LETTERS

摘要

As Graham Lawton says, the need to act quickly is the most fundamental reason why we need to have beliefs (4 April, p 28). Animal brains have developed pattern-seeking capacities that lock on to whatever looks like danger in an uncertain environment, But there is a second reason to be a born believer, which is particular to us hominins. A human child needs to be suggestible, with a habit of submission to authority, If, as children, we do not believe instantly that what our caregivers say is true, we may blunder into danger and wind up dead. Habitual scepticism about what our parents say is not adaptive for the very young. Only when we become more capable of looking after ourselves can we afford this luxury, But by that stage, the habit of believing in apparently authoritative statements is so deeply ingrained that scepticism is often not an option.