New York Times on Arguments and Evolution [link]

Nic_Smith

I saw this in the Facebook "what's popular" box, so it's apparently being heavily read and forwarded. There's nothing earthshattering for long-time LessWrong readers, but it's a bit interesting and not too bad a condensation of the topic:

Now some researchers are suggesting that reason evolved for a completely different purpose: to win arguments. Rationality, by this yardstick (and irrationality too, but we’ll get to that) is nothing more or less than a servant of the hard-wired compulsion to triumph in the debating arena. According to this view, bias, lack of logic and other supposed flaws that pollute the stream of reason are instead social adaptations that enable one group to persuade (and defeat) another. Certitude works, however sharply it may depart from the truth. -- Cohen, Patricia "Reason Seen More as Weapon Than Path to Truth"

A glance at the comments [at the Times], however, seems to indicate that most people are misinterpreting this, and at least one person has said flatly that it's the reason his political opponents don't agree with him.

ETA: Oops, I forgot the most import thing. The article is at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/arts/people-argue-just-to-win-scholars-assert.html

Now some researchers are suggesting that reason evolved for a completely different purpose: to win arguments. Rationality, by this yardstick (and irrationality too, but we’ll get to that) is nothing more or less than a servant of the hard-wired compulsion to triumph in the debating arena. According to this view, bias, lack of logic and other supposed flaws that pollute the stream of reason are instead social adaptations that enable one group to persuade (and defeat) another. Certitude works, however sharply it may depart from the truth. -- Cohen, Patricia "Reason Seen More as Weapon Than Path to Truth"

ETA: Oops, I forgot the most import thing. The article is at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/arts/people-argue-just-to-win-scholars-assert.html

I'm not saying I feel like reasoning is for truth-seeking, I'm saying that to some significant extent it has to be - like Eugene_Nier says, even if there's a lot of noise and social posturing involved, on average it has to bottom out in truth somewhere, else why would we evolve to put effort into something worthless? If it was purely about social dominance, why talk at all instead of sticking to fighting/physical displays?

edit: Although I'm not sure how much purely social content can be built on top of a little physical truth - maybe a lot.

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New York Times on Arguments and Evolution [link]

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New York Times on Arguments and Evolution [link]

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