IT TAKES a remarkable book to deflate the adherents of both Darwinism and intelligent design (ID) in one fell swoop. In , chronicles natureās efforts to perfect the human mind. He points out that, while evolution can achieve impressive feats of engineering ā as scientists often remind the ID folk ā it is also capable of some sloppy work.
A āklugeā is a patched-together solution to a problem ā a jury-rig assembled from whatever materials are at hand, MacGyver-style. Science and engineering labs abound with kluges. A physics professor once told me, āThe best piece of equipment is one that falls apart five minutes after you take the last data point.ā
Nature has made its fair share of clumsy designs, too. Our spines can barely support our greedy stomachs, and our tracheaās proximity to the oesophagus is a constant choking hazard. Marcus points out that while people readily accept that our bodies are poorly designed, few allow that the mind, too, is held together by evolutionās versions of gum and duct tape.
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āThe mind is held together by gum and duct tapeā
Such talk of bad design offends creationists, but Marcus also catches Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett ācheerleadingā for how cleverly evolution put our heads together. Nature, he says, ādoesnāt ācareā whether its products are perfect or elegantā, just as long as they are good enough to get extra food or have more children.
More importantly, natural selection never starts from scratch. Among the many insightful images in Kluge, the best is one in which Marcus compares human brains ā where the rational parts are grafted onto the primitive, āreptilianā ones ā to a power plant he once visited. There, beneath a veneer of high-tech computers, archaic vacuum tubes did the real work.
Like the power plant, evolution never had a chance to āgo offlineā and install better brains; its only choice was to adapt the imperfect design of previous generations.
Kluge details how our minds are poorly designed to handle such things as memory, belief, choice, language and pleasure ā usually by invoking an endless parade of psychology experiments. Marcus also offers a coda: 10 pillars of practical wisdom for making the best of our klugy minds.
The book is strongest when showing how brain modules that evolved for one purpose often take on roles they were not ādesignedā for, or how our mental functions, while adequate individually, can harm us when working together ā such as when our reasoning skills and healthy sex drive conspire to talk us into disastrous affairs.
Altogether, Kluge is a bit depressing, reminding us that we make dumb choices, overreact and rationalise to an astounding degree. Yet in a way Marcus is rooting for us Homo sapiens. The problem, he says, is that we live in environments very different from those evolution prepared us for. But that great kluge in our skull āis a clumsy or inelegant ā yet surprisingly effective ā solution.ā
Kluge: The haphazard construction of the human mind
Houghton Mifflin
