The Importance of Open-Mindedness

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We evolved in an environment that was obviously vastly different from the when we were in now. For ancestors, you know, they knew just about everybody they would ever talk to in their lives and they could discuss things at length. And so it's quite likely that you'll end up changing your mind if it's warranted. Whereas nowadays, you're confronted with a lot of information that you don't really know the source,. You don't know if you can trust them or not.

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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