I believe our brains weren't made purely for critical/rational thinking. Instead, it seems more like it evolved majorly to think fast and save energy, exactly why we have strong innate tendencies to stereotype and to bias.

It makes sense. Ancient humans would have been more concerned with quickly detecting threats in the wild, and avoiding or eliminating them. They would have needed to make quick decisions as any moment wasted could be deadly. They did this by observing, generalizing and basically stereotyping/profiling (attributing specific events to specific threats or non-threats). E.g. they had to know that a particular pattern in the bush signified that there was a nearby snake, or something else.

But it's telling on us now.

We've evolved to be able to make quick generalizations and stick to them. But now, our environment has changed yet we still have the brains of our forefathers of the bush. That's why we're ever so prone to our stereotypes and biases, making generalizations with every step.

Let's look at the familiar medical student, a boy let's say.

In his anatomy second incourse exam, he happened to draw more in his essays than others, and when the results came, he was the highest. He quickly generalizes: "ahh, it's because I drew more than others" and he tells people that that was the reason he scored high. Meanwhile, this could have just been a outlier, a regression fallacy, or maybe he scored high for something else.

Or it could be the admiration we give to the competent - admiration that could blind us. (We use the med student again)

He listens to his physiology lecturer and is amazed at his knowledge of physiology. How he explains, and talks about concepts, and answers literally any physiology question thrown at him. So, when the lecturer begin to talk about the school management and how he thinks the provost is mismanaging the school, the med student immediately agrees with him, forgetting that he's a physiology expert but not a management expert. He has generalized his lecturer's expertise into other fields.

I could give a lot of other examples, but you get the point. We're not made to think rationally, at least not always. And if you want to be a critical thinker, it actually takes great effort. You have to train yourself (against your natural instincts) to pause, to reason, to see your own bias that emerge spontaneously, to accept the existence of that bias, and to work towards eliminating it and imbibing rational thinking.

This is why I've learnt not to blame stupid people, no matter how ridiculous their ideas are or how dogmatic they hold on to them. I might call you stupid o, but I don't blame you. It's how we were made to be. After all, even I, am still fighting against my own share of bias and irrational compulsions.

But still please, don't be stupid 🙏 you don't have to be stupid, we've passed that era.