Why do coincidences happen?

Wouldn't it be spooky if there were no coincidences?

The article bends over backward to avoid anything resembling a rational explanation, preferring the woo-woo "reasoning" favored by New Age thinkers.

Here's an example of a rational explanation. Bob walks up and says, "I flipped a coin 20 times and guessed every singe flip correctly. Without psychic ability, that's impossible!" Alice, Bob's scientifically trained friend, says, "Actually, no, the probability that this can be explained by chance is 2^-20 or 1 / 1,048,576."

Bob replies, "But doesn't that mean the same thing?" Alice replies, "Not at all. if a group of a million people flipped 20 coins, the probability that one or more of of them would correctly guess all 20 is 61%, better than even. That means if you pay attention to the world, coincidences appear all the time -- we tend to filter out the boring events and focus on the rare coincidences that fuel irrational belief in magic."

In short, they're called coincidences for a reason.