304. Justin Gregg — If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity
The Michael Shermer Show
The Power of Hypothesis Testing
If an animal hears a rustle in the grass, they're more likely to assume it's a dangerous predator. They're not really doing any reasoning. It's almost like an operant conditioning sort of thing. I heard a noise. Often noises are dangerous. Therefore, I'm going to make a type one error and just avoid it altogether. And that's how most animals, including humans most of the time, get by surviving on a day-to-day basis. But when humans start trying to find causal connections, we also screw it up in monstrously ridiculous ways.
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