We welcome back Dr. Chris DiCarlo to elaborate on why, in his opinion, humans evolved along such a different path to the rest of life on the planet. The human brain is the product of millions of years of evolution. Through a process of natural selection, Darwinian forces have acted on the brain to produce a highly complex organ. Hard-wired patterns of behaviour selected millions of years ago remain today. This is the gist of evolutionary psychology, a discipline founded in the latter part of the 20th century which helps explain our success.
The intellectual roots of critical thinking are as ancient as its etymology, traceable, ultimately, to the teaching practice and vision of Socrates 2,500 years ago who discovered by a method of probing questioning that people could not rationally justify their confident claims to knowledge. Confused meanings, inadequate evidence, or self-contradictory beliefs often lurked beneath smooth but largely empty rhetoric. Socrates established the fact that one cannot depend upon those in “authority” to have sound knowledge and insight. He demonstrated that persons may have power and high position and yet be deeply confused and irrational. He established the importance of asking deep questions that probe profoundly into thinking before we accept ideas as worthy of belief.