Yes, I may be incurring in the fallacy “it is a product of evolution therefore it is not flawed”, but I think it hasn’t been refuted in this discussion.
past performance does not guarantee future results
I think this is the key, out cognitive biases are there because they were useful for our biological objectives, but they were built in an evolving environment so if that environment changes then they can become obsolete.
Therefore I would prefer to characterize our cognitive biases as potentially obsolete rather than flaws. A flaw seems to be the product of error, that it was never useful, which I think is not possible in evolution, but obsolete is the product of change so the “past performance” phrase is more suitable in my opinion.
Is there any reason to believe in perfection of human mind, without believing in the perfection of all the other human organs?
Because of the same reason I believe our cognitive biases are not flawed, I don’t agree our organs have flaws either. All organisms with their internal organs seems to be fit for their niche in nature.
But that doesn’t mean some organs don’t need to change, e.g. 10,000 years ago we didn’t eat wheat, but now that we do we all need adapt our digestive system to that.
Conclusion: Since evolution is an adaptation to change and change is constant then we may experience some traits to be obsolete, therefore I cannot say we are entirely “fit” to the current environment, but that does not mean they are flaws since they were functional at least in some past environment, if not still i the present.
Adaptation takes time. Maybe the environment is changing faster than the organs evolve. Also, evolution finds local optima, not global ones, so it can get stuck at suboptimal designs which any incremental changes would only make worse.
Yes, I may be incurring in the fallacy “it is a product of evolution therefore it is not flawed”, but I think it hasn’t been refuted in this discussion.
I think this is the key, out cognitive biases are there because they were useful for our biological objectives, but they were built in an evolving environment so if that environment changes then they can become obsolete.
Therefore I would prefer to characterize our cognitive biases as potentially obsolete rather than flaws. A flaw seems to be the product of error, that it was never useful, which I think is not possible in evolution, but obsolete is the product of change so the “past performance” phrase is more suitable in my opinion.
Because of the same reason I believe our cognitive biases are not flawed, I don’t agree our organs have flaws either. All organisms with their internal organs seems to be fit for their niche in nature.
But that doesn’t mean some organs don’t need to change, e.g. 10,000 years ago we didn’t eat wheat, but now that we do we all need adapt our digestive system to that.
Conclusion: Since evolution is an adaptation to change and change is constant then we may experience some traits to be obsolete, therefore I cannot say we are entirely “fit” to the current environment, but that does not mean they are flaws since they were functional at least in some past environment, if not still i the present.
Adaptation takes time. Maybe the environment is changing faster than the organs evolve. Also, evolution finds local optima, not global ones, so it can get stuck at suboptimal designs which any incremental changes would only make worse.