Caveman Logic: The Persistence of Primitive Thinking in a Modern World (43 page)

As we have repeatedly seen, the two biggest offenders are our pattern detectors and our causal agency detectors. If both of these spectacular abilities simply knew when to stop, when
not
to respond or draw conclusions, we would be a more cognitively adroit and reality-based species. Since the cognitive architecture is hardwired, we cannot simply get it to stop working. But we can refuse to accept the verdicts it offers. When the circuit pushes us to see patterns or connections or agents of control, we can say, “Thanks for the suggestion. I can see why you were triggered. Now I’m going to go back to my real life.” I will not call the cops or the local paper to report my “sighting.” I understand where this is coming from in me. And I also understand that I do not have to accept it as gospel truth. I choose to remain rational and not give into this trip-wired circuitry. I choose to bring other more cognitively advanced parts of my brain into the act.

Note that we do not want to purge this circuitry altogether. We can recognize the contribution a hair-triggered pattern detector or an agency detector may bring to our lives (and to those of our ancestors). But that does not mean we have to relinquish control to this antique circuitry today. We reserve the right to seek a second opinion from other parts of our brain. Sometimes this will seem like a lonely task. Our friends or family may already be out there pointing to that piece of pizza and genuflecting. We may
want
to join them in order to validate their perception or be validated by our connection to them. This is costly business, but more of us have to take these steps in the evolution of our species.

At the least, we should work to erode the social support that ignorance and irrationality enjoy within our culture. Richard Dawkins and others have argued eloquently against the special immunity that religious belief enjoys from criticism. This is indeed a dangerous state of affairs. But perhaps more important, atheists, humanists, and skeptics must work to establish support networks of their own. Cognitive architecture will not change within our lifetimes, but the allocation of social and political power can. We can work to stigmatize rather than dignify signs of Caveman Logic. We can work to make “skeptical” sound sexy. Rationality is a meme, and there is no reason it cannot be more actively supported and shared in all its forms. Humanists should not feel like outsiders when they express their views at school boards or town hall meetings. Atheists should not feel like pariahs when they band together and speak up at national political rallies. Their viewpoint should not be shunned by network media or relegated to the fringes of publicly supported communication.

At a recent meeting of the Humanist Association of Canada, former Christian evangelist Dan Barker talked about the kind of messages that might have “gotten through to him” when he was under the church’s control. Barker’s book
Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist
⁷
details this phase of his life. He argued that exposure to credible alternatives to delusional beliefs might have made a difference during early stages of his development. Barker has written and performs several antireligious, prohumanist songs. As one conferee jokingly commented, “We need a theme song.” Yes, we do. There is no rallying call, no unifying theme or symbol for the increasing number of humanists, skeptics, and atheists.

Many forms of Caveman Logic are embodied in literature, art, and music. Indeed, it is fair to say they are embodied in
great
literature, art, and music. We have no such legacy other than what
Time
magazine called “the roar of atheist books” in its summary of the year 2007. There is more to be written, painted, and composed.

Human history of the past millennium is a halting march away from superstition toward knowledge. We are still far from our goal, but our species is young. Ultimately, this book is about that march, and your part in it. Many of the suggestions in this book will place you, to use a popular idiom, ahead of the curve. That takes not only insight, but also strength of character.

1
Hank Davis,
Small-Town Heroes: Images of Minor League Baseball
(Lincoln, NE: Bison Books, 2003); Stephen Jay Gould,
Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville: A Lifelong Passion for Baseball
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2003).

1
Jacqueline Salmon, “Most Americans Believe in Higher Power, Poll Finds,”
Washington Post
, June 24, 2008.

2
Rob Walker, “Pop-Culture Evolution,”
New York Times Magazine
, April 15, 2007, p. 20; James Poniewozik, “It’s an Ad. But Is It Art?”
Time
, July 2, 2007, p. 46.

1
Susan Blackmore,
The Meme Machine
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 11.

2
Martin Daly, “Natural Selection Doesn’t Have Goals, but It’s the Reason Organisms Do,”
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
14, no. 2 (1991): 219-20.

3
Steve Connor, “Genetic Breakthrough That Reveals the Differences between Humans,”
Independent
, November 23, 2006; Michael D. Lemonick and Andrea Dorfman, “What Makes Us Different?”
Time
, October 9, 2006, pp. 33-39.

4
Stephen S. Hall, “Last of the Neanderthals,”
National Geographic
214, no. 4 (October 2008): 34ff.

5
Timothy H. Goldsmith and William F. Zimmerman,
Biology, Evolution, and Human Nature
(New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2001), p. 283.

6
Michael W. Passer, Ronald E. Smith, Michael L. Atkinson, John B. Mitchell, and Darwin W. Muir,
Psychology: Frontiers and Applications
, 2nd Canadian ed. (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2005).

7
Carl Sagan,
Contact
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985).

8
Steven Pinker,
How the Mind Works
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), p. 21.

9
Scott Atran and Ara Norenzayan, “Religion’s Evolutionary Landscape: Counterintuition, Commitment, Compassion, Communion,”
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
27, no. 6 (2004): 713-30.

10
Hank Davis and Stephanie Tytus, “Santa Claus and God: A Match Made in Heaven,”
Canadian Freethinker
2, no. 3 (Fall 2008): 8-12.

11
Richard Dawkins, “Life: A Gene-Centric View,”
Edge
234 (January 24, 2008).

12
Thomas Gilovich,
How We Know What Isn’t So
(New York: Free Press, 1993).

13
Carl Sagan,
The Demon-Haunted World
(New York: Random House, 1995).

1
Henry Plotkin,
Evolution and Mind
(New York: Penguin, 1997), p. 199.

2
B. F. Skinner, “‘Superstition’ in the Pigeon,”
Journal of Experimental Psychology
38 (1948): 168-72.

3
Hank Davis and James Hubbard, “An Analysis of Superstitious Behavior in the Rat,”
Behaviour
43 (1973): 1-12.

4
Gerd Gigerenzer and Peter M. Todd,
Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

5
Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg, “Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science,”
Science
316 (May 18, 2007): 996-97.

6
Seth Asser, paper presented at the Amazing Meeting 3, Las Vegas, January 13-16, 2005,
http://www.randi.org
.

7
Gabrielle Bauer, “God and Other Mysteries,”
Reader’s Digest,
Canadian ed., November 2003, pp. 50-59.

8
Susan Blackmore,
The Meme Machine
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), cited in Chad M. Lewis, “Investigating Students’ Beliefs in the Paranormal,” unpublished master’s thesis, University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie, May 2002.

9
Lewis, “Investigating Students’ Beliefs in the Paranormal.”

10
Julian Baggini, “A Woman’s Place in Rational Debate,”
London Times Educational Supplement
, October 9, 1999.

11
Mike Sofka, Amy Bix, and Beth Wolszon, “Women and Skepticism,” Round Earth Society, 2004,
http://www.str.com.br/english/res/women.htm
.

12
Robert Park,
Voodoo Science
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 195.

13
“UK among Most Secular Nations,”
BBC News
, February 26, 2004.

14
Jacqueline Salmon, “Most Americans Believe in Higher Power, Poll Finds,”
Washington Post
, June 24, 2008.

15
http://www.pollingreport.com/religion/htm
.

16
Ibid.

17
Ibid.

18
Cited in Bloom and Skolnick Weisberg, “Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science.”

19
http://www.pollingreport.com/religion/htm
.

20
Stephen Prothero,
Religious Literacy
(San Francisco: Harper-Collins, 2007).

21
David Van Biema, “The Case for Teaching the Bible,”
Time
, April 2, 2007, p. 28-34.

22
Gabrielle Bauer, “God and Other Mysteries,”
Reader’s Digest,
Canadian ed., November 2003, pp. 50-59.

23
Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham, “Leading Scientists Still Reject God,”
Nature
394, no. 6691 (1998): 313.

24
Ron Csillag, “Math + Religion = Trouble,”
Toronto Star
, January 29, 2008,
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/297564
.

25
Larson and Witham, “Leading Scientists Still Reject God.”

26
http://www.objectivethought.com/atheism/iqstats.html
.

27
Margaret Wente, “Who’s Afraid of Darwin? Everyone,”
Toronto Globe and Mail
, March 8, 2008.

28
Richard Miller, “From Hobbits to Hobbes: Reducing Students’ Belief in the Paranormal,” paper read at APA 22nd Annual Convention, Chicago.

29
Daniel Fuselier and Rob Neiss, Letters to
APA Monitor
34 (February 2003).

30
M. E. P. Seligman, “On the Generality of the Laws of Learning,”
Psychological Review
77 (1970): 406-18.

1
Mark Silk, “Was New Orleans Asking for It?”
Religion in the News
8, no. 2 (Fall 2005).

2
Carl Sagan,
The Demon-Haunted World
(New York: Random House, 1995)

3
Steven J. C. Gaulin and Donald H. McBurney,
Psychology: An Evolutionary Approach
(Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001).

4
Carl Jung,
Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973).

5
Hank Davis, “A Further Penetration into the Deep and Enthralling Mystery of Names,”
Journal of Biological Psychology
20 (1978): 101-104.

6
Jung,
Synchronicity
, p. 15.

7
J. B. Rhine,
Extra-sensory Perception
(Boston: Bruce-Humphries, 1934).

8
Cited in Thomas Gilovich,
How We Know What Isn’t So
(New York: Free Press, 1993) pp. 163-66.

9
Todd Zolecki, “Players, Fans Get Attached to Uniform Numbers,”
Philadelphia Inquirer
, May 26, 2007.

10
Hank Davis and Andrea Javor, “Religion, Death and Horror Movies: Some Striking Evolutionary Parallels,”
Evolution and Cognition
10, no. 1 (2004): 11-18.

11
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2008/07/so-lawrence-sum.html
.

12
Colin Wilson,
The Occult
(London: Grafton Books, 1979).

13
Richard Dawkins,
A Devil’s Chaplain
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), p. 143.

14
Julian Barnes,
Nothing to Be Frightened Of
(New York: Random House, 2008).

15
“Dionne Warwick Arrested for Pot Possession,”
http://www.cnn.com
, May 13, 2002.

16
http://www.stephanyhurkos.com/peter_biography.htm
.

17
Even when the item originates in the outside world (and is thus “real”), there is no guarantee that we will see or hear it accurately. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) called human understanding “a false mirror,” inevitably distorted by our own consciousness. Bacon distinguished between species-wide and individual distortions, which he called “Idols of the Tribe” and “Idols of the Cave,” respectively. In either case, he argued, there would be a measurable difference between what we perceived and what was really out there. These conclusions still seem sound nearly four hundred years later.

18
M. A. Persinger, “On the Possibility of Directly Accessing Every Human Brain by Electromagnetic Induction of Fundamental Algorithms,”
Perceptual and Motor Skills
80 (1995): 791-99; “Are ‘Aliens’ All in the Temporal Lobes?”
http://www.cfree.org/contact/viewpoints/view005.html
.

19
Blaise Pascal,
Pensées
(1670).

20
David Berreby,
Us and Them
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008)

21
http://www.yamasa.org/japan/english/destinations/aichi/tagata_jinja.html
.

22
Amanda Ripley, “Staying Alive,”
Time
, May 2, 2005, pp. 39-42.

23
Steven J. C. Gaulin and Donald H. McBurney,
Psychology: An Evolutionary Approach
(Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001).

24
John Teehan,
In the Name of God
(Boston: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).

25
Steven Pinker,
The Language Instinct
(New York: HarperCollins, 1994).