Reason

===Evolution of reason===
[[File:Capuchin monkeys sharing.jpg|thumb|right|150px| Dan Sperber believes that reasoning in groups is more effective and promotes their evolutionary fitness.]]
A species could benefit greatly from better abilities to reason about, predict, and understand the world. French social and cognitive scientists [[Dan Sperber]] and Hugo Mercier argue that, aside from these benefits, there could have been other forces driving the evolution of reason. They point out that reasoning is very difficult for humans to do effectively, and that it is hard for individuals to doubt their own beliefs ([[confirmation bias]]). Reasoning is most effective when it is done as a collective—as demonstrated by the success of projects like [[science]]. They suggest that there are not just individual, but [[group selection]] pressures at play. Any group that managed to find ways of reasoning effectively would reap benefits for all its members, increasing their [[fitness (biology)|fitness]]. This could also help explain why humans, according to Sperber, are not optimized to reason effectively alone. Sperber's & Mercier's argumentative theory of reasoning claims that reason may have more to do with winning arguments than with the search for the truth.<ref>{{multiref2
|1={{Cite journal| doi = 10.1017/S0140525X10000968 |pmid = 21447233|url = https://repository.upenn.edu/goldstone/15/| volume = 34| issue = 2| pages = 57–74| last1 = Mercier| first1 = Hugo| last2 = Sperber| first2 = Dan| title = Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory| journal = Behavioral and Brain Sciences| year = 2011|s2cid = 5669039}}
|2={{Cite book| publisher = Harvard University Press| isbn = 978-0674368309| last1 = Mercier| first1 = Hugo| last2 = Sperber| first2 = Dan| title = The Enigma of Reason| location = Cambridge| year = 2017}}
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