It might be worth pointing out that your text down to and including the Dawkins quote is paraphrased from Gigerenzer’s book, and Gigerenzer is quoting Dawkins only to argue against him.
Re the Dawkins quote. There is actually a significant literature on how people catch fly balls (and other objects such as frisbees and toy helicopters), and while there is not complete agreement, it is clear that people do not do it by any process of “solving differential equations in predicting the trajectory of the ball”. Some of the contending theories are called “linear optical trajectory”, “optical acceleration cancellation”, or “vertical optical velocity” (all Googleable phrases if you want to know more). In spite of disagreements among the researchers, they all have this in common: the fielder is trying to keep some aspect of their perception of the ball constant. He does not “behave as if he had solved a set of differential equations”, and nothing “functionally equivalent to the mathematical calculations is going on” in the process, except in the tautologous sense that the fielder succeeds in catching the ball.
Gigerenzer knows this, as he follows the Dawkins quote with an explanation of how implausible it is when you think about how that could work. (I haven’t seen the book, but enough of the first chapter is available in the Amazon preview.) He then talks about how fielders actually do it, and it’s clear he’s read the same papers I have, although he doesn’t mention them, because he eventually quotes (unsourced) the rule; “Fix your gaze on the ball, start running, and adjust your running speed so that the angle of gaze remains constant.” No “intuition”, no “intelligence of the unconscious”, an explicit rule, consciously applied, and one that does not involve solving any differential equations or making any predictions.
He gives another example, of German people guessing which city is more populous, Detroit or Milwaukee. They generally pick Detroit, because they’ve heard of it and they haven’t heard of Milwaukee, and the more prominent a city is, the more populous it is likely to be. Americans, being equally familiar with both names, find the question more difficult. Again, an explicit rule, deliberately applied, which he sprinkles with fairy dust by calling it a “heuristic”.
So two key examples in the introduction to his book undercut the thesis promised by its title.
In the blurb on Amazon (for which, of course, Gigerenzer is not responsible) I read “Intuition, it seems, is not some sort of mystical chemical reaction but a neurologically based behavior that evolved to ensure that we humans respond quickly when faced with a dilemma.” It seems to me that “A neurologically based behavior etc.” is the same thing as “some sort of mystical chemical reaction”. “Neurons!” “Evolution!”
It might be worth pointing out that your text down to and including the Dawkins quote is paraphrased from Gigerenzer’s book, and Gigerenzer is quoting Dawkins only to argue against him.
Re the Dawkins quote. There is actually a significant literature on how people catch fly balls (and other objects such as frisbees and toy helicopters), and while there is not complete agreement, it is clear that people do not do it by any process of “solving differential equations in predicting the trajectory of the ball”. Some of the contending theories are called “linear optical trajectory”, “optical acceleration cancellation”, or “vertical optical velocity” (all Googleable phrases if you want to know more). In spite of disagreements among the researchers, they all have this in common: the fielder is trying to keep some aspect of their perception of the ball constant. He does not “behave as if he had solved a set of differential equations”, and nothing “functionally equivalent to the mathematical calculations is going on” in the process, except in the tautologous sense that the fielder succeeds in catching the ball.
Gigerenzer knows this, as he follows the Dawkins quote with an explanation of how implausible it is when you think about how that could work. (I haven’t seen the book, but enough of the first chapter is available in the Amazon preview.) He then talks about how fielders actually do it, and it’s clear he’s read the same papers I have, although he doesn’t mention them, because he eventually quotes (unsourced) the rule; “Fix your gaze on the ball, start running, and adjust your running speed so that the angle of gaze remains constant.” No “intuition”, no “intelligence of the unconscious”, an explicit rule, consciously applied, and one that does not involve solving any differential equations or making any predictions.
He gives another example, of German people guessing which city is more populous, Detroit or Milwaukee. They generally pick Detroit, because they’ve heard of it and they haven’t heard of Milwaukee, and the more prominent a city is, the more populous it is likely to be. Americans, being equally familiar with both names, find the question more difficult. Again, an explicit rule, deliberately applied, which he sprinkles with fairy dust by calling it a “heuristic”.
So two key examples in the introduction to his book undercut the thesis promised by its title.
In the blurb on Amazon (for which, of course, Gigerenzer is not responsible) I read “Intuition, it seems, is not some sort of mystical chemical reaction but a neurologically based behavior that evolved to ensure that we humans respond quickly when faced with a dilemma.” It seems to me that “A neurologically based behavior etc.” is the same thing as “some sort of mystical chemical reaction”. “Neurons!” “Evolution!”