Journal
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY A-MATHEMATICAL PHYSICAL AND ENGINEERING SCIENCES
Volume 361, Issue 1809, Pages 1709-1719Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2003.1231
Keywords
causal belief; evolution; tools; animals; children
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The primary function of the brain is to control movement. Human interactions with the environment, unlike those of other primates, are based on a belief in cause and effect, and this led to technology. Experiments requiring simple manipulations of the environment show that chimpanzees do not have concepts of causes or forces. Children, by contrast, have causal beliefs as a developmental primitive, and these can be demonstrated even in infants. It is proposed that the evolution of causal thinking was essential for the development of tool use, as it is not possible to make a complex tool without understanding cause and effect. This was a great evolutionary adaptive advantage. The evolution of language may have been linked to the same process. It has been technology that resulted from causal beliefs, not social interaction, that has driven human evolution.
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