Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom> wrote:
> and "Quirkology", which covers some seriously 
> goofy studies that have been done over the years, which do a fair job of 
> dispelling the suggestion that the average person is *at all* rational, 
> outside of where they have to be to get something accomplished (and not 
> even always then).

  It indeed is so that the innate way of thinking for the human brain is
*not* rational skepticism. Rational skepticism is something that has to
be learned via years of study and the willingness to understand how the
world really works.

  The innate instinct of the human brain is to be naive, to believe what
you are told. This actually makes sense from an evolutionary perspective:
If a child is told "don't eat that plant, it's dangerous", this child had
a significantly higher chance of survival if he took that claim at face
value instead of being skeptical and testing it. Hence humans have been
naturally selected to be naive, especially in matter concerning dangers.
(It's no wonder that so many conspiracy theories are related to things
that are ostensibly dangerous. For example "vaccines are dangerous",
"fluoridated water is dangerous", "chemotherapy is poison", "the government
is out to get you", etc.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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