Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

Good Ideas 305resulting laws to a large number of people. That is why taxpayers are willingto fund scientific research. But for the provincial interests of a singleindividual or even a small band, good science isn't worth the trouble.A third reason we are so-so scientists is that our brains were shapedfor fitness, not for truth. Sometimes the truth is adaptive, but sometimesit is not. Conflicts of interest are inherent to the human condition (seeChapters 6 and 7), and we are apt to want our version of the truth, ratherthan the truth itself, to prevail.For example, in all societies, expertise is distributed unevenly. Our mentalapparatus for understanding the world, even for understanding themeanings of simple words, is designed to work in a society in which we canconsult an expert when we have to. The philosopher Hilary Putnam confessesthat, like most people, he has no idea how an elm differs from abeech. But the words aren't synonyms for him or for us; we all know thatthey refer to different kinds of trees, and that there are experts out therewho could tell us which is which if we ever had to know. Experts are invaluableand are usually rewarded in esteem and wealth. But our reliance onexperts puts temptation in their path. The experts can allude to a world ofwonders—occult forces, angry gods, magical potions—that is inscrutable tomere mortals but reachable through their services. Tribal shamans are flimflamartists who" supplement their considerable practical knowledge withstage magic, drug-induced trances, and other cheap tricks. Like the Wizardof Oz, they have to keep their beseechers from looking at the man behindthe curtain, and that conflicts with the disinterested search for the truth.In a complex society, a dependence on experts leaves us even morevulnerable to quacks, from carnival snake-oil salesman to the mandarinswho advise governments to adopt programs implemented by mandarins.Modern scientific practices like peer review, competitive funding, andopen mutual criticism are meant to minimize scientists' conflicts ofinterest in principle, and sometimes do so in practice. The stultificationof good science by nervous authorities in closed societies is a familiartheme in history, from Catholic southern Europe after Galileo to theSoviet Union in the twentieth century.It is not only science that can suffer under the thumb of those inpower. The anthropologist Donald Brown was puzzled to learn that overthe millennia the Hindus of India produced virtually no histories, whilethe neighboring Chinese had produced libraries full. He suspected thatthe potentates of a hereditary caste society realized that no good couldcome from a scholar nosing around in records of the past where he might