Regarding the effect of worm drawings on the lifespan on microorganisms: a systematic analysis.

I knew somebody who kept a can of pig brains on their ephys rig bc their mentor had always done the same to get their rig working and passed the tradition on to several mentees.

Idk how it worked for the other mentees but it didn't seem to bring much luck to that rig.

I wonder if many superstitions in rational secular people could just be bad terminology for behavior that can have some good reasons behind it.

One is using intuition to access your brain power in a way that's different than conscious thought and verbal reasoning. For me at least, when I have spent months and even years troubleshooting or upgrading different parts of a system, I develop an intuition where I can track down certain types of issues really quickly or with very limited information.

There are often things that, in the wise words of Mr. Plinkett, you didn't notice -- but your brain did.

Second, and most important, is the ubiquitous one-two punch that there are always hidden variables and that they are by definition not easy to predict.

I have had my time wasted by way dumber and more seemingly random things than that worm drawing. I'm not a biologist but I could still speculate a bunch of potential reasons that, while wrong, would still be way more predictable than actual issues I've dealt with at work and home.

I can also predict that in that situation I would absolutely keep doing the drawings. My line of reasoning here applies to many other situations as well: The world is complicated. There could be a helpful effect from some part of the drawing process, or there could be no effect, OR there could be some crazy interaction of 3 different variables. Don't change anything, finish the current task, then decide if figuring out the cause & effect is worth doing next. (some of that also comes from my internal voice tasked with keeping my adhd in check)