I found the arguments fascinating. Especially surprising was the argument that e.g. using bones to divine where to hunt can serve a useful role despite the apparent uselessness of divination. In this case, the argument goes, it serves as a randomizing tool to prevent over-hunting in one spot by independent groups (though of course the tribes themselves could not provide that reasoning).
The author of that book is referenced in the article.
>No single person does, according to Joseph Henrich, an evolutionary biologist.
>He argues this knowledge is cultural. Our cultures evolve though a process of trial and error analogous to evolution in biological species. Like biological evolution, cultural evolution can - given enough time - produce impressively sophisticated results.
I recommend reading the blogpost to everyone. It's very interesting and very well written IMO, and its contents keep coming up in my thinking ever since I've read it (several months) so it's had quite an impact on me.
I haven't read the book, but now that I think of it, maybe I should.
I have not read the book, but I've read a pretty good summary and blog post about it here (~7'700 words): https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04/book-review-the-secret...
I found the arguments fascinating. Especially surprising was the argument that e.g. using bones to divine where to hunt can serve a useful role despite the apparent uselessness of divination. In this case, the argument goes, it serves as a randomizing tool to prevent over-hunting in one spot by independent groups (though of course the tribes themselves could not provide that reasoning).
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Follow-up blog posts:
A list of excerpts chosen by the blog author: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/05/list-of-passages-i-hig...
Comments on the previous blog posts (useful particularly because some comments point out potential errors in the book): https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/11/highlights-from-the-co...