Successful craft choices can be nonintuitive, favoring blind copying over reasoning

Evidence

The process begins by selecting the wood for the shaft, which preferably comes from chaura, a bushy, evergreen shrub. Though strong and light, this wood is a nonintuitive choice since the gnarled branches require extensive straightening. (Why not start with straighter branches?) — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 351

Categorization

• CANDY: A tiny nerd-fact about Fuegian archery — chaura wood being deliberately chose despite its gnarled branches — is a light, quotable moment.
• XREF: connects to: Effective cooking techniques resist discovery through individual trial and error — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 229; Bird augury works as a randomization device countering cognitive and copying biases — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 347; Studying reasoning’s flaws can improve how decisions are structured (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Merely experiencing foreign novelty without grasping its underlying reasons does not boost creativity #qualifies (0.76) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2244
• Design choices optimizing for one task can cripple performance on the real task #exemplifies (0.74) — Brian Christian, The Alignment Problem, 1221
• Studying reasoning’s flaws can improve how decisions are structured #qualifies (0.72)
• Mass production reduces judgment to blind subsumption under stereotypes #expands (0.72)
• Iterated distillation and amplification can build judgment beyond our own #complicates (0.71) — Brian Christian, The Alignment Problem, 1069