It's never too late to think. - Guy P. Harrison

Evolution does not mean improvement. There is no ladder of progress, no foresight, no plan, no goal. Evolution is the unintelligent and indifferent process of life changing over time. It doesn't prepare lifeforms for the future. It can't because the future is unknown. With evolution, the only winning is being alive right now and the only losing is being extinct. Every species on Earth today is tied for first. We can't rank contemporary lifeforms as more or less evolved than others. And we can't rank the long-term survivability of species because today's big flashy advantage could be tomorrow's death sentence. The mighty human brain, for example, might turn out to be a doomsday device. If we destroy ourselves with nuclear weapons then big primate brains would have been just another evolutionary dead-end.

When we jump to a conclusion before doing research, we tend to look for evidence that supports our beliefs and ignore facts that contradict them. This deprives us of the opportunity to grow our knowledge.

Critical thinking is the indispensable skill for smart living in modern society, and skepticism is the essential posture for the fully awake twenty-first-century human being.