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

Just as dominance contests are ultimately backed by greater physical force, so arguments must ultimately be backed by greater correctness (on average, with a lot of variance). This is made more complicated by the fact that in some cases, "correctness" may have elements of "social truth" or self-fulfilling prophecy.

...arguments must ultimately be backed by greater correctness...

I'd certainly like to think so! I'm just suspicious of that intuition, especially in myself. The subjective impression that reasoning is for truth-seeking could be because it is. However, if it's not, as the lead article suggests, then we'd still be under the impression that our reasoning is in pursuit of truth and that those who disagree with us are willfully ignoring the truth. So we can't use that intuition as a guide to tell us about what's the case in this situation.

It's also worth... (read more)

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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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