One of the more interesting insights from evolutionary psychology and neuroscience is how the human species is predisposed to pattern-seeking, often to a fault.
On the plus side, through our ability to differentiate similar from dissimilar, we’re able to develop complex systems like language and hierarchical societies.
On the minus side, we also have a taste for narrative that’s quite happy to take short cuts and oversimplifications to arrive at temporary ‘satisfactions’. Many supernatural, pseudo-scientific and conspiracy theory-laden explanations tend to fall into this category.
An interesting corollary to all of this pattern-seeking behaviour is a need to assign an agent as the provocateur of something: if we didn’t have an obvious cause or causer, we would literally need to invent one just to fill in the cognitive gap.
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