Gillian L Vale, Christine Coughlin
Chater and Christensen propose a short-sighted tinkerer's local adjustments are repurposed to support the spontaneous organization of complex cultures. We commend their conceptualization of innovation by recombination but challenge the tinkerer's myopic focus, which contrasts with humans' rich capacity for prospective thought. We suggest humans' farsightedness facilitates their remarkable capacity for complex and diverse cultures.