The Evolution of Perception

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We developed reasons to sort of persuade our fellow human beings. This gives us this wonderful set of abilities, but also an obvious set of exploits that are available,. So does this make us susceptible to being persuaded of false things by people who are very good at such techniques? I don't think so because I think the way these mechanisms should work is they should err on the side of caution. If you don't really understand an argument, then you should just stay put and stay with your prior belief. And so the person should not manage to change your mind.

Here at the Mindscape Podcast, we are firmly pro-reason. But what does that mean, fundamentally and in practice? How did humanity come into the idea of not just doing things, but doing things for reasons? In this episode we talk with cognitive scientist Hugo Mercier about these issues. He is the co-author (with Dan Sperber) of The Enigma of Reason, about how the notion of reason came to be, and more recently author of Not Born Yesterday, about who we trust and what we believe. He argues that our main shortcoming is not being insufficiently skeptical of radical claims, but of being too skeptical of claims that don't fit our views.

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Hugo Mercier received a Ph.D. in cognitive sciences from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. He is currently a Permanent CNRS Research Scientist at the Institut Jean Nicod, Paris. Among his awards are the Prime d’excellence from the CNRS.

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