Evolution of Thought
 

So, I'm browsing around, and find a creationist site that made an interesting (if unintentionally ironic) argument:

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By the way, not being able to correct false thinking is another blow against evolution. The theory of natural selection should conclude that humans should be able to easily correct false thinking because it is the most beneficial approach, but they can't.

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Now, when I find something weird about any animal, I usually look for the evolutionary answer (yep...that's right guys...I am BIASED). I confess to having a little trouble with this one (in fairness, it's been 2 minutes, and I'm drunk).

Anyone care to expound on the benefits of the persistence of beliefs?

Re: Evolution of Thought
 

"False thinking" is a ridiculously loaded phrase. Can you give me an example of what they might mean by false thinking?

Let me try one. Attributing agency to inanimate things, such as lightning, or broken escalators, or the stupid [censored] coffee table that I just stubbed my toe on. This is false thinking, quite obviously, since the lightning is not out to get us. But think about the system that this false thinking is a greater part of. It is generally beneficial to immediately assume agency to things around you, since mistakes of the kind we are talking about cause embarrassment, and the other kind of mistake (ignoring potential agency from, say, a mountain lion) cause death. So, the system is set up to err WAY on the side of caution.

A lot of errors in perception/judgement, so called 'false thinking,' is easily explainable under this paradigm.

However, I don't know exactly what type you are talking about. There are similarly good explanations for why people think the odds of my mother calling me just when I was thinking about her are about the same as the odds of my mother having a psychic connection to me and subtly being able to read my thoughts. And so on.

Re: Evolution of Thought
 

Equivalent argument: People should have a dog-like sense of smell, since it would convey huge advantages in avoiding predators, finding food, reading emotions, finding water in dry conditions, and so on.

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By the way, not being able to correct false thinking is another blow against evolution. The theory of natural selection should conclude that humans should be able to easily correct false thinking because it is the most beneficial approach, but they can't.

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Two problems:

1. Just because is beneficial, doesn't mean we would have it. There are a million beneficial traits that humans could have, and don't.

2. Who says that correcting false thinking was a benefit to our ancestors? The selection pressure in ancient tribes would have been on things like virility, strength, size, social abilities, etc. You only have to observe the reproductive success (closing the deal) of stupid 6'2" water polo players vs uber intelligent nerds (Sklansky notwithstanding) to see that the reproductive advantage of intelligence and clear thinking is fairly slim.

Re: Evolution of Thought
 

There is a big skeptic who talks about this a bit in "Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things." Arguing that basically early dudes were really good at pattern mapping, which helped finding food and spotting predators, however finding patterns also came in handy in seeing Devils in fires, animals in clouds, and other things that aren't really there. Sometimes bad things that don't provide any advantages get carried along with good things that do.

Re: Evolution of Thought
 

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There is a big skeptic who talks about this a bit in "Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things." Arguing that basically early dudes were really good at pattern mapping, which helped finding food and spotting predators, however finding patterns also came in handy in seeing Devils in fires, animals in clouds, and other things that aren't really there. Sometimes bad things that don't provide any advantages get carried along with good things that do.

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Yep, Michael Shermer, founder of Skeptic Magazine. I'd recommend this book. Its good, not great, but it does have some funny, interesting anecdotes, and provides a little bit of explanation and evidence. He's apparently coming out with a sequel to this sometime soon.

Re: Evolution of Thought
 

[ QUOTE ]
So, I'm browsing around, and find a creationist site that made an interesting (if unintentionally ironic) argument:

[ QUOTE ]
By the way, not being able to correct false thinking is another blow against evolution. The theory of natural selection should conclude that humans should be able to easily correct false thinking because it is the most beneficial approach, but they can't.

[/ QUOTE ]

Now, when I find something weird about any animal, I usually look for the evolutionary answer (yep...that's right guys...I am BIASED). I confess to having a little trouble with this one (in fairness, it's been 2 minutes, and I'm drunk).

Anyone care to expound on the benefits of the persistence of beliefs?

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By the same argument, predators should always succeed in catching their prey, and the prey should always succeed in escaping.

Re: Evolution of Thought
 

This looks to me more an argument against creationism than for it. With evolution we expect progress up the scale for traits that give survival advantages and that's what we've seen. Evolution may not be done with us yet. But with Creationism, you might ask why God would create an inferior product as his perfect model.

I wonder if they might be proposing the circular argument as follows. Belief in Evolution is False thinking. Why? Because if Evolution were valid we would not be subject to False Thinking and would therefore know that Evolution is False.

PairTheBoard

Re: Evolution of Thought
 

phil FTW

Good reply

Re: Evolution of Thought
 

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with Creationism, you might ask why God would create an inferior product as his perfect model.

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Yes.

Further, there is no reason to expect any sort of perfection through mutation and evolution, because they follow paths of chance. They create new functions out of awkward predecessors. The position of our advanced voicebox makes us especially susceptible to choking to death on food -- a horrible design not shared by any other mammal but chimps. But evolution had to work with the throat/larynx it had, not the entirely separate orifices that would make sense.

Beaver digestion -- another stupid design. Beavers cannot digest wood cellulose without the help of bacteria. The stomach would be the sensible place for such bacteria. However, the place beaver have developed to harbor these specialized bacterium is LATE in the digestive tract, long after processing and absorption. The wood cellulose is broken down AFTER the intestines, the only place where the nutrients can be absorbed. Solution? Beaver eat their own poo. Only on the second time through do they get anything out of it. They distinguish between reused and not used poo. Thanks a lot, God.

The key to proving intelligent design is this: use anything in biology that works well as proof of design, while ignoring everything that works ridiculously.

Re: Evolution of Thought
 

The "bad design" issue actually strikes me as a serious problem for creationism, though its not discussed much. I'm pretty sure the female breast if the only "perfect" part of the human.

As far as human brain power, on avg we're about as smart as it takes to build shelter, figure out that crops can grow, harness animals, etc.--pretty much the basics required to maipulate our environment in various ways to reduce selection pressure. (There are, however, a few "geniuses" who can do things like create an alphabet if circumstances dictate.). Indeed, one might say that we evolved to the point where we were smart enough that it was no longer selectively advantageous to possess more intelligence.