Complex tools preceded and drove the evolution of causal-model reasoning.

Evidence

The point is that being able to construct or acquire these mini-models of causality evolved genetically because it improved cultural transmission. The selective pressures that drove this evolutionary process were produced by the emergence of increasingly complex tools, practices, and technologies. By this view, the ability to construct mini causal models didn’t cause fancy tools and practices. The cultural evolution of increasingly sophisticated tools and practices first drove the emergence of this cognitive ability, and then the two entered into a culture-gene coevolutionary duet. Consistent with this, we saw that observing a demonstrator use an artifact fired up our causal inference machinery more readily than the world simply presenting us with the same causal information. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 1041

Categorization

• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: Stone tool food-processing began at least three million years ago. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 231; A culturally evolved tool can restructure an individual’s mental capacities — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 747; People mostly fail to understand how their own institutions work. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 1046 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Attention and technology co-evolve through reciprocal causation #expands (0.80) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 534
• Formal logic preconditioned the mind for technological control #expands (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 526
• Human evolution selected for learnability and behavioral malleability, not fixedness #expands (0.72)