Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846. John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946. Lincoln was assassinated on a Friday. Kennedy, suspiciously, was also assassinated on a Friday. When Lincoln was leaving for Ford Theater, his secretary (named Kennedy) told him not to go to the theater. When Kennedy was leaving for Dallas, his secretary (named Lincoln) told him not to go either. Curious, no?
An interesting concept discussed in Chapter 1 of our textbook is the idea of apophenia. Now, apophenia is the tendency to perceive meaningful connections among unrelated phenomena. Essentially what this means is that if we as humans apply ourselves, we can find coincidences much like the one between Lincoln and Kennedy quite easily, even though they are actually unrelated.
Apophenia falls into a larger category of psychology known as pseudoscience. The prefix "pseudo-" literally means fake, which means that pseudoscience is literally fake science. Effectively, that is correct for the definition of pseudoscience is a set of claims that seems scientific but aren't. Pseudoscience is a prominent concept in psychology and continues to stagger the imagination.
For more on the "coincidences" between Lincoln and Kennedy, click here.
I think this is a very interesting situation, because when we see links between two things we are quick to conclude a relationship or try and find meaning. But sometimes, there are incidences where there are coincidental similarities--but no link. Our need to make order or connections in these situations makes us very susceptible to pseudoscience.