Reply #17: Humans are pattern-seeking animals [View All]

[Ian David]

Humans are pattern-seeking, storytelling animals. We look for and find patterns in our world and in our lives, then weave narratives around those patterns to bring them to life and give them meaning. Such is the stuff of which myth, religion, history, and science are made.

Sometimes the patterns we find represent reality—DNA as the basis of heredity or the fossil record as the history of life. But sometimes the patters are imposed by our minds rather than discovered by them—the face on Mars (actually an eroded mountain) or the Virgin Mary’s image on a building (really an oil stain). The rub lies in distinguishing which patterns are true and which are false, and the essential tension (as Thomas Kuhn called it) pits skepticism against credulity as we try to decide which patterns should be rejected and which should be embraced.

That tension is at the forefront of Robert Wright’s latest work, “Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny.” At Skeptic magazine I routinely receive what I call “Theories of Everything”—manuscripts by authors purporting to have discovered the ultimate pattern that explains, well, everything. Usually they deal with physics and cosmology, claiming that Newton, Einstein, or Hawking are wrong and that this theory will revolutionize all of science. Sometimes they employ ersatz-evolutionary explanations for various questions about nature and humanity. Occasionally they compress all of human history into a handful of patterns that can be explained in even fewer principles. Never have I seen anyone try to explain the evolution of all nature and history in one sweeping theory based on a single principle. Until now.

More:
http://www.skeptic.com/review09.html