Which is exactly why we need schools and not just Wikipedia and an Internet connection. If we were naturally good thinkers, innately skeptical and balanced, schools would be superfluous.
But the truth is that without special training, our species is inherently gullible. Children are born into a world of “revealed truths,” where they tend to accept what they are told as gospel truth. It takes work to get children to understand that often multiple opinions exist and that not everything they hear is true; it requires even more effort to get them to learn to evaluate conflicting evidence. Scientific reasoning is not something most people pick up naturally or automatically.
And, for that matter, we are not born knowing much about the inner operations of our brain and mind, least of all about our cognitive vulnerabilities. Scientists didn’t even determine with certainty that the brain was the source of thinking until the seventeenth century. (Aristotle, for one, thought the purpose of the brain was to cool the blood, inferring this backward from the fact that large-brain humans were less “hot-blooded” than other creatures.) Without lessons, we are in no better position to understand how our mind works than how our digestive system works. Most us were never taught how to take notes, how to evaluate evidence, or what human beings are (and are not) naturally good at. Some people figure these things out on their own; some never do. I cannot recall a single high school class on informal argument, how to spot fallacies, or how to interpret statistics; it wasn’t until college that anybody explained to me the relation between causation and correlation.
But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t teach such things. Studies in teaching so-called critical thinking skills are showing increasingly promising results, with lasting effects that can make a difference. Among the most impressive is a recent study founded on a curriculum known as “Philosophy for Children,” which, as its name suggests, revolves around getting children to think about — and discuss — philosophy. Not Plato and Aristotle, mind you, but stories written for children that are explicitly aimed at engaging children in philosophical issues. The central book in the curriculum, Harry Stottlemeier’s Discovery (no relation to Harry Potter), begins with a section in which the eponymous Harry is asked to write an essay called “The Most Interesting Thing in the World.” Harry, a boy after my own heart, chooses to write his on thinking: “To me, the most interesting thing in the whole world is thinking. I know that lots of other things are also very important and wonderful, like electricity, and magnetism and gravitation. But although we understand them, they can’t understand us. So thinking must be something very special.”
BCids of ages 10-12 who were exposed to a version of this curriculum for 16 months, for just an hour a week, showed significant gains in verbal intelligence, nonverbal intelligence, self-confidence, and independence.
Harry Stottlemeier’s essay — and the “Philosophy for Children” curriculum — is really an example of what psychologists call metacognition, or knowing about knowing. By asking children to reflect on how they know what they know, we may significantly enhance their understanding of the world. Even a single course — call it “The Human Mind: A User’s Guide” — could go a long way.
No such guide will give us the memory power to solve square roots in our head, but many of our cognitive peccadilloes are addressable: we can train ourselves to consider evidence in a more balanced way, to be sensitive to biases in our reasoning, and to make plans and choices in ways that better suit our own long-term goals. If we do — if we learn to recognize our limitations and address them head on — we just might outwit our inner kluge.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Amanda Cook, editor of all editors, is a genius with vision who often left me feeling the sort of joy that actors must get when working for a great director. Amanda helped conceive the book and shepherded me through three exacting revisions. As if that weren’t enough, I also got fantabulous editorial advice from Neil Belton, my British editor; Don Lamm, half of the team that helped set me up with Amanda and Neil in the first place; and my wife, Athena, who, when it comes to editing, is an amateur with the skills of a professional. It’s hard to imagine another author being so lavished in editorial wisdom.
Conceptual wisdom came from a host of friends and colleagues. Zach Woods, Yaacov Trope, Hugh Rabagliati, Athena Vouloumanos, Rachel Howard, Iris Berent, Ezequiel Morsella, Cedric Boeckx, Deanna Kuhn, Erica Roedder, Ian Tattersall, and two sets of students at NYU generously read and critiqued the complete manuscript, while Meehan Crist, Andrew Gerngross, Joshua Greene, George Hadjipavlou, Jon Jost, Steve Pinker, and my father, Phil Marcus, made penetrating comments on individual chapters. I also thank Scott Atran, Noam Chomsky, Randy Gallistel, Paul Glimcher, Larry Maloney, and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini for helpful discussion. Numerous people, some whom I’ve never met, helped me with queries ranging from the syntax of Esperanto to the evolution of the eyes of animals and the carbon cycle of plants; these include Don Harlow, Lawrence Getzler, Tyler Volk, Todd Gureckis, Mike Landy, and Dan Nilsson; my apologies to those I’ve failed to thank. I have only my memory to blame.
Christy Fletcher and Don Lamm are the dynamic duo who helped sell this book and connect me with Amanda Cook and Neil Belton; they’ve been supportive, energetic, and involved, everything an agent (or pair of agents) should be.
Finally, I’d like to thank my family — especially Athena, Mom, Dad, Linda, Julie, Peg, Esther, Ted, and Ben, and my in-laws Nick, Vickie, and the Georges — for their enthusiasm and unstinting support. Writing can be hard work, but with so many talented and loving people behind me, it’s always a pleasure.
NOTES
2 The average person can’t keep a list of words straight for a half an hour: Tulving 8c Craik, 2000. 5 One scientist: Wesson, 1991.
7 “Human cognition approaches an optimal level of performance”: Chater et al., 2006. Superlatively well engineered functional designs: Tooby 8c Cosmides, 1995.
In principle possibility of “inept evolution”: Tooby & Cosmides, 1995.
8 The Selfish Gene: Dawkins, 1976. Infanticide: Daly 8c Wilson, 1988. Male overperception of female sexual intent: Haselton 8c Buss, 2000.
9 Evolution as mountain climbing: Dawkins, 1996.
10 Bar-headed goose: Fedde et al., 1989. No guarantee that evolution will ever reach the highest peak: Dawkins, 1982.
11 The inefficiency of the gaps across which neurons communicate: Montague, 2006. 12 New genes in concert with old genes: Marcus, 2004. Evolution like a tinkerer: lacob, 1975.
13 Hindbrain evolution: Rosa-Molinar et al, 2005. Midbrain evolution: Takahashi, 2005. Language and the brain: Gebhart et al, 2002; Demonet et al, 2005.
14 “Progressive overlay of technologies”: Allman, 1999.
Notes to Pages 14-43
Chimpanzee overlap: The Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium 2005; King & Wilson, 1975.