Flat Earth on a cruise

WThey have long considered human beings the most rational animals. But as Polythath Bertrand Russell noticed, we spend our lives searching for evidence of this claim and we find little. On the contrary, we find more convincing evidence of our tendency towards self -deception. We blame others for our mistakes, and justify after the truth, and Take impulsive options Even when patience results in better rewards.

Some behavioral defects seem unique humanity. One of them is what Bill Hamilton indicates to develop in the name of the non -adaptive strategy of heaviness: harming others without any form of benefiting from himself. Or, in other words, a copy of the economic historian Carlo M. Cibola III of the Basic Law of Human Relief, which is going on this way: the stupid person is a person who causes losses to others while he does not receive any advantage and may face losses. After all, only humans insult strangers online or come back incorrect leaders of blind loyalty. Many of the damage we cause is not criminal, but the newborn of ignorance, ignorance and laziness.

Although we act like knowledge, we are easily tampered with and take it by Charlatan of all kinds. We prefer a 80 percent product on a 20 percent product of fat, and an unnecessary element costing 9.99 dollars that seem cheaper than an element that costs $ 10. We are ready to enter our cars, stand in lines for hours, and we are approaching in the terrible shopping centers to rescue a special display of snacks that cut sugar and fat.

Hoomo, the sane Wonderful account but very limited in insight.

All of these behaviors show our evolutionary stagnation. We descended from the animals that had quick decisions – about food, threats and reproduction. There was no time to trade. Ruling, but defective means survival. Consequently, irrationality, or at least, rational and practical, enables us to survive (which does not implicitly mean that he is justified today). This settlement between speed and accuracy generates a series of defects and prejudices.

The Gerd Gigerenzer, by our evolutionary past, also argues a context of irrational and no possible thinking, but it is good enough to keep us alive. We wireless wireless threats, expect others ’behavior, and conclude the meaning, even when there is nothing. This explains the reason for EWing until we attribute the relationships and the result between completely related phenomena, such as moving under the ladder and failure of the test, and extracting wide conclusions of stories. A large amount of data from developmental psychology, anthropology and neuroscience This confirms thisFor adaptive reasons that no longer exist, our minds have evolved a strong tendency to distinguish between inactive entities, such as physical objects and psychological nature entities, such as moving factors.

We are, and thus we are double and film by their nature. As a result, we attribute the purposes and intentions of things, even when there is no any of them, and we imagine hidden motives and conspiracies that have nothing. For us, stories always have a purpose, which can be clear or hidden.

We, in short, are the belief machines, and we manufacture many of these beliefs. And when the belief relaxes us or helps us even we are ready to endure mockery, as in the case of the flat wealthy who started on a cruise to reach the ends of the earth. They never reached it, but then, Many found ways to explain the reason.

A clear sign of our brain defects is that we often make mistakes even when we know that we are making them. We know very well that we are wrong – or at least, we have all the intellectual and realistic tools that must be understood – but we do it anyway, because admitting that it will force us to change. This is not only about the emotions that save the cause, as they have since the dawn of time. This is only part of the story.

When we should use our head, we often interact instinctively.

There is a deeper evolutionary logic that explains the endless manifestations of human rationality. Lack of sincerity, narcissism of teachers, and ambiguity may exacerbate them, but do not explain that. In the heart there is a contradictory defect – a defect that helped us stay. Research shows that our brains address ideas and decisions that use distinct, albeit connected systems.

Simply put, the first system is old in terms of evolutionary and governs rapid and spontaneous responses – whether in routine or emergency situations – and is mainly linked to the ox, the cerebellum, and the basal nodes. The second system, primarily associated with frontal lobe shell, is a relatively modern evolutionary development. It governs our most deliberate deeds, which result from the precise and slow assessment of contextual information. We can call it the system of logical thinking, because it deals with the exact analysis of concepts, generalizations, principles and abstraction.

There is no more rational or emotional than the other. Both played a fundamental role in our development: First, by providing us with immediate assessments based on experience, which is the best when the decision is made immediately or depends on a large number of different variables; Secondly, by providing the wonders of science for us and any option that depends on logical arguments, especially when we face a new problem. We should not consider the person irrational and other rationality, because the reaction is instinctively in certain situations often the most rational option. However, at the same time, both can make huge mistakes because our actions are repeatedly generated from an improvised land between the two systems.

In fact, there is no final control over the other, and the mutual intervention between intuition and repercussions is as incomplete as it can be imagined of self -declared “sane” mammals. Someone tries to control the other, while the other tries to his condition. In any case, the deliberative system is based on the data provided by the reaction system, which is always unreliable. When we get greatly tired or outperforming work and stress, we need to rely on its reliability, but instead, they are involved in thousands of exhausting and error procedures, and can be easily manipulated by those who can use the weaknesses of the reflected system. In other words, when we must use our head, we often interact instinctively, and vice versa.

So we must look for perfection elsewhere, perhaps in our “superior” human college. What about our memory? Unfortunately, it’s also good in discovering patterns, but short, selective, and unreliable. We re -explain the interpretation, and forget the details, especially on the Internet, where the repeated exposure to demand It makes her feel healthy. This makes us vulnerable to wrong information and ensures that we repeat personal and group mistakes.

That is why the decisions we make today, which will affect the consequences of future generations, are unfortunately not a gift that you left by nature. We have to learn how to make decisions through education and culture. Development prefers the current moment, as survival was once dependent on the seizure of immediate opportunities. As a result, we lack real sight – something that many realize when, for example, they delay the start of a diet despite knowing it.

Hoomo, the sane It is great in arithmetic, curiosity and technological innovation, but it is very limited in insight, thinking and social governance. At the core, this deficiency remains that the survivors of the Holocaust and the writer Primo Levy saw a nesting in human nature. People are not monsters, Levy wrote in Drown; It also becomes in some circumstances and contexts that reduce them to follow their basic instincts. We inherit a dual nature, as culture and experience tended towards better or worse results, which emphasizes the need for continuous ethical vigilance.

Levy saw the invention of technology and narration as forms of tampering, building on current materials and restrictions, just like the same development. For Levy, humanity is able to perceive and unimaginable horror. In his attachment to If this is a manHe writes that genocide camps are inhuman, and even anti -human inventions. But there can be no return to Arcadia. We must advance as our blacksmith. The only real antidote to return to “inhumanity”, according to Levi, is a critical and self -rationalism. It is not an ideal logic, but rather the skeptical and systematic approach, which is the first lesson is simple: do not trust all the prophets who manipulate the faults of the human mind.

This article is excerpt from Minus: Natural historyBy Telmo Pievani and it is reprinted here with the permission of With the press reader.

The leading image: Tasnuva Elahi; With pictures written

• Telmo Pievani

  Spread on August 13, 2025

  Telmo Pievani Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Padua. He is an author, who is an author, among other books, who is an author, among other books, among other books Coincidence and Deficiency.