Mercier begs to differ. With his collaborator Dan Sperber, also a cognitive scientist at CNRS, he has proposed a provocative alternative—different in its explanation for reason’s afflictions, and different in its recommended remedy. We did not evolve to solve tricky logic puzzles on our own, they point out, and so we shouldn’t be surprised by the fact that we’re no good at it, any more than by the fact that we’re no good at breathing
