The Well-Dressed Caveman

As living beings, subject to the molding forces of evolution like every other animal, we are perpetually in transition. That may be hard to fathom because as long as we can remember, we’ve always been the same and the natural world around us has remained mostly changeless as well. Few humans will ever consider that they are not at the pinnacle of the evolutionary process, the last stop on the line. Further, we consider ourselves so far removed from the rest of the evolutionary process that we neglect to recognize how much of our bodies, brains and thoughts are more artifact than invention.

Reason and logic are new to us. Our species didn’t start out using reason to make decisions. In the beginning, it was survival as usual, which meant intuition was all we knew. That’s understandable because our brains and bodies are evolution-optimized survival machines. Our bodies are compound machinations of animal features. Our intuition is what can best be described as our animal sense, but most of us still treasure it as our main decision-making mechanic. While our world progresses and society collects around the constructs of science and reasoned knowledge, we still use our intuition to do most of our thinking.

This is nobody’s fault. This isn’t something to get defensive about. We are born this way and the vast majority of us aren’t even exposed to the idea of rationality in any meaningful way. What’s more, we will continue this way as a society for thousands of years. For as far as we can see into the future, we will be haunted by the specter of our genes. What this translates into is a perpetual struggle between the advocates of reason against the built-in system of flawed instant deduction we call intuition.

A recent study found a correlation between reliance on intuition and spiritual thinking. The study asked participants questions with seemingly apparent answers, ones that their intuition could easily provide, while the correct answers were less obvious. The test was to see if the participant would trust their intuition or if they would pause to apply better thinking techniques to get the correct answer. For instance, consider the following: “A baseball and bat cost $1.10 together. The bat costs one dollar more than the ball. How much does the bat cost?” The intuitive answer is that the bat costs $1. The correct answer is $1.05.

It was found that the study participants who were more spiritual were more likely to give the intuitive answer to the questions. This doesn’t mean that religious people are bad with math, just that they trust the answer that their minds provide quickest. While reason and logic work slower, they often give us answers that are more useful. Spiritualism is only a small example of intuition run rampant.

Intuitive thinking can be seen in many areas of society. What we know as conventional wisdom is often intuitive: idiomatic ideas that are perpetuated throughout society because they fit into sound bites, but are not necessarily logical or scientifically sound. One example of incorrect conventional wisdom would be the idea that the earlier a person loses their virginity, the more likely they are to become delinquent. Thankfully, due to scientific inquiry, we know this is not true, but this will not stop intuitive thinkers from believing it.

Incorrect health trends are perpetrated with conventional wisdom: cell phone health risks, the efficacy of acai berries, the toxicity of plastic bottles, paranoia about genetically modified crops, etc. It appeals to intuition to draw the connection between chemicals and health problems, and between natural things and health benefits. Science and skepticism tends to set things straight, but intuition is heavily favored in situations where knowledge is lacking. This is why, to the bulk of the population, new scientific developments are usually suspect, while ideas that appeal to a natural state of being are welcomed without question.

Other factors in why intuition often wins out over reason are our cognitive biases that convince us that our ideas are correct. We treat our intuitive ideas like possessions and we unknowingly defend them against opposition by blindly ignoring conflicting information. We see any attempt to dissuade us as a theft. We look for evidence to support our claims, but we never look for evidence to counter them. It takes a rare person to release this kind of jealous ownership over their ideas and intuition to embrace a more structured and reliable way of establishing knowledge.

In the end, we are and always will be well-dressed cavemen. The best we can do is to teach logic and rationality early in the education of our future generations. Consider that the occurrence of cholera in some Bangladeshi villages was reduced by 50% when women were instructed to fold an old sari 4 times over and pour water through it. The world lacks education and promoting its spread, even of simple techniques, can only make things better. We cannot escape our biology completely, but we can create a culture where we are taught to rely less on intuition and more on reason.