Posted by Siamang on: 03.06.2007 /
From the New York Times Magazine. Darwin’s God.
Lost in the hullabaloo over the neo-atheists is a quieter and potentially more illuminating debate. It is taking place not between science and religion but within science itself, specifically among the scientists studying the evolution of religion. These scholars tend to agree on one point: that religious belief is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved during early human history. What they disagree about is why a tendency to believe evolved, whether it was because belief itself was adaptive or because it was just an evolutionary byproduct, a mere consequence of some other adaptation in the evolution of the human brain.
Fascinating stuff, whether there’s an a priori assumption of God’s existence or not.
As some adaptationists see it, this could have worked on two levels, individual and group. Religion made people feel better, less tormented by thoughts about death, more focused on the future, more willing to take care of themselves. As William James put it, religion filled people with “a new zest which adds itself like a gift to life . . . an assurance of safety and a temper of peace and, in relation to others, a preponderance of loving affections.”
Such sentiments, some adaptationists say, made the faithful better at finding and storing food, for instance, and helped them attract better mates because of their reputations for morality, obedience and sober living. The advantage might have worked at the group level too, with religious groups outlasting others because they were more cohesive, more likely to contain individuals willing to make sacrifices for the group and more adept at sharing resources and preparing for warfare.
There’s the positive side. But the negative side of that would be true also: those without the “god gene” would be the out-group.
Anyway, a fascinating and wonderfully wide-ranging article. Full of thought-provoking ideas.
Siamang
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Comment by: Mike O
1 03/6/07 4:03 AM | Comment Link |I had to look up the definition of a priori.
So, given that we cannot know whether or not there is a God by reason alone, I don’t know that “a priori” fits the within the God discussion. On the other hand, the conditional structure of their example, “IF … THEN …” you could say “IF there is no God, THEN this is a possible explanation for the evolution of religion.” But you still can’t say “IF there is no God THEN we know this is how religion evolved” or even “We know there is no God.”
And with all that said, I go back and look at Siamangs original post, and he says “a priori assumption,” which I think is fair.
But given the assumption, it raised this question in my mind. If this is true …
you would think it would have evolved better adherants. How long has it been since “religious people” could be described this way:
- made people feel better
- filled people with “a new zest which adds itself like a gift to life
- a temper of peace
- a preponderance of loving affections
- reputations for morality, obedience and sober living
- more cohesive
- more likely to contain individuals willing to make sacrifices for the group
- more adept at sharing resources
As a believer (I really don’t like to call myself “religious”) let me say, “I WISH!”
All kidding aside, it seems to me that if belief evolved, believers would be better at it. In some crazy way, the fact that we’re not very good adherants to our own faith is an indication that it didn’t evolve, but rather there really is some spiritual struggle going on drawing people towards God or pulling them away.
Could I make an a priori assumption that since we know religious people aren’t very good adherants to our own religion, it’s possible that there’s a spiritual explanation for that failure?
Comment by: NCxian
2 03/6/07 2:59 PM | Comment Link |I love the image of the “spandrel”.
I guess I am a person who needs visuals to understand things, including complex abstract things like religion. I have always thought of one’s spirituality as being hung on something like the skeleton of a building, those “bones” being made up of nature-and-nurture stuff that makes us individuals. So this spandrel idea really resonates with me–that the way we think about the stuff “outside the box” may be by-products of some other evolved mental trait and not particularly adaptive in and of themselves.
Of course, I agree with the guy quoted toward the end of the article who sees no conflict between understanding our spiritual sensibilities as a product of evolution, and the existence of God.
Comment by: Karen
3 03/6/07 5:04 PM | Comment Link |Well, lots of religious people are extremely good adherents to their religion. And even if a lot of them aren’t, that doesn’t mean the majority are not.
I think you’re looking at this with a very short timeframe, Mike O. When scientists are talking about evolution (either of concepts or of physical bodies), they’re talking about something happening over hundreds of thousands or even millions of years.
Although you might not think today’s religious believers are very good adherents to their beliefs doesn’t mean the majority weren’t during the past few thousand years.
Comment by: Karen
4 03/6/07 5:11 PM | Comment Link |NC:
I thought his viewpoint was interesting. Here’s his comment:
That kind of blew my mind. It seems like it would be difficult to hold both ideas - the truth of religion and the idea that it’s a natural concept that evolved to meet certain human survival needs - in one’s mind at the same time. I see that kind of duality a lot, though, particularly in less-fundamentalist believers (Francis Collins comes to mind).
This also made me ponder:
In a sense, I think this is true. For instance, I sometimes catch myself starting to say something like, “Knock on wood!” or worrying about sports superstitions (I wear a school sweatshirt to most of my kids’ basketball games, which they’ve won, and recently I thought twice about not wearing it, wondering if I could “jinx” the outcome!).
I always figured this was the residue of 30 years of supernatural belief, though, and that it would fade with time. I wonder whether people who are NOT raised with supernatural belief still have to fight this tendency?
Comment by: NCxian
5 03/6/07 6:33 PM | Comment Link |I don’t have much problem with the notion of holding two contradictory things in my head, if there is no real way to know which one is true, or particularly if it is not clear that the two are necessarily contradictory. That being said, though, these particular two things don’t feel contradictory to me. If we assume God set up the natural system, why doesn’t it follow that God would respect the way that system works and not monkey around with it? Metaphorically speaking, of course. I am thinking that the “by-product” theory–that religion was not adaptive but a by-product of other adaptations–is even easier to swallow, as a theist.
This strikes me as a little sad. It seems to me that it would be more useful to him if he could figure out some ways to express his spiritual nature (which IMO is a part of being human) that aren’t theistic, or maybe not even supernatural. . . Are supernatural and spiritual inseparable? I think I recall some of you have suggested that purely rational folks have a spiritual nature, but you’ll have to remind me.
Comment by: Karen
6 03/6/07 8:58 PM | Comment Link |Fair enough. To me, this feels contradictory sort of like going behind the scenes at a magic show and seeing how the illusions are actually done, and then going back into the audience and still believing that there’s “magic” going on.
Comment by: Siamang
7 03/7/07 12:58 AM | Comment Link |I don’t find it difficult at all.
For example, eyesight. I have no trouble with the idea that light exists as a real thing in the universe, AND that we evolved eyesight to meet survival needs.
If the religious experience or religious feelings or thoughts conferred a survival benefit and therefore evolved, that is not to say that there isn’t really a God.
I know we’re back to an unprovable negative, but that’s par for the course. But I don’t really think there’s a necessary conflict between the two ideas.
Comment by: NCxian
8 03/7/07 4:27 AM | Comment Link |I like your analogy, Siamang. It makes sense to me.
Comment by: MTran
9 03/16/07 12:27 AM | Comment Link |Sorry I came so late to this discussion.
I look at these two notions a bit differently. Evolved characteristics aren’t necessarily “perfected” characteristics. Humans, for instance, can run much better and longer than chimps and orangutans but we are not “ideal” runners. Other creatures can run much faster or longer than we can. It’s just that, on average, our ancestors ran fast enough at some point in the past and the trait seems to be pretty well fixed for the foreseeable future. Traits don’t need to be perfect to be useful.
In fact, traits don’t even need to be helpful in order to become well represented in the gene pool. As long as they are not lethal or overly debilitating to too many individuals, the trait may be retained. It will remain until it’s lost due to selection or other shifts in the reproducing population.
Comment by: MTran
10 03/16/07 12:54 AM | Comment Link |Just a general comment about Atran: I don’t know any other atheists who express the negativity that he does nor the longing for something “lost” that was available when he was a believer. This is usually something that True Believers falsely claim about atheists.
If I’m not mistaken, Atran was a rather unhappy participant at the Beyond Belief conference. He seemed to me to be easily angered and thinks rather highly of himself, compared to all others, whom he considers to be incompetent intellectual lightweights. His belittling tones and hostile arrogance turned me off. Others may not share this impression. But it seems to me that Atran becomes condescending when his colleagues don’t acknowledge his omniscience or concur in his opinions.
So if Atran has “problems” with his atheism, it seems to be in keeping with his personality for him to consider his experience to be the “right” one for atheists to have or that his experiences must be what other, thinking atheists actually have.
I simply don’t trust the guy.