Note the implicit selection effect here: cognitive biases that did get selected out of the gene pool don’t get posts on Less Wrong, so we’re left with heuristics that helped more than they hurt (all things considered) in the ancestral environment.
Before I get into concocting just-so stories, have you read much of the sequence on evolution? (Particularly this post?)
(I’m not seeking to be rude- it’s just that the understanding of how evolution actually operates on species is pretty important to the explanation of any one trait.)
Note the implicit selection effect here: cognitive biases that did get selected out of the gene pool don’t get posts on Less Wrong, so we’re left with heuristics that helped more than they hurt (all things considered) in the ancestral environment.
Sure. So how did this bias help more than it hurt, all things considered?
Before I get into concocting just-so stories, have you read much of the sequence on evolution? (Particularly this post?)
(I’m not seeking to be rude- it’s just that the understanding of how evolution actually operates on species is pretty important to the explanation of any one trait.)