From New Scientist:
Evolution has built bias into our brains – here are the best ways to overrule your instincts and make better decisions about everything
…
Understanding the often irrational factors that affect how we make decisions has been a key aim of psychologists over the past few decades – and we’re just getting to the stage where we can begin to apply their insights. More.
We’d have to pay to read more. But why?
If “evolution” causes us to have an irrational brain, what causes us to gain control of it? An unevolved entity? Maybe, but that’s hardly what one would expect to hear from New Scientist in a “subscription drive” feature’s blurb.
One might just as well say that “evolution” enables us to monitor our thoughts and actions, and make corrections. And that raises the question, do we even have free will to make them? How does that arise?
The item probably achieves its purpose. The target audience is the New Scientist reader for whom, whatever the question, “evolution” is the answer, which saves a lot of fuss with the details.
Note: The behaviour of apes, who don’t have the same problems, wouldn’t be relevant either, though I didn’t pay to find out whether New Scientist retails that stuff goes there.
See also: Would we give up naturalism to solve the hard problem of consciousness?
and How can we believe in naturalism if we have no choice?
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