Caveman Logic: The Persistence of Primitive Thinking in a Modern World by Hank Davis Read Free Book Online Page A

because of culture. Incredibly, they have spent very little time looking at the question of where culture, itself, comes from. To many, it is simply there . It predates us and acts to determine our behavior. Such a view tends to debiologize human beings by turning them into purely social beings, unfazed by the biological imperatives that operate on every other form of life on the planet.
    Once we accept that culture—which surely does influence human behavior—is, itself, an outgrowth of the human mind, we begin to see a bigger, more consistent pattern to life on our planet. The human body was designed through a painstaking and value-neutral process of natural selection. All of our organs evolved in this manner, including our brains. The human mind, like the human foot or eye, is common to all members of our species. Several friends of mine joined Doctors Without Borders and traveled to remote portions of the globe, bringing modern medicine to people who had been without it perhaps forever. Consider the obvious: These doctors did not worry about taking special courses in the anatomy of the third world eye or foot or spleen in order to practice in these culturally remote locations. They knew those organs would be the same, even in the most exotic locations.
    So, too, with the human brain. It does its job in the same way in remote locations. It provides the same perceptual and logical shortcuts everywhere it works. It also sets the user up for the same perceptual and logical distortions everywhere it goes. The content of those irrational conclusions and delusions will probably differ from place to place, but their essential nature and their effects on us will be startlingly similar wherever we go.

DEBATING WITH GRANDMA
    You will not find a lot of books touting the flaws of the human mind. On the contrary, there is a market for singing the praises of virtually every organ and structure of our bodies. There are tributes to the nose, the ear, the eye, and the hand. Even the lowly knee draws praise. The human heart? Whether literally or metaphorically, there are books that rhapsodize over its engineering and its resilience. But in all this body boasting, there is no winner greater than the brain. On that one, most authors simply stand back in wonder, listing accomplishments of human ingenuity and drawing comparisons to “lower species” that, despite sharing large portions of chromosomal material with us, seem to hit their peak when they can manage to use a stick as a tool to extract dinner from a termite mound. In most ways, the mental competition out there is pretty shoddy. We are the clear winners. The human mind with its wondrous abilities trumps all pretenders in the known universe. And so we have the spectacle of the human mind singing the praises of the human mind.
    Who in their right mind would disagree? Who would criticize the mind? And on what basis? Prepare yourself: We’re about to do just that. As my grandmother might have said, “What? We’re not smart enough for you?”
    I’d like to keep my grandmother in the discussion. I do so with no disrespect intended to grandmothers anywhere, least of all my own. Having this imaginary debate with my grandmother will focus my effort on the “common sense” opposition to what I say, as well as forcing me to think clearly and express myself in a nontechnical manner.
    And so . . . no, Nana. It’s not that we’re not smart enough. That’s not the trouble. We are very, very smart. The problem is, some of that “smart” isn’t done quite the way you might have imagined. It’s done through “shortcuts.” Scientists call them heuristics . When these heuristics are working the way they were designed to under the conditions they were designed for, they are astoundingly good.
    So what’s your trouble then? This isn’t good enough?
    The trouble is that what these heuristics do best isn’t just accuracy. It’s accuracy with high speed and very low cost.
    Cost?
    Yes.