Caveman Logic: The Persistence of Primitive Thinking in a Modern World (9 page)

Two of our species’ foibles—the embracing of superstition and the wariness of science—do not stem directly from a lack of formal education. As we have already argued, the human mind is not an equal-opportunity consumer that will openly embrace rational thought, the scientific method, magical thinking, or religiosity, depending solely on which of these messages happens to cross our path.

The mental predispositions to Caveman Logic are now being studied directly—not in adult humans, where their presence is well documented, but in young children. Perhaps not surprisingly, this research documents that the precursors to Caveman Logic are well entrenched in each of us long before we became educated, even before we acquired language. Certainly, our adult experiences, such as the lack of scientific education, may contribute to the problem. But, much as we may wish to blame ignorant politicians, conservative preachers, and poor teachers for the problem, the fundamental damage was done long before any of these blameworthy individuals came along. The mental circuitry we have inherited from our unnamed ancestors over the past 500,000 years has far more to do with the state of our species today.

In addition to evolutionary psychology and cognitive neuroscience, another branch of human research has begun to contribute to our understanding of these issues. Within the past decade, the field of developmental psychology (once known simply as “child psychology”) has looked directly at the cognitive processes we discuss in this book. We tend to think of “human nature” as what ails your sister-in-law or the annoying guy sitting next to you at the movies. As old-time radio star Fibber McGee observed, “The trouble with human nature is that too many people have got it.” But “human nature” also describes how humans thought and behaved long before they became adults; indeed, long before they had a chance to learn much of anything from the world around them. Recent research shows that Caveman Logic and prehistoric thinking are part of what it means to be human—from our very earliest days of life.

Writing in the journal
Science
, Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg
⁵
argue that the predispositions to the basest, most delusional, error-prone thinking are firmly in place in children so young that testing them cannot always involve language. The authors begin by noting that children as young as one year old are not blank slates. They possess both a “naive physics” and a “naive psychology.” These hardwired
intuitions
(Bloom and Weisberg’s term) provide children with a “head start when it comes to understanding and learning about objects and people.” The authors note, however, that these intuitions may also sometimes conflict with the subject matter of science. In this regard, the authors cite Susan Carey, whose research with children suggests that widespread difficulty encountered in teaching science “is not with what the student lacks, but what the student (already) has.” In Carey’s words, that “something” is an “alternative conceptual framework for understanding the phenomena we are trying to teach.”

Just what are these intuitions that are central to how a child understands the world? A good example is the belief that unsupported objects fall downward. This intuition makes it easy to learn some things about science, such as the theory of gravity (a form of science education few people resist). But that same intuitive knowledge about unsupported things falling down actually makes it difficult to learn other things. For example, children often find it difficult to view the world as a sphere, giving rise to a Flat Earth Society mentality. At the level of childhood intuition, a flat Earth seems quite reasonable. In fact, normal children typically resist the idea of a spherical world until the age of eight or nine. Indeed, if major religious leaders offered public support for the notion of a flat Earth, and the president of the United States publicly stated, “The jury is still out on the Flat Earth theory,” it might well enjoy wider public acceptance among adults.

Bloom and Weisberg argue that children’s
intuitive psychology
—like their intuitions about the physical world—can also interfere with some forms of science education. For example, children appear to hold deep intuitive beliefs about causal agency, design, and purpose. It is difficult for them to imagine something existing without a
reason for being
. (Lions exist “to go in a zoo” is one example cited by Deborah Kelemen.) Not surprisingly, these mental predispositions conspire against an acceptance of evolution. Bloom and Weisberg suggest that such strong intuitive resistance is then coupled with an unbeatable pair of allies: an alternative position (creationism) that is rooted in widespread childhood intuitions (causal agency, design, and purpose), and a network of strong social support. While the social support is important for acceptance, the authors are clear that it is not sufficient in and of itself. Indiscriminate public sanctioning by trustworthy adults may not do the trick on its own. It is also essential that the belief itself be intuitively appealing. In the case of creationism, that requirement is more than met. The doctrine is rooted in assumptions about the world that go to the very core of what it means to think like a human—even a very young one. Bloom and Weisberg cite research by Evans showing that “when asked about the origins of animals and plants, children spontaneously tend to
provide
and
prefer
Creationist explanations” (italics mine). It is notable that these creationist accounts are coming from children, considerably before religious indoctrination by the adult world has taken its toll.

In summary, Bloom and Weisberg conclude that resistance to certain aspects of science stems from two sources: (1) the “unnatural,” counterintuitive properties of some of its claims, and (2) the degree to which more intuitively appealing, alternative viewpoints are supported by seemingly trustworthy individuals. There is little we can do about the first problem. It is simply a fact that species-wide qualities of the human mind render certain kinds of facts and explanations a lot more difficult to grasp,
regardless of their accuracy
. The second problem accounts for well-documented differences in scientific literacy both within and between cultures. In this regard, it is surprising that everyone is not a creationist. How did anyone escape the childhood appeal of creationism and give evolution a chance? It must have taken effort to resist teachers, preachers, and presidents selling a viewpoint that resonates so deeply with Stone Age thinking.

A deeper understanding of the intuitive biases held by human children is essential to addressing the problem of Caveman Logic. If nothing else, it allows us to anticipate where the difficulties will lie, both in acceptance of fact and gullibility to fiction. The intuitions and predispositions of the human mind may be immutable, but they are not iron-clad predictors of adult belief and behavior. That they appear in young children merely tells us something about the natural history of our species. We can acknowledge the untutored appeal of these intuitions at the same time that we elect as a society not to nurture them.

There is a fascinating and revealing line between what is considered delusional (i.e., certifiable mental illness) and what lies within the bounds of acceptable human behavior. The line is neither straight nor written in permanent ink. Clearly some cultures and subcultures are more tolerant of extreme belief systems than others. Opinions voiced (and behaviors engaged in) within a Pentecostal church on Wednesday night might cause you to be ostracized or worse at your place of employment on Thursday morning. Try speaking in tongues in a boardroom.

A recent series of episodes broadcast during the final season of
The Practice
, a television show about lawyers, illustrates the point. A brilliant attorney, played by actress Sharon Stone, was fired from a large law firm because she professed to have an active relationship with God. She did not simply
believe
in God and confine her activities to polite rituals shared on Sunday mornings. Rather, she claimed to have an ongoing, two-way conversational relationship with God that she brought unashamedly into the workplace. Despite her success in the courtroom, she had become an embarrassment to the firm. Her brilliant legal/analytical mind and successful record as a litigator were not sufficient to offset the negative perception of her. Both clients and colleagues felt that she was “acting crazy,” although her belief system appeared to differ only in degree from those around her.

She defended her position by arguing that her colleagues, the presiding judge, and members of the jury had all—at various socially acceptable times—turned to the same deity and engaged in some of the same behavior that had gotten her fired. The brilliance of the episode lay in contrasting Stone’s unapologetic and over-the-top behavior with the socially acceptable religiosity of those around her. It became clear that there was little difference in the underlying beliefs: there was enough supernatural agency to go around. A pretrial or pre-football game prayer is socially acceptable. Asking God for wisdom, courage, strength, or insight prior to a contest is somehow a sign of strength of character. However, formally acknowledging the deity as the source of a courtroom strategy or an insight into a witness, as Stone’s character did, was grounds for dismissal.

When President Harry Truman asked God (in the name of Jesus Christ) to bless America as it went off to war against the Communists in Korea, this was considered acceptable behavior. Sixty years later, George Bush invoked the same blessing (without the explicit reference to Jesus Christ) and no one cried out for his impeachment, even in a country whose constitution enshrines the separation between church and state. Parents of a sick child routinely pray to their deity of choice to bring their child back to health while at the same time they are transporting her to the hospital. But let those same parents skip the medical help part, trusting only the deity, and they are likely to end up in a court of law, charged with reckless endangerment or criminally negligent homicide. Even then, there is no guarantee they will be convicted. Speaking out against what he describes as “Jonestown in slow motion,” emergency room physician Seth Asser
⁶
documents countless preventable deaths by parents who literally would vaccinate their dogs but not their children. Asser notes that “religious exemption laws,” many of which were passed during the Christian Science-oriented Nixon administration, interfere with successful prosecutions, even when the evidence is overwhelming.

A case of this nature made the headlines and was the topic of a special two-hour episode of the NBC show
Dateline
, broadcast on May 16, 2004. The segment, titled “A Twist of Faith,” dealt with the case of “a zealous little Bible study group that was transformed to something more deadly.” A patriarch named Roland, along with his son Jacques, his wife, Karen, and several dozen extended family and friends, lived and worshiped in a small town in Massachusetts. Gradually, their practices became more and more extreme until they believed they were the chosen people of God. At this point, they began to receive messages from God commanding them to do various things. One of the messages from God commanded them to stop feeding the young son of Karen and Jacques anything but breast milk. After fifty-one days of slow starvation, the child died. He was buried by several cult members who later denied any wrongdoing when questioned by police.

Eventually, the crime was uncovered. (Testimony by cult defectors was critical in finding the body.) However, the state discovered that prosecuting those involved was far from easy. To begin with, there were no applicable statutes to prosecute the cult leader, Roland. The child’s mother and father were charged with various counts of murder in two separate trials. Despite a passionate prosecution (the district attorney claimed that this crime, involving fifty-one days of torture, was the worst he had ever seen), it was far from certain that either defendant would be convicted. Appearing in court, the entire group appeared to be decent, well meaning, albeit slightly nuts. Jacques appeared unemotional during his testimony (probably a bad mistake). He truly seemed to be a kind and decent man struggling with a dilemma. He told the jury, in essence, “I am a normal everyday person like you. I, too, love God and love my family. I have come to believe that God talks directly to me. He told me to kill my child so what was I to do?” What he didn’t say but might have, is, “You understand because you are like me at the core. You know how my mind works because yours works the same way. I am just as consumed by Caveman Logic as any of you. If you believed God talked to you, would you not listen?”

It turns out Jacques was right, although the jury did find him guilty of first-degree murder. After the trial, members of the jury were interviewed by
Dateline
. Incredibly, they revealed that they held Jacques responsible for his child’s death because
they did not believe that God would have wanted the child to die
. They did not question or doubt either that there was a supernatural agent at work or that a deity might speak directly to Jacques or his wife or the cult members. What was at issue for them was the
content
of the message that God was supposedly sending. “We, too, know God,” explained the jury, in essence, “but we also think we know His agenda. We do not believe that the message to kill the child could have come from God. It is inconsistent with what we think God is likely to say. Therefore, either you misheard the message or it was coming from someone else. Either way this distortion is your doing, and the murder is on you, not God.”

When Jacques’s wife, Karen, took the stand, she broke down and cried, expressing genuine remorse that her child had died of starvation. She also expressed that she figured God had it in for her since she was “a whore” (her child had been conceived out of wedlock). Karen was convicted of the lesser crime of assault and battery and immediately released for time already served in jail waiting for the trial to begin.