This is one of the biggest problems I have with religious beliefs.

[rumborak]

This is an interesting experiment regarding the discussion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wason_selection_task

Evolutionary psychologists have gathered experimental evidence that people find the Wason task much easier if it is placed in the context of a social rule that the experimental subject is asked to police, suggesting that humans solve the social-rule problem with a specialized mental module that evolved to catch cheaters in a social environment.

Got there from here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality

which has the following interesting statement by Michael Shermer about the moral commonalities between humans and other social animal:

According to Shermer, the following characteristics are shared by humans and other social animals, particularly the great apes:
attachment and bonding, cooperation and mutual aid, sympathy and empathy, direct and indirect reciprocity, altruism and reciprocal altruism, conflict resolution and peacemaking, deception and deception detection, community concern and caring about what others think about you, and awareness of and response to the social rules of the group.[6]

rumborak

[Nick]

To be fair we did have a thread on morality that got closed pretty quickly.

Not really a reason to drag other topics off-topic.

[Chino]

This is an interesting experiment regarding the discussion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wason_selection_task

Evolutionary psychologists have gathered experimental evidence that people find the Wason task much easier if it is placed in the context of a social rule that the experimental subject is asked to police, suggesting that humans solve the social-rule problem with a specialized mental module that evolved to catch cheaters in a social environment.

Can you explain this more? I am curious about it. I looked up what the Wason was and got...

You are shown a set of four cards placed on a table, each of which has a number on one side and a colored patch on the other side. The visible faces of the cards show 3, 8, red and brown. Which card(s) must you turn over in order to test the truth of the proposition that if a card shows an even number on one face, then its opposite face is red?




Is the answer to turn the #8 card over?

[Nick]

You need to turn over the 8 and Brown cards.

[rumborak]

You need to turn over the 8 and Brown cards.

This, yeah. I'm assuming many people will say it involves turning the red card.

Can you explain this more? I am curious about it. I looked up what the Wason was and got...

Well, I think the overall trick about this experiment is that in this setting, most people get it wrong. However, when reformulating the same problem in a social setting (and I guess specifically one that involves cheating on others), most people get it right. Which indicates that people have a special "module" in their brain for dealing with this stuff in social contexts, suggesting that that module is a "morality module" used for keeping scrutiny over other community members.
I haven't read the paper itself, but considering the experiment is referred to as a classic one, I take it the evidence must be very compelling.

rumborak

[Ħ]

Could you also turn over the red card and the 3 card?

[rumborak]

Well, you obviously could, but I think the key question is "which cards *must* you turn?".

rumborak

[Ħ]

Ah I see the flaw there. The statement "If a card is red, then it's opposite face is even" is not necessarily true. Gotcha.

[kári]

Yeah, I think it's about the difference between the logical if and the if we use in everyday language. I think most people will interpret this as more of an if and only if situation and thus will (also incorrectly if it were and "if and only if") turn the 3, 8 and the red card. 3 to check that the back is not red, 8 to check that the back is red and the red card to check that the back has an even number.

[the Catfishman]

A few days too late (or a few threads too late) but

[GuineaPig]