Hugo Mercier

The first enigma I want to address is why I would read an evo-psych book since I don't accept its premises and find they are usually poorly reasoned. I will answer by giving reasons and admit up front that they were not why I read it but are being manufactured to answer the question I just asked.
(That I would do so supports one of the books premises, namely that reasons are mainly come up with afterwords, and not in making a decision.)

That answer is as follows: Actually, there are many times show more I wanted to abandon the book and yet I did not. When I was most bored, I found it soon picked up again. I thought it atypical in that it was well argued and had an interesting premise--that being, how did something as "broken" as reason ever evolve in the first place. That's a question. The answer, the actual premise, being that it evolved not for the reason we think it did while we're reasoning (and reasoning about reasoning) but for its survival value (which turns out also not to be what we think it is, but is instead concerned with how we form societies). The reasoning in this book, if it does well in the "marketplace of ideas", will help its authors increase their presence in the gene pool. (Well, perhaps not these particular authors who, for all I know, aren't going to be having more children, but as some sort of appropriate evo-psych generalization of that idea.

It also attacked the Thinking Fast and Slow guys (I enjoy seeing evo-psych people attack each other--this enjoyment, they would argue, is somehow also related to its survival value). In fact, there's much to like about this book if you enjoy a nice debunking, and I do. I almost want to give it another star now. show less

Really loved this book! Can't believe two French academics could write so beautifully in English. Not an easy read exactly, but far from impenetrable- it takes a little work to read but ideas are explained slowly and carefully and convincingly. Basic premise is that the ability of humans to reason is more of a communications skill, evolved to help us make arguments and evaluate arguments made by others. In most cases, in non-social situations, people don't reason at all - we act intuitively. show more Bravo, a fine psychology/philosophy mix! show less

The best book I have read for a while.

Let me explain that.

It's a non fiction book; dealing with an area of study as to which I have no particular background or formal study. And yet I like to think of myself as a thinking person and have read widely, including as to philosophy and evolution amongst other topics. And I have always been intrigued as to whether there is such a thing as the "truth" [ I have always that there was a truth [as opposed to knowing what it was] and what role "reason" show more may play in discerning it.

Then along comes this book which I more or less picked up randomly at my favourite book shop (Folio Books in Brisbane Australia).

It is well written, in the sense that it is clearly written, does not try to use jargon for the (seemingly at times, in other books) reason that the author cannot explain (or cannot be bothered to explain) to a lay reader what the jargon refers to, and does not pretend to have all the answers (and points out what more research is required to go further).

And it deals with an interesting topic.

(My words) If reason (understood to be the application of what is, or akin to, classical logic, perhaps updated by Bayesian probabilities etc) is meant to result in (particularly after repeat applications of same by the same person or series of persons) in better answers why is it that reason results in "answers" which seemingly are so often wrong?

What then are "reasons" and what is “reason” and what is its function?

The authors' approach this from an evolutionary perspective...if reason is a trait of humans, and evolution impacts on traits, what affect has evolution had on reason? And they cite many studies to support their thesis. As i have already said, this is not my area of study, so I cannot comment on whether the studies they cite are valid, problematic etc, discredited by further studies etc. Yet I bought the logic of the thesis they put forward.

Well worth a read.

For more information google their names...there is a fair degree of discussion (both for and against) already, which will also give you a better sense of the thesis itself

Big Ship

16 September 2018 show less

This is an interesting read if you struggle (like me) with understanding societal inclinations to disregard science and data and facts. The assessment is really good overall, research analysis is done very well with appropriate parameters. I'd definitely recommend this one. This book compliments with "The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone" by Steven Sloman, Philip Fernbach."

Cognitive dissonance and Confirmation bias is a flaw in reasoning; Of the many different forms of show more faulty-thinking, confirmation-bias is most cataloged and is the subject of entire textbooks’ worth of experiments.

— In of the experiments, researchers rounded up a group of students who had opposing opinions about capital punishment. Half the students were in favor of it and thought that it deterred crime; the other half were against it and thought that it had no effect on crime. The students were asked to respond to two studies. One provided data in support of the deterrence argument, and the other provided data that called it into question. Both studies—you guessed it—were made up, and had been designed to present what were, objectively speaking, equally compelling statistics. The students who had originally supported capital punishment rated the pro-deterrence data highly credible and the anti-deterrence data unconvincing; the students who’d originally opposed capital punishment did the reverse. At the end of the experiment, the students were asked once again about their views. Those who’d started out pro-capital punishment were now even more in favor of it; those who’d opposed it were even more hostile.

Also—and this is not even related to this but—while I was reading about this capital punishment experiment, it somehow reminded me this dialogue from a Japanese movie called 'Death by hanging' by Nagisa Oshima (Here's the trailer)



Anyhoo, If 'reason' is designed to generate sound judgments, then it’s hard to conceive of a more serious design flaw than confirmation-bias. Imagine, a mouse that thinks the way we do. Such a mouse, “bent on confirming its belief that there are no cats around,” would soon be dinner. To the extent that confirmation bias leads people to dismiss evidence of new or underappreciated threats—the human equivalent of the cat around the corner—it’s a trait that should have been selected against. The fact that both we and it survive, proves that it must have some adaptive function, and that function, they maintain, is related to our “hyper-sociability.” In this book, it is called 'myside-bias.'

“Reason is an adaptation to the hyper-social niche humans have evolved for themselves"

— Here's a little (and really old) experiment performed again by the author, which demonstrates this asymmetry:
Participants were asked to answer a series of simple reasoning problems. They were then asked to explain their responses, and were given a chance to modify them if they identified mistakes. The majority were satisfied with their original choices; fewer than fifteen per cent changed their minds in step two.
In step three, participants were shown one of the same problems, along with their answer and the answer of another participant, who’d come to a different conclusion. Once again, they were given the chance to change their responses. But a trick had been played: the answers presented to them as someone else’s was actually their own, and vice versa. About half the participants realized what was going on. Among the other half, suddenly people became a lot more critical. Nearly sixty per cent now rejected the responses that they’d earlier been satisfied with.
This lopsidedness reflects the task that reason evolved to perform, which is to prevent us from getting screwed by the other members of our group. Living in small bands of hunter-gatherers, our ancestors were primarily concerned with their social standing, and with making sure that they weren’t the ones risking their lives on the hunt while others loafed around in the cave. There was little advantage in reasoning clearly, while much was to be gained from winning arguments. show less