"The first [problem] concerns the likelihood that
the processes of natural selection should have generated creatures with a
capacity to discover by reason the truth about a reality that extends vastly
beyond the initial appearances…Is it credible that selection for fitness in the
prehistoric past should have fixed capacities that are effective in theoretical
pursuits that were unimaginable at the time? The goal would be to explain how
innate mental capacities that were selected for their immediate adaptive value
are also capable of generating, through extended cultural-evolutionary history,
true theories about a law-governed natural order that there was no adaptive
need to understand earlier."
-Thomas Nagel in Mind and Cosmos
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