Wednesday, January 19, 2005

So that explains revolutionary defeatism, then

There's an amusing and thought-provoking article by Ralhp Estling in January/February edition of the Skeptical Inquirer magazine (subscription only) in which he argues that human natural selection favours those who believe in absurdities over the less imaginative. Although historians and cultural anthropologists have argued that Darwinian selectivity favors species with larger brains, such as the Cro-Magnon over the Neanderthal, in fact the Cro-Magnon had a smaller but better organized brain that could conceive vastly more, both physical and spiritual, than the Neanderthal. Moreover, the Cro-Magnons had superior linguitic ablities that enabled them to invent and conceptualise religion, with all its angels and demons.

Who was it said "All Power to the Imagination!"? I'm not so sure about that now.

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