I've posted this one over 2 years ago!  Never would have guessed I've been posting on G+ for that long.

Anyway, I like it so much, I'm posting it again.

The proposition here is that the human brain is, in large part, a machine for winning arguments, a machine for convincing others that its owner is in the right – and thus a machine for convincing its owner of the same thing. The brain is like a good lawyer: given any set of interests to defend, it sets about convincing the world of their moral and logical worth, regardless of whether they in fact have any of either. Like a lawyer, the human brain wants victory, not truth; and, like a lawyer, it is sometimes more admirable for skill than for virtue.

–Robert Wright, The Moral Animal

#quote   #rationality  

Originally posted on Google+ · October 30, 2013

If you want to live in a nicer world, you need good, unbiased science to tell you about the actual wellsprings of human behavior. You do not need a viewpoint that sounds comforting but is wrong, because that could lead you to create ineffective interventions. The question is not what sounds good to us but what actually causes humans to do the things they do.

–Douglas Kenrick

#quote   #rationality  

Originally posted on Google+ · October 30, 2013

On practical questions of urgent importance we must make up our minds one way or the other even when we know that the evidence is incomplete. To refuse to make up our minds is equivalent to deciding to leave things as they are (which is just as likely as any other to be the wrong solution).

— Robert H. Thouless

#quote   #rationality  

Originally posted on Google+ · October 30, 2013