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Why We Should Try Reason as an Alternative to Belief
The human brain is small and evolved to cope with the challenges of the African savannah and the primordial forests of Eurasia. As complex organs evolve relatively slowly in comparison to individual lifespans our brains are pretty much the same as those of people who lived 30,000 years ago.
Most of our brain is occupied with mundane tasks like keeping the heartbeat regulated, making sure our lungs fill and then empty as needed, ensuring we don’t fall over when we’re walking, and interpreting the myriad inputs from our sensory organs. There’s not much of the human brain that’s actually dedicated to thinking and that’s because for the most part throughout our evolutionary history there wasn’t much benefit to be had from burning up precious calories on reasoning.
Our brains have inbuilt heuristics about associating effects with causes, seeing intentionality everywhere, and identifying important patterns. While these heuristics are frequently fallible, back in our ancestral environment they were adequate enough to ensure overall that the species survived.
For the most part, blind acceptance of what we were told by authority figures and subsequent unquestioning belief was enough to see our ancestors through their short and difficult lives.
