"How the evolutionary history of the human brain explains our tendency to sort the world into black-and-white categories"-- Provided by publisher.
Several million years ago, natural selection equipped us with binary, black-and-white brains. This binary brain was highly adept at detecting risk: the ability to analyze threats and respond to changes in the sensory environment was essential to our survival as a species. Since then, the world has evolved-- but we, for the most part, haven't. Dutton shows that, while our instinct for categorization often encourages polarization, rigid thinking, and sometimes outright denialism, it is an essential component of the mental machinery we use to make sense of the world. -- adapted from jacket
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