A brief survey of evolutionary explanations for why math works

Space has been given on this blog for Plantinga's argument about the difficulty natural selection has in explaining higher functions. My naturalist friends have dismissed such arguments, and this post is meant to explore that perspective. The perspective, to restate, is that natural selection is sufficient to explain the existence of higher-order cognition, such as mathematics. I will be summarizing from a paper given by Russel W. Howell, who was professor of Mathematics at Westmont College.

Recall that what I'm after are evolutionary explanations for rationality, and the first of these that Howell mentions is that natural selection selected for meaning. Evolutionary process selected for survival forms whose inner models of reality best matched reality itself. A variant of this, argued by Geoffrey Miller in his book The Mating Mind, says that any greater capacity can be sexualized. Therefore, rational operations such as logic or math may set one apart from the herd and increase one's chances for sex. Howell says of these, "These speculations, while certainly not disprovable, seem to have no good evidence in their support."

Stephen Mithin is next, with a module approach to rationality. Specialized psychological processes for this or that, once brought into contact with one another, create emergent psychological domains. Plantinga's criticism is leveled at this pillar.

And finally, the author mentions work by Pascal Boyer, whose theory he calls the byproduct hypothesis. The idea is that many higher functions of mind are not evolutionary adaptations in themselves, but are byproducts of the same. They piggyback on adaptedness. Howell writes, "If one if going to argue for something using an evolutionary framework, it behooves that person to supply a detailed model or story that will support it."

Perhaps, going forward, I can flesh out these criticisms and competing arguments with greater depth. But I hadn't had them in the blog yet, and this at least gives me a place to begin. Also, let me say this: natural selection has to have played a great role in human cognition and the existential fact of higher thinking in human beings. To deny this is to deny that matter matters and that natural processes and law have meaning and truly affect a true world. But there does not have to be an either/or. I deny sufficiency without cutting out the bone. And so I retain my Chalcedonian anthropology.