… made it hard for us to understand evolution?
Matt’s post below on toads put me in mind of this provocative essay by Razib at Gene Expression.
It is long, and I can’t seem to “capture” any paragraphs from it, but let me quote one bit for the flavor:
“Science is hard,science is abnormal, and beware the bewitchment of “common sense”. Quasars and quarks, random genetic drift and DNA, such things are difficult to grasp with common sense precisely because their sensory reality is excluded from our universe; not only do we not have direct experience as individuals– our species minds have never been shaped by the patterns and rules which emerge out of their interlocking dance with the rest of the reality. Evolution is the father of this situation, it has equipped us to recognize faces, to keep track of social relationships and to fall forward in a controlled fashion without thought. But, evolution could not shape us to understand itself, because it works over millenia, and there is no fitness advantage in conceiving of possibilities deep in the future when the concerns of the present loom large”
Do “Read The Whole Thing” (what a useful meme that is!)