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Suppose you’re preparing to travel by air. Which of these precautions do you think is most likely to prevent your plane from crashing?

A) Sacrificing a gilt-horned bull on an altar.

B) Sacrificing two goats on the tarmac.

C) Buying flight insurance.

I’m guessing you didn’t go for the bull sacrifice

Last year, tens of millions of people bought life insurance for scheduled flights of airlines in the United States. Not one of those insured passengers died in a crash — and this was not just a coincidence, at least not to many of the people who bought the insurance.

No, at some level they believed that their insurance helped keep the plane aloft, according to psychologists with new experimental evidence of just how weirdly superstitious people can be.

We may not slaughter animals anymore to ward off a plague, but we think buying health insurance will keep us from getting sick.

But at least our gods take credit cards.