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Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief

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The basic concept of Lewis Wolpert's book is Darwinism: chance events lead to variation followed by selection. Its key notion is causality, the necessary connections among things and actions.
The understanding of causality was a crucial breakthrough for mankind in the struggle for survival. It made complex tool manufacturing, conceptual thinking and language possible.
Technology drives human evolution: there are only 20.000 years between the first bow and arrow and the International Space Station. Language requires causal thinking, because verbs like `go, hit, throw' don't have any meaning without belief in cause and effect.

Experiencing the efficiency of causality in tool making, people sought to apply this principle for the understanding of the causes of all events, and certainly of life, death and disease. Through experience (tool making), cognition, intuition and also emotion (which helped already animals to make appropriate motor movements for survival), together with cultural transmission, people arrived at certain `beliefs', which became part of our genes.

The belief engine in our brain created religious, moral, ethical and scientific beliefs.
Religion is a belief in spiritual things. Its importance for survival could lay in its promotion of hope and optimism. Until recently, the whole world population was constantly confronted with war, death, disease, hunger, bad hygiene. The average lifespan was not more than 30 years.
Moral and ethical beliefs can have devastating effects because they are often imposed by those in power on its population (religious and ideological oppression).
Scientific beliefs have no moral or ethical content and are in conflict with religion, because there is no scientific evidence of God. However, science is the most reliable method for determining which beliefs are valid.
But, why is religion still so popular today?
For many people the scientific evidence of Darwinism that man is not created by God is unacceptable. Into the bargain, the real (scientific) world (relativity, quantum mechanics, the history of the universe) is not a commonsense reality. But, on the other hand, our brain operates on commonsense (quick decisions, illusory patterns, bad with numbers, influenced by authority and likes mysticism).

The author is not optimistic for mankind in the near future: religion and irrational beliefs will continue to flourish. This book shows astonishingly how irrational beliefs still dominate the behavior of the vast majority of mankind.

Lewis Wolpert's hypothesis of the origin of belief and language could constitute a new starting point for research in these difficult fields.
As a reductionist materialist atheist, he has written an extremely tolerant book, which is a must read for all those interested in the future of mankind.
I highly recommend his other book `The unnatural nature of science.'

It seems quirky, claiming to "imagine six impossible things" as Alice's White Queen did. Before breakfast or at any time. Wolpert shows, however, that most of us are firmly convinced of many things that aren't so: gods, unlikely events, strange medical practices - the list seems almost endless. The lack of tangible evidence supporting or even evidence countering, those things we have faith in seems to have little impact on our credulity. In a dozen illuminating chapters, this award-winning biologist examines this almost inexplicable facet of our lives. Written with precision and deep insight, Wolpert demonstrates his command of how belief is a fundamental aspect of our society. Why do we believe the things we do?

As a biologist, Wolpert naturally turns to our evolutionary roots for clues to the origins of belief. That which sets us apart from the other animals - our oversized brain, our use of tools, and our ability to use language - as the indicators. The brain's capacity to store, retrieve and assemble information is tied to our abilities in technology and language. For Wolpert, the prime element is the making of tools. Making tools means envisioning the final product, and devising how to bring it about. Put more simply, understanding cause and effect - something even other primates have trouble with. From this beginning, he argues, come social relationships and a sense of values. Along the way, we also developed the idea of agency which we assigned to events or circumstances that were out of ordinary, everyday experience. If the process of flaking stone went wrong, why did that happen. The best-laid plans, etc.

From this beginning, Wolpert shows how the panoply of modern beliefs has come into our lives. The onset of conceiving an agency either began or enhanced the mind's "belief engine". The belief engine demands an identifiable cause for circumstances. When that's not readily apparent, we extend our belief to things we must imagine. These explanations can, and are, passed around the community, establishing both a bond among its members and reinforcing the interpretation. Once the idea gains prominence, it resists challenge and is difficult to overturn. Religion, of course, is the ultimate organised form of belief, often touted as society's best glue. Wolpert accepts this situation without rancour, even admitting his disturbed son's conversion to a fundamentalist Christian sect has improved the boy's behaviour. That given, Wolpert cannot excuse rigid adherence to dogmas that have no basis in reality. Science has disproven so many religious and other belief systems that he insists the wider society examine their beliefs more critically. There are other facets than family relations to consider.

Recent claims that religious folk, or even those with faith in such things as homeopathy or "crystal healing", actually feel or live better may have statistical substance. Wolpert wants these claims investigated fully, since the early results have little validity. Part of how these practices seem effective lies within the brain's dealings with the rest of the body. It is this aspect that suggests paths of study, since it 's clear the objects or methods have no curative power in themselves. Many of the methods are accompanied by common-sense recommendations regarding diet and abandonment of harmful habits such as smoking or lack of exercise. Although Wolpert is even-handed in his approach to the many common delusions of our times, he clearly wishes their validity be openly investigated and the results aired.

Such an investigation, Wolpert concedes, will be [and has been] difficult to launch and sustain. Clearly, our minds, however powerful in certain talents, have a tendency to seek immediate answers. The validity of the cause need not be certain if an acceptable origin can be declared. We are willing to believe in ghosts or other paranormal phenomena simply because somebody forcefully declares them to be true. Similar views are firmly held about medical practices. As with other views of agency, we are uncomfortable with illness that we cannot understand. Any explanation, forcefully given with a promise of relief, finds easy acceptance. Hence, "alternative", or in Wolpert's Britain "complementary", healing methods are widespread. Whether they are a form of "placebo" medicine, which appears to cure remains to be determined.

Wolpert's book comes at a time when examining our beliefs seems more crucial than ever. We maintain ideas about ourselves, but it becomes too easy to project them to others. When more reasonable ideas are put forward, we must not be too ready to reject them. This book should provide a basis for people willing to apply reason and science to accepted dogmas. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

A very thoughtful examination of belief. I read it in one sitting. I was delighted to see that Wolpert referenced the work of John F. Schumaker. Long before Harris, Dennett, Dawkins, and Shermer began writing about the dangers of irrational beliefs Schumaker wrote two books on the subject that remain unsurpassed: "Wings of Illusion" and "The Corruption of Reality." It's ironic that these two timeless books were before their time.

In a kind of free-association but readable style, this book discusses a variety of aspects of the evolution of belief. The key technical aspect is a hypothesis about how the ability to create beliefs arose in humans which is developed in tantalizingly sketchy fashion. What distinguishes humans from some animals and other primates is not tool use per se, but the deliberate manufacture of tools. The origin of the "belief engine" is traceable to the binding of a rock and a stick to create the first axe. This required insight into the cause/effect nature of such construction (giving the rock a greater pounding force by extending its leverage) and foresight that it would work (securing a stick to a rock would prove effective). Once established, the belief engine became a primary cognitive module that allowed our ancestors to create beliefs that explained the vagaries of the uncertain environment with which they had to cope. Indeed, it became so useful that the predisposition to create beliefs acquired a genetic basis.

However, unlike the controllable world of technology, the wider world of daily living does not conform to easily perceived regularities. So the belief engine works in a fast and frugal way, shunning reliable beliefs for quickly developed and applicable, albeit error prone, ones. As a consequence, we are genetically predisposed to be suggestible (e.g. hypnosis) and susceptible (e.g. jumping to conclusions) to factually unsupported beliefs, such as belief in the paranormal. Wolport concludes that children today are genetically programmed to accept religious beliefs from authority figures and this programming may be an evolutionary adaptive mechanism. Rather than in their last throes, strongly held beliefs, such as offered by religions and politics, will continue to prevail since they provide easily accepted and comforting explanations that science, an "unnatural" belief system, cannot provide for many.

Wolpert is vague on how the critical transition took place from tool use to tool manufacture that he strongly links to the ability to generate causal beliefs. Likewise, there is little in depth discussion of the cognitive science behind the belief engine. But by leading us on an exploration of the evolutionary psychology of belief, and offering for consideration that religious beliefs originate in tool-derived causal beliefs, Wolpert has opened up a line of investigation that Daniel Dennett advocates in "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon." Indeed it may be critical to our survival in the future.

It is interesting to compare this book with Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion.

This is the anti-God book Dawkins would have written had he not been so consumed with hatred of religion. The tolerant and understanding style is very different from Dawkins'. Wolpert knows that religious belief is irrational but thinks that the motivation for all sorts of irrational ideas, not just religion, is that we have evolved to develop causative theories which make sense of our lives and provide solace. Unlike Dawkins, he doesn't think that religious belief is a "meme" which corrupts our thought processes whilst providing us with no selection benefits. In fact, although Wolpert doesn't say this, you get the feeling that he thinks the idea of memes is nonsense.

My only criticism of the book is that it should have been longer. He doesn't do more than touch upon some topics which could have been elaborated. He is clearly writing for a scientifically literate readership, but these aren't the people who most need this book.

Also, I don't believe anyone will be able to read it without examining some of their most deeply-cherished ideas, so perhaps he could have have given us more specific instructions about how to analyse our own false beliefs. Another book?

Wolpert has a simple idea-that belief, all belief, grows from human understanding of cause and effect, and that all human belief grows from our use of tools. No mere evidence, such as the tool use of other animals, will dissuade him from his chosen path. Every piece of data is a gloss, every fact or opinion cherry-picked from another source (Pascal Boyer rates two sentences), every paragraph trips lightly toward the foregone conclusion. If you've thought or read much about the subject, you know more than Wolpert says, and if you haven't thought much, you'll be misled. Withal, a very light and ultimately pointless read. Read Boyer instead, or Stephen Pinker (How the Mind Works), where the facts are offered in enough detail for your evaluation; their conclusions are more complex but far more convincing.

A fascinating account about how fragile our believe system and therefore our reality is. It becomes clear how the fundamental need to make sense of our world through our believe system has left us open to the abuse of power throughout history. The role of tools is somewhat tenuous.

Six Impossible Things before Breakfast, by Lewis Wolpert.

This book was very interesting to me as an analysis of human understanding of causation and the importance of our understanding of causation in how we perform other intellectual functions. In particular, we formulate beliefs. One of the characteristics that separates us even from the closest animals is our ability to understand and rationalize cause and effect. Animals, even the great apes, have very limited understanding -- if any -- of causality. We know that from subjecting those animals to experiments in which they would be rewarded for exercising any intellectual capacity that they have.

Human beings have a strong motive to understand causation. Sometimes the intellectual process by which we reach conclusions about causation is described as a "belief engine." There is no doubt that our belief engine is somewhat faulty. Our belief engine "prefers quick decisions, it is bad with numbers, loves representativeness, and sees patterns where often there is only randomness. It is too often influenced by authority, and it has a liking for mysticism." p. 220. We suffer from the "Pollyanna principle," being far more likely to focus on and remember positive rather than negative reports about ourselves. The "Lake Wobegon effect," explains why 94% of college professors believe that they are better than their average colleague at their jobs. The "interviewer illusion" guarantees that we will, as a rule, feel far more confident in our ability to predict the future of others than an objective retrospective analysis would justify. We are overconfident in the correctness of our own judgments. The "Barnum effect" means that we will see merit in vague and generalized descriptions.

We tend to make up stories to explain what we have observed, and the stories often overcome the actual memories. We jump to conclusions on inadequate evidence and then hold to those conclusions with vigor. Placebos work. We are capable of internalizing "forced beliefs," manufactured beliefs forced on us by society or authority. These "forced beliefs" are often manufactured to support other beliefs "that are poorly supported by evidence." Page 88.

We are pathetically bad at evaluating risks, fearing the airplane flight more than the automobile trip to the airport. We have no natural ability to infer what we learn from statistics. We are good at acquiring superstitious beliefs, and terrible at getting rid of them. We are vulnerable to both hypnotic and ordinary suggestion. Studies have shown just how susceptible we are to the implantation of false memories.

We are subject to a strong confirmation bias, which means that once we have formed a belief, we are far more likely to credit new evidence that conforms to those beliefs then evidence that challenges them.

It is difficult to understand the human mind because the instrument with which we must understand it is, of course, the human mind. Studies of animals, babies, children, and people with various kinds of brain damage can give us valuable clues. Carefully designed experiments, with adequate controls, can give us valuable hints. Studies of obviously false beliefs held by people with mental illnesses or under the influence of mind altering drugs can help us understand as well. Even this is difficult because "there are no sharp dividing lines between normal beliefs and delusional beliefs." Page 101. Still, susceptibility to delusions has a strong genetic component, suggesting that our susceptibility is somewhat hardwired into the brain.

We are naturally resistant to scientific evidence because scientific results are frequently counterintuitive. "Almost without exception, any common-sense view of the world is scientifically false." Page 203.

Wolpert proposes that some of the same pathways that developed because of our understanding of causality, particularly tool use, help us to understand our "belief engine." He contends that, "religion and causal beliefs in general had their evolutionary origin in toolmaking, which drove evolution." He admits that the evidence is limited but he could find little or no evidence to contradict this hypothesis. Our belief system is genetically programmed, by which Wolpert means, "that there are circuits in our brain that are set up by the genes that predispose us to have religious and mystical beliefs. It is hard to imagine that the religious and mystical beliefs found in every culture have some other origin." Page 217-18.

This is a short book. It is a good introduction to the science of how the human mind works. I had heard of a lot of the studies discussed in this book before. The author does an excellent job of summarizing the significance of the studies. I enjoy books that explain the cutting edge of science to non-scientists. Wolpert goes into my short list of successful popularizers of complex science.

Wolpert selected a very interesting topic for this book. And that's all the nice things I have to say about it. He makes a large number of claims that he doesn't bother to support with evidence or explanation. He does not cite his references, although they are listed in the back matter (helpful, but not terribly so, since a particular statement cannot be linked to its source). His paragraphs seem to start and stop willy-nilly and do not provide clear arguments to support his claims. It is unclear which of his claims he intends to support and which he intends to lob toward any ear that will listen.
In short, this book seems like it was written in an ad-hoc, stream-of-consciousness manner. The book does not clearly present its arguments, define important terms like "understand" (this is very important when discussing this topic), or lend itself to detailed study of the subject matter. This book was not yet ripe for the printing, but it was printed nevertheless. Do us all a favor and don't support the publishing of bad books by purchasing them.

The reasonable, well referenced, responsible arguments the book presents are quite persuasive: the fantasies, airy and obsessive, that plague the human mind originate as natural products of the brain's operation. They get built into the beliefs, rules and norms of societies in the same way more practical rules, laws and knowledge do. The author tries to do a comprehensive study and succeeds fairly well. Personally I found his style a little dry. Good reference though.