Everything we are and do has a genetic basis, and if a behavior which by this reasoning is genetic then for it to be so widespread it must confer a survival advantage on its host. Otherwise it would not be so common. Genes survive only if they confer a survival advantage on the host, and genes that are very common confer greater survival advantages than those that are less common. The trait it produces is common, religious belief, therefore the gene or combination of genes is common. Therefore it confers a survival advantage
So sicle cell animea survives because it is an advantage ?
Sickle cell anemia survived because it was an advantage in the populations where the mutation happened. It confers some kind of protection against malaria. Even if malaria were wiped out tomorrow, the gene would stay around a long time, because evolution usually takes lots of time.
I agree with Menoccio about the OP - religion is a byproduct of the way our brains work. We evolved in a way that we can exist in social groups, and can recognize patterns (even where none really exist). Those characteristics set us up for the fallacy of religion.
Yes it does, it is the result of getting two copies of a gene that provides some level of immunity against malaria, which by some estimates has killed more humans than any other cause.
Another example of this is Cystic Fibrosis, if a child inherits a gene from both parents that protects against Cholera and similar diarrheal diseases, which still kill millions, cystic fibrosis is the result.
There was an article in the NY Times Magazine last spring which addressed the topic of potential evolutionary origins for religious belief. I urge everyone here who is interesting in this topic–beyond just letting it devolve into a “God exists/No he doesn’t” shouting match–read this somewhat lengthy by fascinating article. A sample quote:
The default position among scientists is that religious belief is a side-effect of other evolutionary advantages related to cognition–naturally assuming unexplained phenomena is the result of intelligence, for example, made primitive man more disposed to assume that rustling in the grass ahead was a predator, rather than something to be curious about.
However, a few scientists conjecture that highly religious individuals may play a role in group survival, and hence religiousity (to some extent) survives as a necessary ingredient in group evolution. The idea is explained using a “sentry bird” example; flocks of birds will sometimes include members who prefer to stray from the group, and although these birds are more likely to fall prey to predators, they also serve to more quickly alert the flock to the presence of predators, and so their sacrifice increases the chances of the group surviving. Clearly the tendency to be a “sentry bird” is likely not hereditary–since these birds are more likely to be killed off–but it’s semi-random occurrence in the species is advantageous to the group’s survival. It’s an interesting idea, though the method by which religiosity could function like the “sentry bird” is not explained.
So lets bring it back to the physical world, I state there is a president of the US. You can believe in this fact by meeting G. W. Bush, watching the news, etc. You don’t need me to prove this to you, you can find out on your own from someone else, and we can both agree that we believe it to be fact.
Now my claim for the point of the OP is not that I’m here to prove to you that the Easter Bunny exists, but I’m stating that Peter C. Tail visited me and as far as I’m concerned I’m going to live my life as if P.C.T. exists. I’m going to put a stuffed bunny on my mantel and pet it 3 times a day in reverence of him. The problem you have is that people believe (or know) these things are true.
The vitamin C argument was flawed in many ways. The original post may as well have argued that not having wings, being a universal trait, was evidence for his argument. The absence of any trait merely indicates that a gene does not exist for that trait. If we possess a trait, all of which are genetic in origin, with the manner of the expression of the gene varying depending on environment, we do so because it confers a survival advantage upon the host, and for no other reason. Genes do not exist for entertainment, they exist to make copies of themselves. We are merely the vessels that make that possible. There are doubtless genes still circulating which no longer confer a survival advantage because our environment from a survival standpoint has changed so rapidly. In that case you are correct, some genes continue to exist because they do not create a disadvantage for the host even though they no longer confer a survival advantage upon their host.
But, for a gene to have proliferated throughout a population there must have been constant survival pressure on hosts that did not carry the gene that carriers of that gene were better equipped to survive, otherwise it would not be universally or near universally carried. Only selection pressure results in any particular gene being carried widely.
You are assuming we have souls, of course we don’t. We are soft machines. Religion, love, etc., are constructs necessary to make our level of intelligence and self-awareness palatable to our conscious minds. Those constructs themselves have a genetic basis. Intelligence is only an advantage to its host that will persist if that intelligence advantage does not convince it’s carrier that it should not reproduce. Say, so that that organism can enjoy a higher standard of living instead of diverting resources to a mate and offspring. Hence lust, love and another psychological result of genetics, cultural norms like fidelity, duty, etc.
In a pattern recognition machine that looks for meaning and patterns as a survival trait (for hunting, farming, warfare) to find none in their own existence other than mechanistic production of copies of ourselves would be counter productive from a reproductive point of view. Hence love. Seeing order and patterns where there is none, hence religion, to give our lives meaning and context. Hence the genetic basis for religion. There is evidence for this point of view in the explanation of religious folk for why they believe. “It is comforting to me.” A happy and contented organism has a survival advantage over one that is neither.
Note that I haven’t taken any positions here on evolution, religion, nor the relationship between them. Although I will state, for the record, that I find dualists pretty silly.
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Indirect characteristics all have a genetic basis. Taking your example of 8 foot ceilings not having a genetic basis, of course they do. We are about six foot on average. What use would a four foot ceiling be, then? And why waste resources on a a sixteen foot ceiling, unless you are wealthy and want to impress prospective mates with your ability to spend resources on otherwise useless activities.
That is after all what women are attracted to, excess resources = good provider = her genes will do better with the guy with the big house and nice car.
That is a chicken and egg argument. I say the egg, represented by a gene or genes that dispose their host to religious thought and belief. The first example with this genetic make up confers both the genes and their beliefs on their offspring and Tammy Faye Baker is the result.
But the claim ‘there is a president of the US’ has a ton of corroborating evidence, whereas the claim ‘PCT visited me’ does not. Also, the first claim is much closer to the way we would expect the world to work and the way it has worked in the past, while the second is not. They are not equivalent claims in any way.
So people who make the second claim are expected to produce proof, where people making the first claim would probably not be. If the claimant can produce objective proof or evidence of the claim, then the rest of us are forced to at least investigate it. Seeing as how there is no objective evidence for PCT visiting anyone, much less the easter bunny being real, there’s no reason to believe that either is real.
All well and good, but that does not change that I have the stuffed PCT that I pet 3x a day in his honor. Or to put it another way I don’t have to prove it to you to live my life the way I want. People have spiritual experiences that are life changing, get over it.
I have had spiritual experiences although I am an atheist and they are impossible to share or to verify independently.
And regardless of their origin, or cause, I have had them. They are real to me and I don’t need another’s acceptance or validation of them to make them real.
And yes, I am comfortable having spiritual experiences and being an atheist. none have involved god.
Shrug, I don’t care if you mount it then stuff it every day. You can believe what you want. It doesn’t make it true.
Shrug, people have experiences that change their lives. Oh, you think those experiences are ‘spiritual’. Remember what I said about expecting evidence for improbably claims? Yeah, it applies here. People have experiences, fine, but each of those people interprets those experiences differently and quite subjectively. Slapping a questionable adjective like ‘spiritual’ on one doesn’t do anything for it’s veracity. You can believe whatever you want, but if you expect any of us to believe it, and perhaps not think you’re a few tacos short of a #5 combo meal, then you’re going to have to bring more to the argument then ‘it’s what I believe’.
Both of you seem to proceed from the false notion that genes are the locus of selection; they aren’t. Natural selection “sees” only phenotypes, not genotypes.
As for scjas’s quote in particular: we have only about 20,000 genes, which must dictate everything about our phenotype, from how we are physically put together to instinctive behavior. Simply put, that’s not enough genes to dictate all behavior. Our brains are quite complex, and as a result, we get behaviors that are more a consequence of wiring than genetics. Religion is no more genetic than is my action of responding to your post.
As for your claim that “[g]enes survive only if they confer a survival advantage on the host”, well, no. A given (phenotypic) trait can be beneficial, neutral, or detrminetal to an organism depending on the environment. That trait can be governed by one or several genes, but those genes “live” or “die” with every other gene in that organism, regardless how beneficial or detrimental they might be in isolation. If an organism possesses traits in a particular combination that allow it to survive and reproduce, then the totality of its genes may get passed on to the next generation, again regardless of their individual value or contribution to survival of that organism.
Religion is a mental activity. But, just because our brains are constructed from genes does not mean that every subsquent thought is therefore a direct result (or even indirect result, for that matter) of genetics.
Negative. It merely indicates an absence of expression, which may or may not be the result of a lack of genes. Birds do not express teeth, but chickens, for one group, still possess the genes for making teeth; they simply are “turned off” during development.
Negative. And here, I shall here openly brand myself as a heretic in these parts: Dawkin’s “selfish gene” theory is crap. That is, of course, an opinion, but it also means I accept little Dawkins has to say on the matter as support in an argument. There are plenty of authors within evolutionary biology whom I respect (e.g., Mayr, Gould, Futuyma), but Dawkins is not among them. However, that’s a whole 'nother kettle of wax, best argued in a separate thread, were one inclined to do so.
Suffice to say that I do not accept any premise which relies on genes behaving as some sort of viral parasite which exists solely to perpertuate themselves.
Negative. See “genetic drift”. If a trait is selectively neutral, then its frequency in a population can vary more or less randomly. As such, it can a) disappear entirely from the population, b) become fixed (i.e., become “universal” or “near universal”), or c) exist at varying levels, all without selection interferring at all (at least, until conditions change for that population…).
My point again is not to prove it to you, but that enough people have them and continue to have them that ‘nonbelievers’ will never be able to stamp it out. Whatever spirituality is is ‘proving’ itself to enough people.
Spirituality exists, it appears real to the person, real enough that no further proof is needed, this could be an evolutionary construct of the mind, which would lead towards some genetic trait, or it could be real and there is a evolutionary reason why the ability of perceiving the spiritual world is a advantage.
Religion is a natural human response to spirituality an attempt to make order out of it.
I am currently reading, and can highly recommend, Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society. Its central thesis is that religious belief has persisted because it initially conferred, and continues to confer, a net survival benefit on its adherents.
This is one of the central points of the book: that evolutionary pressures can operate at levels above that of the individual. “Group selection” is invoked when considering why this group does better than that group. (For example, the Nuer tribe in Africa was in the process of replacing the Dinka when European colonialists arrived, because the Nuer, as a cultural unit, represented a better fit for conditions than the Dinka.)
The author argues that there is, indeed, an evolutionary basis for religion, and while the subject is necessarily too broad to be fully encompassed by a single book (he has to take on biology, neurology, anthropology, and history, in addition to theology), I have to say, so far, he’s making a pretty good argument.
Oh I see, lots of people think something, so that something must have merit. This is a logical fallacy. I’m quite aware that we will never be able stamp out every single instance of delusion in the human race, but it’s a worthy goal.
These two ideas are separate, and do not necessarily coincide. Spirituality exists in people’s minds, so far we have no reason to think anything else. Pink elephants appear real enough to drunks but we don’t base belief systems on them. It’s all in the interpretation. It’s too bad that some people have such a low standard of ‘proof’.
Religion is a formal organization of superstition. Hmm, I guess we agree on that.
Well from your point of view I’d agree. Actually I agree with everything above excpet it’s a worthy goal, actually even from your POV I’d view the intentional stamping out of spirituality as something that is detrimental to humanity however.
Yes and it seems to do much more damage to spirituality then anything else IMHO.
My disbelief in religion is firmly in line with observed reality, and makes far more logical sense. Religion, to be blunt, is silly. There is no equivalence.
Or are you going to mock me for my firm disbelief in Santa Claus as well ?
No, but it’s likely to stamp itself out by killing humanity. Madness like religion and advanced technology don’t mix very well.
It would depend on how it was stamped out. If you went around and shot everyone who believed in spirituality, that would be bad. If you educated everyone to the point where they no longer need to resort to stuff like spirituality to explain things, that would be good.