I have so much hate for scorpions. Have I ever been stung? No, and the likelihood is small, but ask me to go barefoot into the dark and I will cut you.

Autor may have a teeny-tiny fear that his belief regarding the rules of his universe is just a massive construction, and that all of his research on the matter might be wrong. This is most likely an unconscious fear, stuffed away, but it likely stems from no one taking him seriously.