[science] The Prophet of Reason — The Independent profiles Richard Dawkins…. ‘What about, “why are humans so credulous?” I ask. So happy to pay through the nose for an aura massage or crystal healing. Mustn’t gullibility have an evolutionary explanation too? “I would put it back to childhood and say that there’s a Darwinian survival value in children believing what their elders tell them, because the world is too dangerous a place and it takes too long to learn what you need to learn to survive,” Dawkins replies. “You’ve got to have a rule of thumb that’s built into the nervous system that says ‘Believe what you’re told’. And once you’ve got a rule of thumb like that, it’s like having a computer, which is vulnerable to viruses.’
Profile of Richard Dawkins
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 5th, 2001 at 10:23 am and is filed under People, Religion, Science.
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