Elisa Järnefelt
Abstract
This chapter discusses how early developing automatic intuitions about pur-posefully made and functionally fixed natural phenomena can affect people’s understanding and receptivity to scientific concepts, such as evolution and anthropogenic climate change, that involve abandoning many of the automatic hunches that people spontaneously possess about their environment. In addi-tion to discussing these automatic intuiaddi-tions, this chapter also considers how these intuitions may play a role in people’s trust of the scientists who form and present the scientific information to the public, and how scientists could tackle the challenge of communicating about science to the public in an accu-rate and welcoming way.
Sometimes, being a scientist is a difficult thing. After publishing On the Origin of Species in 1859, Charles Darwin was not ed only in academic circles. He served also as a constant inspiration for the numerous cartoons and caricatures pre-sented in popular culture. These drawings often depict Darwin as an ape, or an ape that is Darwin’s close relative just a few generations away. In other drawings, evolution is depicted as a nonsensical dream or hallucination in which a worm evolves into an ape that develops into a human that finally turns into Darwin, or in which a fork transforms into a man, an oyster into a woman, and a wine bottle into a priest who marries the man and the woman. (Browne; Bryant) As is often
the case with caricatures or parodies, besides being comical, these drawings have a cruel intention (Browne). Transforming a person or an idea into a joke sends a powerful message; it can diminish the authority or trustworthiness of the person as a reliable informant and question whether her or his ideas should be taken seriously. Darwin was neither the only nor the last naturalist whose credibility and reliability has been questioned in such a manner. More recently, for example, environmental scientists have experienced their fair share of doubt and distrust;
particular groups do not just doubt the existence of anthropogenic climate change but feature it as pseudoscience, hoax, or conspiracy theory (Hmielowski et al.; Leiserowitz; Lewandowsky et al.). The similarities between the theories of evolution and anthropogenic climate change do not end here. In addition to suspicion toward naturalists and scientists, everyday reasoning about both con-ceptions appears similar. Instead of understanding physical-causal mechanisms, both natural processes are often construed in terms of purposes and intentions.
For example, adults commonly construe evolution as nature’s helpful response to animals’ wants or needs (e.g., Gregory; Kelemen, “Teleological”). Similarly, anthropogenic climate change is often understood in relation to a purposefully behaving being, such as Nature, Earth, or God (Corner et al.; Donner, “Domain”
and “Making”; Mortreux and Barnett).
In this chapter I seek to understand why the reception of the theories of evolution and anthropogenic climate change share these similarities. Why does everyday reasoning about the origin of natural phenomena take a certain kind of shape? What makes an evolutionary or climate scientist suspicious and untrustworthy?
I start by assessing the previous notions that explain on a more general level what kind of information is more likely to succeed or fail in cultural transmis-sion. After clarifying the essential role of automatic reasoning, I concentrate more specifically on the intuitions that both children and adults have about the ori-gin of both living and nonliving natural phenomena. In reference to empirical research, I identify developmentally stable patterns in people’s reasoning that remain automatically active later in life: a tendency to assess nature as functioning purposefully toward ends that benefit nature and remain fixed, and a tendency to think that even though ordinary people cannot create nature, some other kinds of beings can. Finally, I assess how these intuitions, together with the way people assess novel arguments, are likely to play roles in ways people accept and reject information about evolution and anthropogenic climate change and calibrate their trust toward people who communicate these ideas. In the end, I make some suggestions concerning more successful communication of scientific information.
The Shape of Culturally Successful Information
Why do people prefer and trust one kind of information over another? To bet-ter answer this question, it is necessary to acknowledge the difference between automatic intuitions and reflection (Sperber, “Intuitive”). This division refers to people’s ability to form information via (at least) two different cognitive processes:
system 1 and system 2. System 1 processes are instant, beyond one’s conscious control, and produce representations about immediate reality. System 2 processes require full attention, reflection, and effort and are more slow and sequential but also allow one to assess, consciously endorse, or momentarily inhibit ideas that are automatically formed via system 1 (J. Evans, “Dual-Processing”; Stanovich;
Kahneman; see also E. M. Evans in this volume).
Even though people would like to think of themselves as being able to think freely, they are rather predictable when relying on system 1 processes that are formed without being taught to think in particular ways (Barrett and Kurzban;
Boyer and Barrett). For example, from very early on, people tend to think that agents, apart from other physical objects, have goals and intentions (e.g., Spelke;
Wellman), that objects serve specific functions (e.g., Kelemen and Carey), and that certain kinds of animals, for example, all bears, share something similar that causes them to be fundamentally different from other kinds of animals or natu-ral entities, such as whales, beetles, or spruces (e.g., Atran; Gelman). Rather than neatly following the lines of philosophical ontology (e.g., living thing, human-made artifact), system 1 automatic intuitions about the environment can be understood in terms of cognitive adaptations that refer to types of situations that have been stable in the human environment (e.g., detection of potential allies, prey or predator, identification of the potential function of an object). Simply put, humans, together with other animals, have fast acting intuitions — early developing and persistent tendencies through which they process information in particular ways — that can be understood to reflect recurring features of the environment (Boyer and Barrett).
One can wonder about the relevance of this — paying attention to the con tours of automatically forming reasoning about the environment — for the assessment of culturally transmitted information. After all, even though people have intuitive and spontaneous reactions, they do not just blindly react to envi-ronmental stimuli but mostly rely on communicated information and are able to reflect upon their own thoughts to interpret the world around them via system 2.
Partly, this is true. However, system 2 reflection does not occur in a vacuum apart from system 1 automatic reasoning; rather, the two modes of reasoning are
interrelated. No matter the amount of practice and effort, inhibiting or erasing automatic reasoning from one’s mind is impossible. Once the triggering stimulus appears, system 1 automatic hunches fire off “ballistically” in the absence of con-scious control (Stanovich). Robert N. McCauley illustrates this with an example:
one cannot avoid perceiving the Earth as flat while standing on the ground, no matter one’s ability to remind oneself that actually the Earth is a huge revolving spherical object that is revolving around another round object (Naturalness). It is not until the thought is cognized that individuals can consciously assess whether they agree or disagree with their automatic understanding of the environment (J. Evans, “Dual-Processing”; Kahneman; Stanovich).
Given the sensitivity of system 1 automatic hunches, people often end up unconsciously overrepresenting a wider range of environmental information in terms of these intuitions (Sperber and Hirschfeld). For example, without the need for explicit teaching, people are highly sensitive in detecting the faces of other people. Besides effortlessly recognizing human faces, one cannot avoid see-ing faces in clouds, wall sockets, and burned toast (Guthrie). The sensitivity of system 1 has effects on system 2 processing and cultural transmission of infor-mation as well. According to Dan Sperber (“The Modularity” and Explaining; Sperber and Hirschfeld), from the cognitive point of view, the differences in the ease of distribution of system 2 reflected ideas can be understood in terms of the contours of system 1 automatic intuitions; the reflective ideas that people easily recognize, adopt, and share are the ones that resemble initial reasoning domains. Social psychological research resonates with this; people are prone to show “confirmation bias,” “positivity bias,” or “my side bias” (e.g., J. Evans, Bias; Mercier and Heintz; Nickerson), meaning that they are overconfident in accepting information that is in line with their own reasoning and reject the information that potentially contradicts or falsifies their beliefs (Kahneman).
Sperber, together with Hugo Mercier (“Intuitive” and “Why”), discusses this kind of pattern in people’s reflection in reference to “epistemic vigilance”
(Sperber et al., “Epistemic”). People are cautious toward information that is transmitted by other people. Reliance on abstract cultural information and not having to learn everything in the world firsthand is obviously a great advan-tage. However, when relying on abstract communicated information or other people’s accounts of reality, one is at constant risk of hearing someone who is misinformed, or even worse, is intentionally deceptive and lying. Given this, Mercier and Sperber (“Intuitive” and “Why”; Mercier, “Reasoning” and “The Social”; Sperber et al., “Epistemic”) point out that people constantly watch over whether they can trust the information and the informant. What serves as an
instant anchor are the thoughts one already has — system 1 automatically formed intuitions. Young children are already selective in their trust and doubt reliable informants or majority opinion when it violates untaught intuitive assumptions about the environment (Clément et al.; Seston and Kelemen). Similarly, adults are less likely to accept information if it is not in line with instantly remem-bered background information, if formation of spontaneous inferences based on the new information is difficult, and if the information is not accepted by most of their peers (Mercier, “Reasoning” and “The Social”; Mercier and Sperber,
“Intuitive” and “Why”; Sperber et al., “Epistemic”).
When detecting incoherence in communicated information, one has to decide between two options: lower one’s trust in the speaker by doubting her or his competence or benevolence, or lower trust in oneself and revise one’s own beliefs (Mercier, “The Social”; Mercier and Sperber, “Intuitive”). Of these two options, the first one is rather easy and quick whereas the latter — active reeval-uation of one’s own reasoning — is not likely to take place until one encounters a social disagreement and must defend one’s own reasoning. For example, both children and adults perform better in tasks that involve questioning their auto-matic impressions if they have to find the solution in a group of members who initially disagree with one another. In contrast, a group of similarly minded peo-ple more commonly ends up supporting the already existing opinion (Mercier,
“Reasoning”; Schwind and Buder).
To return to the particular question concerning the suspiciousness of the theories of evolution and anthropogenic climate change: it is now clear that to make the first step in understanding the cognitive roots of this phenomenon, one has to understand more about people’s initial hunches on the origin of natural phenomena.
Initial Understanding about the Origin of Natural Phenomena I approach this task on two levels. First, I review developmental research in order to see whether children’s reasoning about the origin of nature shows reliably occurring and recurring tendencies. After this, I assess recent empirical research that has been conducted among different groups of adults to see whether these early developing reasoning tendencies remain active later in life (see Blancke et al., “The Implications”; Bloom and Weisberg; Coley and Tanner, “Common”;
Kelemen, “Are Children” and “Teleological” for partly related accounts).
In line with the previous section, when it comes to reasoning about the ori-gin of various objects and phenomena (e.g., artifacts, animals, plants, landforms,
meteorological phenomena) as well as these entities’ functional features, chil-dren’s reasoning does not align with the philosophically or scientifically correct ontology (Boyer and Barrett). This does not mean that children are not excel-lent at, for example, separating artifacts and natural entities from one another (Gelman and Kremer). Neither does it mean that children would be unable to learn scientifically accurate physical-causal explanations about nature even at young age (e.g., Ganea et al.; Kelemen et al., “Young”). Instead, it means that children are prone to represent both artifacts and natural entities in a similar fashion, and that their intuitions about objects easily overextend beyond philo-sophically correct ontological categories (artifacts vs. natural entities) (Kelemen,
“Are Children”; see also Wolpert, Six).
Let me elaborate. From very early on, children tend to approach and rea-son about both artifacts and natural entities in terms of intended functionality.
These notions are not directly taught but formed in interactions with a typical human environment. For example, children are able to assess objects’ functional structure and usability as an indication of the designer’s intention (Kelemen et al., “The Designing”; see also, e.g., Casler and Kelemen, “Young”; Cimpian and Cadena; Phillips et al., “Learning” for examples of various implicit cues). In parallel to this, children often conceptualize not only artifacts but also natural entities as “made for” some specific functions that benefit the entity itself, other natural entities, or nature generally rather than endorse explanations referring to solely physical causes (e.g., DiYanni and Kelemen; Kelemen, “The Scope” and
“Why” and “British”). However, rather than understanding everything in their environment as human-made (see Piaget), when reasoning about the origin of natural entities, children prefer ideas about superhuman or nonhuman beings, such as someone, God, or another natural entity (E. M. Evans, “Cognitive”;
Gelman and Kremer; Kelemen and DiYanni; see Gervais et al. and Järnefelt for discussion).
In addition to being effortlessly formed, these intuitions about the intended purposes of both artifacts and natural entities are functionally fixed. This means that once a certain kind of object or entity is conceptualized as made for some purpose, children find it difficult to think that the object could serve any another function (e.g., Casler and Kelemen, “Young”; German and Barret; Kelemen and Carey; Vaesen). Here, the understanding of intentionality again plays a deter-mining role. Around the age of five, children have come to realize that knowing the designer’s, rather than user’s, intention leads to knowing the true (fixed) function of an object (e.g., Kelemen and Carey). For example, if the object was originally designed to function as a clothes stretcher, it does not cease to be a
clothes stretcher even if someone later discovers it and uses it unknowingly for exercising his back (Kelemen, “Intuitive”). Again, in parallel, once children map a natural entity as a certain kind (i.e., as a member of certain generic species [Atran], such as a member of bears, oaks, or bats), they understand the kind as inherently immutable and fixed, and reject the idea of partial membership (e.g., Cimpian and Erickson; Gelman; Keil).
Recent research has continued to assess whether these reasoning tenden-cies about fixed purposes and intentional design remain active on an automatic level of cognitive processing also in adulthood. That is, in case these concep-tions have an automatic basis in the sense of unavoidable and constantly active system 1 processing, one should find that when relying on instantly forming cog-nitive processing, adults also form these ideas unavoidably. However, in case these reasoning tendencies are examples of automatized reflective reasoning that has become effortless due to repeated practice, these views should be absent among those adults who have practiced thinking otherwise (see McCauley, Naturalness, for differences between automatic and automatized reasoning). So, what hap-pens when adults, who have contradicting reflective views, are put into situations where they have to rely on automatic reasoning in order to provide an answer?
A first line of research has assessed the automaticity of teleo-functional rea-soning (Kelemen and Rosset; Kelemen et al., “Professional”; see also Banerjee and Bloom; Casler and Kelemen, “Developmental”; Heywood and Bering;
Lombrozo et al.). When answering under a restricted timeframe, even profes-sional scientists show an increased tendency to agree with teleo-functional statements that describe living and nonliving nature to function toward self- or nature-serving ends. This means that even years of scientific education and the constant use of a physical-causal explanatory framework does not completely remove the instant appeal of teleo-functional ideas, such as “rain falls in order to allow plants to grow” or “the sun makes light so that plants can photosynthesize”
(Kelemen et al., “Professional”; see also Kelemen and Rosset).
A second line of research has assessed whether the notion that some being created nature is similarly automatically formed (Järnefelt; Järnefelt et al.). Here the focus of attention has been on nonreligious individuals who explicitly dis-agree with the idea that any kind of higher power, God, or gods have created nature. Studies in the United States and Finland show that, although religious adults endorse creation more than nonreligious adults do, when assessing pictures of living (e.g., giraffe, maple, pike) and nonliving (e.g., mountain, river, rainbow) nature, without having time to reflect upon one’s own reasoning, nonreligious adults show a tendency to increasingly understand nature as purposefully made
by some being. Responding to control items and to a separate control condition further clarifies that adults do not agree with just any stimuli, or with just any idea of a maker. In line with the distinction that children make, adults do not similarly think that ordinary people can originate natural phenomena (Järnefelt;
Järnefelt et al.).
To combine and summarize these empirical findings, certain recurrent intuitions about the origin of natural phenomena can be recognized: (1) both children and adults have a tendency to assess nature as functioning purposefully toward ends that benefit nature and remain fixed, and (2) both children and adults have a tendency to think that even though ordinary people cannot create nature, some other kind of being can.
Echoes of Automatic Intuitions in Reasoning about Evolution and Anthropogenic Climate Change
How do patterns in everyday reasoning and suspicious reactions toward theories of evolution and anthropogenic climate change appear when assessing them in the light of automatic intuitions about purpose, functional fixedness, and inten-tional design discussed in the previous section? Here I argue that the patterns in people’s acceptance and rejection of both of these theories become more under-standable and predictable when assessed in reference to these intuitions. To illustrate this, I offer four examples of scientific conclusions that can be inferred based on the theories of evolution and anthropogenic climate change. After each conclusion below, I point out, in reference to current research, how people often reject or doubt these conclusions either partially or completely. I suggest that these patterns of rejection can be understood in reference to the previously discussed intuitions about intended functionality, as echoes of the contours of instant intuitive understanding of the origin of natural phenomena.
Conclusion 1: All natural entities are subject to change and extinction, despite the apparent benefits of their present functions.
Instead of accepting natural phenomena as ever changing, people are often more comfortable with accepting biological change within a kind as long as it does not lead to cessation of the function that the kind is understood to perform.
For example, people more readily accept the idea that one kind of bear can evolve into another kind of bear than they do the idea of a common ancestry of bears
For example, people more readily accept the idea that one kind of bear can evolve into another kind of bear than they do the idea of a common ancestry of bears