Is vapidity hard-wired into us as a species?

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In G. L. S. Shackle, Earl and Littleboy write "there is clearly a good reason for [discounting everyday dangers] being a hard-wired tendency."

What does this sentence say that "People have a tendency to discount everyday dangers" doesn't? I say nothing at all. The authors are not claiming to have found the "wiring" creating the behavior in question, and anyway, if it was "hard-wired," one would think it might be a little more than a tendency, right?

The way I read the sentence is "there is clearly a good reason for [discounting everyday dangers] being a [LOOK! We know trendy neuro-babble!!] tendency."

Comments

  1. Josiah Neeley4:09 PM

    Is there a link?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. gcallah12:18 AM

      To the source of the quote? No, it's a book.

      Delete
  2. Ken B8:00 PM

    Huh? Yours is not equivalent at all. You observe a fact, and they comment upon the fact. Their statement could be true even if yours is false.
    Clearly there is good reason for human skulls to be made of metal, for protection. This is true even though only actually Rothbard had a metal skull. Their statement is less useful than your proposed replacement.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. gcallah7:40 PM

      Ken, not sure what you are saying here.

      Of course, if the authors were going to specifically point to some neural facts that "wire" this in, their statement is very different from my statement. But they don't, so I think this is just neural babble.

      Delete

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