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You can't always get what you want: Evolution and true beliefs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2010

Jeffrey P. Schloss  and
Michael J. Murray
Jeffrey P. Schloss
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA 93108. schloss@westmont.edu
Michael J. Murray
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA 17604. mmurray@fandm.eduhttp://www.fandm.edu/x11310?id=204
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Abstract

McKay & Dennett (M&D) convincingly argue against many proposals for adaptively functioning misbelief, but the conclusion that true beliefs are generally adaptive does not follow. Adaptive misbeliefs may be few in kind but many in number; maladaptive misbeliefs may routinely elude selective pruning; reproductively neutral misbeliefs may abound; and adaptively grounded beliefs may reliably covary with but not truthfully represent reality.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 32 , Issue 6 , December 2009 , pp. 533 - 534
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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