[di meliora]

You can see where I'm going. As our societies get larger and larger, there's no need, in fact, there's even less of a need for any one of us to be an innovator, whereas there is a great advantage for most of us to be copiers, or followers. And so, a real worry is that our capacity for social learning, which is responsible for all of our cumulative cultural adaptation, all of the things we see around us in our everyday lives, has actually promoted a species that isn't so good at innovation. It allows us to reflect on ourselves a little bit and say, maybe we're not as creative and as imaginative and as innovative as we thought we were, but extraordinarily good at copying and following.

If we apply this to our everyday lives and we ask ourselves, do we know the answers to the most important questions in our lives? Should you buy a particular house? What mortgage product should you have? Should you buy a particular car? Who should you marry? What sort of job should you take? What kind of activities should you do? What kind of holidays should you take? We don't know the answers to most of those things. And if we really were the deeply intelligent and imaginative and innovative species that we thought we were, we might know the answers to those things.

And if we ask ourselves how it is we come across the answers, or acquire the answers to many of those questions, most of us realize that we do what everybody else is doing. This herd instinct, I think, might be an extremely fundamental part of our psychology that was perhaps an unexpected and unintended, you might say, byproduct of our capacity for social learning, that we're very, very good at being followers rather than leaders. A small number of leaders or innovators or creative people is enough for our societies to get by. http://edge.org/conversation/infinit...ith-mark-pagel

Mark Pagel, a professor of Evolutionary Biology, Reading University, England and The Santa Fe Institute, has written a lengthy article (there is a video too) that certainly was not a day brightener for me. I believe it highly doubtful I might make a better spear, bow or arrow.

One reason I stuck with the article has to do with the perception of Americans as rugged individualists (dittoheads?). Americans want to fit in. They do not want to be different. Being different takes courage and effort.

Anyhow, Pagal concludes:

A tiny number of ideas can go a long way, as we've seen. And the Internet makes that more and more likely. What's happening is that we might, in fact, be at a time in our history where we're being domesticated by these great big societal things, such as Facebook and the Internet. We're being domesticated by them, because fewer and fewer and fewer of us have to be innovators to get by. And so, in the cold calculus of evolution by natural selection, at no greater time in history than ever before, copiers are probably doing better than innovators. Because innovation is extraordinarily hard. My worry is that we could be moving in that direction, towards becoming more and more sort of docile copiers.

But, these ideas, I think, are received with incredulity, because humans like to think of themselves as highly shrewd and intelligent and innovative people. But I think what we have to realize is that it's even possible that, as I say, the generative mechanisms we have for coming up with new ideas are no better than random.

And a really fascinating idea itself is to consider that even the great people in history whom we associate with great ideas might be no more than we expect by chance. I'll explain that. Einstein was once asked about his intelligence and he said, "I'm no more intelligent than the next guy. I'm just more curious." Now, we can grant Einstein that little indulgence, because we think he was a pretty clever guy.

But let's take him at his word and say, what does curiosity mean? Well, maybe curiosity means trying out all sorts of ideas in your mind. Maybe curiosity is a passion for trying out ideas. Maybe Einstein's ideas were just as random as everybody else's, but he kept persisting at them.

And if we say that everybody has some tiny probability of being the next Einstein, and we look at a billion people, there will be somebody who just by chance is the next Einstein. And so, we might even wonder if the people in our history and in our lives that we say are the great innovators really are more innovative, or are just lucky.

Now, the evolutionary argument is that our populations have always supported a small number of truly innovative people, and they're somehow different from the rest of us. But it might even be the case that that small number of innovators just got lucky. And this is something that I think very few people will accept. They'll receive it with incredulity. But I like to think of it as what I call social learning and, maybe, the possibility that we are infinitely stupid.

I wonder if there is a Better Spear-making For Dummies?

i think that is a sad but true condition...few people today want to think for themselves or even act as individuals. it is so much easier to be part of the herd...why stand out?

if it says on facebook that something is true..well then it must be...no need to check the sources...or on someplace else on the internet.

someone post something incredibly rude or stupid...do people stand up to it? sometimes because being anonymous allows for false bravery but sually not.last year there was this campaign to "turn facebook full of cartoon characters as profile pictures for 1 week to stop child abuse" i fought it. posted a long note as to why i refused to do it..because really, changing my profile image form a beloved basset hound to underdog is doing absolutely nothing to stop a child from getting abused.

i got slammed because i was ruining the effect...the effect of helping stop child abuse. really? how is that helping? how ignorant...but lemming-ish.

i see that here on PC..some members write epic novels as responses spouting replies that are full of nonsense.....sometimes it sounds as tho they are quoting sources...but they go on & on & recommend specific therapy & drugs & offer endless information...some of which seems downright dangerous..but yet no one seems to care or question...
what is that line "it's all fun & games until someone loses an eye?"

yes it is much easier to follow the pack.

me, i try hard to not follow. i am short..i get lost in the pack. can't see, get stepped on..it's not a good feeling..i like to be out front...maybe i end up in the wrong spot but i can always then turn around & get to the end of the pack where it is safer if need be..at least i can say i tried.

it is good to be a rebel without a clue (as my friends say)