbol associated with the Pittsburgh Steelers (an American football team) causes misfortune to befall the offending team.
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| Terrible Towel |
Curse of the Bambino - cited as a reason for the failure of the Boston Red Sox baseball team to win the World Series in the 86-year period from 1918 to 2004. The curse is said to have started when the Red Sox team sold their player Babe Ruth, the Bambino to New York Yankees in 1919. Before this, the Red Sox was one of the most successful baseball teams, having won 5 World Series titles, but they were able to reclaim their title only in 2004, after decades of hiatus. This curse was so much a part of the Boston culture that when someone spray-painted a road sign saying “Reverse Curve” to “Reverse the Curse” the officials left it as is till 2004, when the supposed curse was actually reversed. Not only this, some fans hired professional exorcists to purify the stadium. Some placed a team Boston cap on top of Mt Everest and burned a Yankees cap at its base camp. Yes, true story.
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| Babe Ruth, the Bambino in 1918 |
My point in enumerating all these examples is not to say that western people are more irrational or superstitious; rather, that masses everywhere are the same. So its not about east or west or their religion or our religion or their beliefs or our beliefs. Superstition in itself is irrational, not that ‘we’ or ‘they’ are ‘more’ or ‘less’ irrational. It has to be got rid of. Everywhere.
Note: All references are from Wikipedia.
Note: All references are from Wikipedia.
This speech took 7:10 minutes to deliver and was appreciated for the choice of topic and confidence level, the research could have been more thorough.
