title: Causal belief and the origins of technology.
abstract: The primary function of the brain is to control movement. Human interactions with the environment, unlike those of other primates, are based on a belief in cause and effect, and this led to technology. Experiments requiring simple manipulations of the environment show that chimpanzees do not have concepts of causes or forces. Children, by contrast, have causal beliefs as a developmental primitive, and these can be demonstrated even in infants. It is proposed that the evolution of causal thinking was essential for the development of tool use, as it is not possible to make a complex tool without understanding cause and effect. This was a great evolutionary adaptive advantage. The evolution of language may have been linked to the same process. It has been technology that resulted from causal beliefs, not social interaction, that has driven human evolution.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
authors.forename: Lewis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wolpert
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D015984:Causality; D003469:Culture; D003657:Decision Making; D004777:Environment; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D011323:Primates; D012919:Social Behavior; D013672:Technology / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends*; D013673:Technology Assessment, Biomedical