Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T05:13:12.128Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

You can't always get what you want: Evolution and true beliefs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2010

Jeffrey P. Schloss  and
Michael J. Murray
Jeffrey P. Schloss
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA 93108. schloss@westmont.edu
Michael J. Murray
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA 17604. mmurray@fandm.eduhttp://www.fandm.edu/x11310?id=204
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

McKay & Dennett (M&D) convincingly argue against many proposals for adaptively functioning misbelief, but the conclusion that true beliefs are generally adaptive does not follow. Adaptive misbeliefs may be few in kind but many in number; maladaptive misbeliefs may routinely elude selective pruning; reproductively neutral misbeliefs may abound; and adaptively grounded beliefs may reliably covary with but not truthfully represent reality.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 32 , Issue 6 , December 2009 , pp. 533 - 534
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Churchland, P. (1987) Epistemology in the age of neuroscience. Journal of Philosophy 84(10):544–53.Google Scholar
Cromer, A. (1993) Uncommon sense: The heretical nature of science. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. (1996) The blind watchmaker: Why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design. W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (2006a) Breaking the spell: Religion as a natural phenomenon. Viking/Penguin Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, D. D. P. (2009) The error of God: Error management theory, religion, and the evolution of cooperation. In: Games, groups, and the global good, ed. Levin, S. A., pp. 169–180. Springer.Google Scholar
Kimura, M. (1991) The neutral theory of molecular evolution: A review of recent evidence. Japanese Journal of Genetics 66:367–86.Google ScholarPubMed
Miller, G. (2000) Mental traits as fitness indicators: Expanding evolutionary psychology's adaptationism. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 907:62–74.Google Scholar
Miller, G. (2001) The mating mind: How sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature. Anchor Press.Google Scholar
Murray, M. & Moore, L. (2009) Costly signaling and the origin of religion. Journal of Cognition and Culture 9:225–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plantinga, A. (2002) Evolutionary argument against naturalism. In: Naturalism defeated?, ed. Beilby, J., pp. 1–12. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Plotkin, H. (1997) Darwin machines and the nature of knowledge. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schloss, J. P. (2007) He who laughs best: Religious affect as a solution to recursive cooperative defection. In: The evolution of religion: Studies, theories, critiques, ed. Bubulia, J., Sosis, R., Harris, E., Genet, R., Genet, C. & Wyman, K., pp. 205–15. Collins Foundation Press.Google Scholar
Stich, S. (1990) The fragmentation of reason. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Wagner, A. (2005) Robustness, evolvability, and neutrality. FEBS Letters 579(8):1772–78.Google Scholar
Wolpert, L. (2000) The unnatural nature of science. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar