36. Logic: How to Do it Wrong

To the mind that\u27s yet to be enhanced by some strains of modern thought, the above quote probably comes across as amusing, but useless. After all, who would deny something as basic as the law of non-contradiction or the basic laws of logic? If saying My roommate annoys me is no different than saying My roommate doesn\u27t annoy me, then how can we ever say anything meaningful? Moreover, the very act of denying non-contradiction assumes the law to be true. Yet, some argue that our brains, like our opposable thumbs and other body parts, evolved not to perfect our logic, but to optimize our survival. According to these thinkers, when early man moved up in the world from hunter-gatherers to the African Delta, survival of the fittest favored those who learned to cooperate to grow crops, raise families, and breed domestic animals. Thus, our brains evolved to foster domesticity, rather than think through logically rigorous legal or scientific or philosophical arguments