Supporting the weight of the elephant in the room: Technical intelligence propped up by social cognition and language.
Alex ThorntonFranscesca HappéChristine A CaldwellPublished in: The Behavioral and brain sciences (2020)
We consider the evolutionary plausibility of Osiurak and Reynaud's (O&R) arguments. We argue that technical reasoning is not quite the magic bullet that O&R assume, and instead propose a co-evolutionary account of the interplay between technical reasoning and social learning, with language emerging as a vital issue neglected in O&R's account.