I don’t think magical thinking is optimal. But I do think strictly non-magical thinking is suboptimal. Despite being a scientist as a profession, I can’t ignore

I don’t think magical thinking is optimal. But I do think strictly non-magical thinking is suboptimal. Despite being a scientist as a profession, I can’t ignore the empirical data across a million years that virtually all civilisations independently have magical thinking. Your analogy of the appendix is a good one. Some things which were useful no longer are. I feel religion in particular doesn’t fall into this category as it has known uses. Collective action in particular is something the exclusively scientific worldview seems to repel in practice. I also think that we don’t yet fully see this because todays secular humanists have a tremendous amount of moral momentum inherited from 10 thousand years of non scientific society. But things are changing.