# Wishful thinking and the Science of Religion **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 28, 2008, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088 "2008-03-28T19:33:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2008, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/161 "2008-04-06T19:27:37Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] Yes, that’s what I said when I acknowledged the lexography. But phrenologists — people who read bumps — named parts of the skull, and you surely wouldn’t say they were the pioneer neurologists. It isn’t enough to attach labels to things. Every human does that by virtue of his disposition toward language. [/QUOTE] I guess I just don’t understand why it’s necessary to take a swipe at Astrologers every time the prehistory of modern astronomy is discussed. Why is disrespect for ancient seekers of knowledge built into the culture of science? It seems to me like people would get a lot farther if they acknowledged the contribution as part of an unbroken lineage and say, “We’ve advanced FARTHER than that today.”, rather than dismissing the old thing as though the thing you have today is a new thing, rather than just a more advanced version that improved on the good things and rejected the unecessary ones. ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2008, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/162 "2008-04-06T19:48:44Z")
[QUOTE=lekatt] Well, Yes, I have, the belief that I was created by my brain. [/QUOTE] Hahaha. Ok, that was a good example of a stupid belief, I’ll give him that. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2008, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/163 "2008-04-06T20:59:47Z")
> [@Lib](#): > > I hope this doesn’t make you mad at me.🙂 Heh heh, not at all. But in your first post to me since I returned here you expressed your respect for me and complemented my broad-mindedness. I ask you only to explore whether you really consider it _impossible_ that my worldview is correct in ways that yours is mistaken, since I afford your worldview such courtesy. After all, as I say in my OP, we’ll all carry out an important experimental observation eventually which will settle the matter definitively! > [@Peaceseeker](#): > > Please pardon my interjection…assuming the existence of a supernatural reality, can religions eventually be considered logical by adopting transcendology? Whoa! I said I acknowledge the _possibility_ of such (for your information, I’d set my personal Belief-O-Meter at less than one in a million). If I assumed ts actual _existence_, I wouldn’t be an **atheist**. > [@](#): > > The existence of God cannot be proven or disproved. Ah, but it _could_ be “proved” (_ie._ strongly supported by evidence) - read my OP again. > [@](#): > > The existence of spirituality is a fact. So is the existence of schizoprhenia. That fact says nothing about the actual _source_ of spiritual or schizoprhenic experiences, which I contend is neurophysical and wholly natural. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/164 "2008-04-07T04:06:45Z")
[QUOTE=SentientMeat] So you no longer consider it _ludicrous_ to present a natural origin of religion, then? After all, that is the entire point of the debate we’re having: that natural explanations are, in your opinion, _inadequate_ for _eg._ the origin of religion. Shall we choose another example instead? [/QUOTE] I consider it quite ludicrous to suggest that religion has an evolutionary origin. I said that near the start of the thread and I’ve said nothing to indicate that I’ve changed my mind. In post 84 you said you’d offer a scientific explanation which might explain the phenomenon of religion. Now we’re at post 181 and all you’ve said is that at some point in the past ten million years there were some hominids whose religious thinking was more advanced than all others’. I’ve made some clarifications about your hypothetical scenario. I’m still waiting for the actual scientific explanation of religion. Specifically I’d assume that an explanation would explain: -How did belief in god or gods arise in this first small group? -Why did such belief persist? -Why did it became universal across all human cultures? -What relationship does any of this have to the modern religions? So instead of writing yet another post full of insults and condescension, why don’t you simply provide that scientific explanation that you promised almost 100 posts ago? If you won’t do so, you’ll have to forgive me for suspecting that the explanation doesn’t actually exist. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/165 "2008-04-07T10:49:28Z")
> [@ITR](#): > > In post 84 you said you’d offer a scientific explanation which might explain the phenomenon of religion. Now we’re at post 181 and all you’ve said is that at some point in the past ten million years there were some hominids whose religious thinking was more advanced than all others’. No, yet again, _please take care to quote me accurately_. Only a few of those 97 posts have been between _us_, and in those few posts I’ve had to spend inordinate amounts of effort trying to correct some of your misunderstandings and mischaracterisations. This is compounded by your habit of leaving whole paragraphs of mine without any comment whatsoever so I have no idea whether you _accept_ what they say or whether you consider them so absurd as to be unworthy of a response. I said in premise 4 that at some point in the last 10 million years there was _no such thing as_ religious thinking, and that at some later point there was. You have yet to accept this explicitly, so I haven’t had chance to get started on exploring that emergence. I said I’d mither you about this but I’m afraid it’s necessary to address this point before we can move on. You said that religious thinking was present “from the start”. I have to ask you, repeatedly if necessary, what you mean by this. Are you really saying that religious thinking was present in _Sahelanthropus tchadensis_ or even earlier creatures?? At one point you mentioned “strands” of religion, in which case I have to ask you to expand on what such a “strand” is in an _animal_. As an analogy, I would say that _eyes_ emerged around 500 million years ago, before which there _was no such thing as eyes_ (only _skin_ which had the capacity to mutate slightly with each generation). So **where is your “start”**? Sahelanthropus, Australopithecus, Erectus, Neanderthalis, Sapiens, Cro-Magnon, what? (Or even earlier, in an undisputed _animal_?) You see, wherever the “start” is, it is distinguished from its ancestors by [speciation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation), which _does_ involve small, isolated groups in which certain features are present which the ancestors lack. This is why I thought we made excellent progress when you accepted that religion could have emerged by a **gradual** process. Even when speciation occurs in a small number of generations (100,000 years would be quick for a large mammal), the behaviour and abilities of each individual or small group would be _almost identical to their ancestors_. > [@](#): > > Specifically I’d assume that an explanation would explain: > > -How did belief in god or gods arise in this first small group? > > -Why did such belief persist? > > -Why did it became universal across all human cultures? > > -What relationship does any of this have to the modern religions? > > So instead of writing yet another post full of insults and condescension, why don’t you simply provide that scientific explanation that you promised almost 100 posts ago? If you won’t do so, you’ll have to forgive me for suspecting that the explanation doesn’t actually exist. OK. I apologise if you perceive insults and condescension in my manner here. I assure you, I’m merely trying to avoid the misunderstandings and mischaracterisations which have peppered this thread. Now, when you say it is still ludicrous to suggest that religion _evolved_, I have to ensure that you understand what evolution entails. I hope I have busted the myth that the evolution of a given feature can _only_ occur if that feature is competitively advantageous _in itself_. Features can sometimes evolve rather arbitrarily, as in the case of genetic drift. And, crucially, features can also evolve because they are _associated with other features which **do** confer a competitive advantage_. For example, nobody would suggest that, say, juggling, guitar-playing or shadow-puppetry evolved because they were advantageous in themselves on the African savannah: these features emerged because they are _associated with_ the “free hands” resulting from bipedality. I will propose that belief in gods was inevitable (or at least unsurprising) after the natural evolution of two features: _language_ and _agent detection_, both of which science has much to say about, and both of which are universal. To answer your questions regarding the persistence of such religions, I will introduce another well-documented phenomenon: _insider-outsider relationships_. Along the way, we might well dip into the sciences of paleontology, archaeology, anthropology and cognitive science if one or other detail still seems ludicrous to you. But before all of this, can I ask you a favour? Can you promise to try not to erect any strawmen, mischaracterise or misquote me or anyone else, or start arguing with a position which nobody has yet taken? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/166 "2008-04-07T18:23:28Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] I guess I just don’t understand why it’s necessary to take a swipe at Astrologers every time the prehistory of modern astronomy is discussed. Why is disrespect for ancient seekers of knowledge built into the culture of science? It seems to me like people would get a lot farther if they acknowledged the contribution as part of an unbroken lineage and say, “We’ve advanced FARTHER than that today.”, rather than dismissing the old thing as though the thing you have today is a new thing, rather than just a more advanced version that improved on the good things and rejected the unecessary ones. [/QUOTE] I’d like for you to understand that I’m not taking swipes at astrology, or phrenology for that matter. Those are pursuits that people should be free to work with if it makes them happy. I’m saying only that they are not precursors to science in any sense other than that they came before science. But so did dancing. I think it’s important to keep in mind exactly what science is. Its epistemic nature is empirical and it rejects what it finds to be false. This arose from philosophy, on the tree of which science and religion are siblings. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/167 "2008-04-07T18:29:08Z")
[QUOTE=SentientMeat] Heh heh, not at all. But in your first post to me since I returned here you expressed your respect for me and complemented my broad-mindedness. I ask you only to explore whether you really consider it _impossible_ that my worldview is correct in ways that yours is mistaken, since I afford your worldview such courtesy. After all, as I say in my OP, we’ll all carry out an important experimental observation eventually which will settle the matter definitively! [/QUOTE] I think I’ve stipulated many times that if the universe is real, then there is no question but what your worldview is sound. And as I say, I am willing to concede your premises and definitions for the sake of argument. But once we have settle the matter definitively by those terms, we have settled it only by those terms. I do greatly respect you and your worldview, but what am I to do when we this is over? I mean, if we define “fly” to mean “wallow in mud”, then I am happy to concede that pigs can fly. But then shouldn’t we come back and deal with my definition of “fly”? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/168 "2008-04-07T18:51:24Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] I’d like for you to understand that I’m not taking swipes at astrology, or phrenology for that matter. Those are pursuits that people should be free to work with if it makes them happy. I’m saying only that they are not precursors to science in any sense other than that they came before science. But so did dancing. I think it’s important to keep in mind exactly what science is. Its epistemic nature is empirical and it rejects what it finds to be false. This arose from philosophy, on the tree of which science and religion are siblings. [/QUOTE] The comparison between phrenology and astrology is specious. Astrology specifically mapped stars and calculated their transits through the sky. Astronomy does that too. To claim that this had nothing to do with the advances made in navigation that led to astronomy is an error because you are judging the past learning that laid the foundation for such study because it is different from science. The learning of the past was studied avidly by scientists early on in their studies. Just as ‘Alchemist’ which for some reason is a term of derision today is really just the ancient word for ‘Chemist’. One day some explosive advances in science happened so anyone working concurrently as an alchemist contemporary to a scientist was behind the times, but the alchemists of yesteryear performed experiments and such that led to hte development of such things as the scientific method. Basically, it’s like the argument about whether Allah is the same God as the Judeo-Christian God when Allah is just the Arabic word for God. > **[Alchemy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy)** > > Alchemy (from the Arabic word al-kīmīā, الكیمیاء) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries AD. Greek-speaking alchemists often referred to their craft as "the Art" (τέχνη) or "Knowledge" (ἐπιστήμη), and it was often chara Al... > [@](#): > > In the history of science, alchemy from Arabic (al-kimiya)[1] refers to both an early form of the investigation of nature and an early philosophical and spiritual discipline, both combining elements of chemistry, metallurgy, physics, medicine, astrology, semiotics, mysticism, spiritualism, and art all as parts of one greater force. Alchemy has been practiced in Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Persia, India, Japan, Korea and China, in Classical Greece and Rome, in the Muslim civilization, and then in Europe up to the 19th century—in a complex network of schools and philosophical systems spanning at least 2500 years. To argue that in 2500 years spanning the globe, nothing was learned about the physical properties of the material world by alchemists is positively ludicrous. Certainly science removed some of the parts of alchemy they found extraneous, but those giants that Newton stood upon the shoulders of were largely alchemists. People like to make pompous declarations like, “Newtons study of Astrology and Alchemy brought us nothing of value.”, but I seriously doubt Newton divided his work by discipline in the same way a modern scientist might. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/169 "2008-04-07T19:37:38Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] I’d like for you to understand that I’m not taking swipes at astrology, or phrenology for that matter. Those are pursuits that people should be free to work with if it makes them happy. I’m saying only that they are not precursors to science in any sense other than that they came before science. But so did dancing. I think it’s important to keep in mind exactly what science is. Its epistemic nature is empirical and it rejects what it finds to be false. This arose from philosophy, on the tree of which science and religion are siblings. [/QUOTE] I’m not sure I totally agree. Astrology and alchemy collected information valuable for astronomy and chemistry once they became sciences, without being sciences. They are kind of like a old time gentleman naturalist collecting samples with no attempt to understand their relationships. The transition even happened within one person, such as [Kepler.](http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/starry/keplerastrol.html) In the sense that the principles of astrology didn’t get refined into astronomy, I do agree. Astronomy required a different mindset. But the relationship was far more than merely temporal. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/170 "2008-04-07T19:41:27Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] I’m not sure I totally agree. Astrology and alchemy collected information valuable for astronomy and chemistry once they became sciences, without being sciences. They are kind of like a old time gentleman naturalist collecting samples with no attempt to understand their relationships. [/quote] That’s basically what I’m saying, though I think they did try to understand their relationships. Both studies were all about relationships. They may have come to some misguided conclusions, but they weren’t simply cavemen staring at the monolith. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/171 "2008-04-07T19:56:33Z")
Just wanted to insert that religion, some form of it, stretches back as far as mankind. There is no evolution of religion beyond the theory stage. > **[Prehistoric Religion](https://meta-religion.com/World_Religions/Ancient_religions/prehistoric_religion.htm)** > [@](#): > > It would appear that religion in some form or other has been an essential element in the life and culture of humankind throughout the ages, going back far beyond the threshold of history. Moreover, many of the beliefs and practices of the later and higher religions, both ancient and modern, are rooted in their prehistoric prototypes of the Old Stone Age, a period lasting roughly from about 500,000 BC to 10,000 BC. This phase therefore has its place and significance in any study of the religions of the world, past or present. The difficulty, however, about such an inquiry is that nearly all the available data are confined to those concrete survivals like graves, sacred places and their contents, sculptures, bas-reliefs, engravings and paintings that have escaped the ravages of time. Their interpretation must be to some extent conjectural, but much of the material has survived, little changed, in everyday occurrence among the peoples who live today under conditions very similar to those of early humans. If employed with proper caution such evidence can afford useful and illuminating clues to the purpose and meaning of prehistoric religion. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/172 "2008-04-07T19:57:18Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] That’s basically what I’m saying, though I think they did try to understand their relationships. Both studies were all about relationships. They may have come to some misguided conclusions, but they weren’t simply cavemen staring at the monolith. [/QUOTE] The big difference is that both astrology and alchemy had preconceived ideas of how the world was supposed to work. Scientists, starting from a blank slate, figured out how the world actually worked. Remember, 2500 years worth of astrologers never quite figured out that the Earth went around the sun. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/173 "2008-04-07T20:02:21Z")
[QUOTE=SentientMeat] I said in premise 4 that at some point in the last 10 million years there was _no such thing as_ religious thinking, and that at some later point there was. You have yet to accept this explicitly, so I haven’t had chance to get started on exploring that emergence. I said I’d mither you about this but I’m afraid it’s necessary to address this point before we can move on. You said that religious thinking was present “from the start”. I have to ask you, repeatedly if necessary, what you mean by this. Are you really saying that religious thinking was present in _Sahelanthropus tchadensis_ or even earlier creatures?? At one point you mentioned “strands” of religion, in which case I have to ask you to expand on what such a “strand” is in an _animal_. [/quote] I almost hate to mention this given how often you’ve upbraided me for misquoting, but I never said any such thing. What I was saying is that an original religious belief must have had precursors, and those precursors must have existed in the ancestors of the individual that first believed in a god. The important point is that it all happened by small steps. In other words, if belief in God happened at step 8726, then there must have been some very similar belief at step 8725. As to what was believed at step 8725, I have no clue. You’re the materialist; you tell me. > [@](#): > > This is why I thought we made excellent progress when you accepted that religion could have emerged by a **gradual** process. I regret to inform you that I never accepted any such thing. I’ve agreed to listen while you present a hypothetical scenario. I’ve offered comments on what would have to be true in your hypothetical scenario. But I have not agreed that it’s plausible. Also, the reason why I don’t respond to every single sentence you write is just practicality. In my experience, doing so causes threads to splinter in twenty different directions and then die out. > [@](#): > > But before all of this, can I ask you a favour? Can you promise to try not to erect any strawmen, mischaracterise or misquote me or anyone else, or start arguing with a position which nobody has yet taken? Agreed. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/174 "2008-04-07T20:10:13Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] The big difference is that both astrology and alchemy had preconceived ideas of how the world was supposed to work. Scientists, starting from a blank slate, figured out how the world actually worked. Remember, 2500 years worth of astrologers never quite figured out that the Earth went around the sun. [/QUOTE] From what I’ve read geocentrism vs heliocentrism went back and forth based on social fads. I don’t have a cite on this because I don’t remember where I read it. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/175 "2008-04-07T20:47:39Z")
> [@ITR](#): > > I almost hate to mention this given how often you’ve upbraided me for misquoting, but I never said any such thing. What I was saying is that an original religious belief must have had precursors, and those precursors must have existed in the ancestors of the individual that first believed in a god. The important point is that it all happened by small steps. In other words, if belief in God happened at step 8726, then there must have been some very similar belief at step 8725. As to what was believed at step 8725, I have no clue. You’re the materialist; you tell me. > … > I regret to inform you that I never accepted any such thing [that religious belief evolved gradually]. I’ve agreed to listen while you present a hypothetical scenario. I’ve offered comments on what would have to be true in your hypothetical scenario. But I have not agreed that it’s plausible. I apologise unreservedly for misquoting you, but I’m struggling to see how these two statements are consistent. Let us call step 8726 a small group of _Homo Sapiens_ on the African savannah who have developed language and use it to tell stories of powerful spirit beings who created the world and ancestors who live on as stars after death. This is _not hypothetical_, since anthropology shows us this situation recurring time and again elsewhere, even today. Then, let us consider not step 8725 (yet – bear with me), but a step 7 million years beforehand in which a small group of _Sahelanthropus Tchadensis_ behaved in their _animal_ way (like similar animals do today), with no language beyond the handful of sounds modern apes make. Once more, this is _not hypothetical_ from fossil evidence and the anatomical reconstructions based on it. Again, I must ask you for an explicit answer to this question: **Was this group characterised by religious belief?** Please try and provide a yes or no here, with a lengthy caveat if necessary. (I assure you, I _will_ discuss step 8725 _and_ language, agent detection, inside-outside groups, temporal lobe epilepsy and the like but we need to sort this out first in order to avoid me misrepresenting your position.) > [@Lib](#): > > I do greatly respect you and your worldview, but what am I to do when this is over? I mean, if we define “fly” to mean “wallow in mud”, then I am happy to concede that pigs can fly. But then shouldn’t we come back and deal with my definition of “fly”? Certainly, friend. We should deal with all definitions, premises, arguments and worldviews each of us offers each other. I offer only that we should each consider the possibility that some of our own definitions and premises are flawed. I’ll be off again soon to do this stuff in, for want of a better word, the “real” world (whatever that is!). Be well. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2008, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/176 "2008-04-08T19:31:57Z")
> [@](#): > > Again, I must ask you for an explicit answer to this question: **Was this group characterised by religious belief?** No. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2008, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/177 "2008-04-08T21:36:02Z")
> [@ITR](#): > > No. Excellent, we are now in agreement that religious belief _emerged_ at some point in the last few million years. We can now go on to explore whether it is _ludicrous_ to suggest that it could have done so without divine inspiration. So what happened, scientifically speaking, between animal Toumai and _Homo Sapiens_? Numerous instances of [speciation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation), in which a small subset of the larger population becomes isolated (geographically or otherwise) and undergoes genetic drift. _Some_ of those new developments conferred a competitive on the subset, such that it thrived and grew and eventually supplanted the old population as the dominant species at a given time. I posit that one crucial development in this respect was language. Just as the syrinx developed in certain birds yielding a huge range of sounds and leading to a strong sexual selection mechanism whereby males impress females with their “linguistic” abilities, so it was with the hominid larynx, with the cranial capacity to bodymass ratio increasing in tandem (since a good larynx alone does not an impressive male make). The second key development is [agent detection](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VH9-3WRB6YB-7&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=0222584b766abe1f7eb99af9864f2b2f), or the ability to tell when _human_ actions (rather than Mother Nature) might have bearing on a given situation, since clearly an individual who was deficient in this regard would be ripe for being duped and manipulated out of all kinds of resources (most importantly access to his mate’s breeding equipment, leaving him literally holding the baby without promulgating his genes). And clearly it would make evolutionary sense to “play situations safe” , since missing a true human trick would be much riskier than reacting to a false, natural shadow _as though_ it had an intelligent agent behind it. Hence the development of [“hyperactive” agent detection](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VH9-3YF3BY5-C&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=aaf98f6150c878d349d8a8bcc61290cf). So, back to the timeline of the emergence of religion. Once language and agent detection had evolved, an interesting question arises: _What do you actually **talk about** _? Of course, the daylight hours can be filled with the jibber-jabber necessary for everyday hominid life. But for at least 12 hours, and up to 18 in the southernmost reaches of the African savannah in winter, there will be pitch darkness. What do you talk about then? If there is one thing that anthropology tells us, it is that _stories_ are universal to language-using hominids. So we would expect stories of great hunts, terrible storms, or other events which dominated the hominid memory. And after agent detection evolves, what else do you think these stories might address? Why _agents_ of course - causal intelligences who are responsible for, well, whatever. Add to this the prevalence of dreams, psychotropic plants/fungi and [temporal lobe epilepsy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_lobe_epilepsy#Temporal_Lobe_Epilepsy.2C_Neurotheology_and_Paranormal_Experience) in which some individuals find all kinds of thoughts “cosmic”, and one can see how a prehistoric individual might come up with a _heck_ of a story (and, of course, how story-making and story-telling abilities would be subject to sexual selection). Of course, religions don’t get fossilized, and I’ve admitted that they _could_ have originated by divine inspiration. But is what I’ve written here really that ludicrous? ---
**Author:** ![matt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@matt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/178 "2008-04-09T08:42:40Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] The big difference is that both astrology and alchemy had preconceived ideas of how the world was supposed to work. Scientists, starting from a blank slate, figured out how the world actually worked. Remember, 2500 years worth of astrologers never quite figured out that the Earth went around the sun. [/QUOTE] I’m sure it wasn’t your intention, but this gives me a mental image of something like the First Council of Nicaea. Learned men coming together and formalising the principles of science as a truth-seeking tool, all in one event! Then they went out and applied them to one problem after another, knocking astrology and alchemy out of the ball park… I’m fairly sure nothing of the kind happened, of course. I’m also fairly sure that a modern, self-defined scientist could observe the activities of the ancient astrologers and alchemists ( and architects, blacksmiths, carpenters, brewers, bakers etc.) and see science as he understands it being practised. Maybe not as formally, certainly not as rigorously or self-critically. But the Romans didn’t build the [Pantheon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome) without having figured out a LOT about geometry, stresses and strength of materials. Somebody somewhere did a whole lot of experimentation to have the confidence to build a dome with a _hole_ in the middle, and two thousand years later it’s still there. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/179 "2008-04-09T22:40:10Z")
[QUOTE=SentientMeat] The second key development is [agent detection](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VH9-3WRB6YB-7&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=0222584b766abe1f7eb99af9864f2b2f), or the ability to tell when _human_ actions (rather than Mother Nature) might have bearing on a given situation, since clearly an individual who was deficient in this regard would be ripe for being duped and manipulated out of all kinds of resources (most importantly access to his mate’s breeding equipment, leaving him literally holding the baby without promulgating his genes). And clearly it would make evolutionary sense to “play situations safe” , since missing a true human trick would be much riskier than reacting to a false, natural shadow _as though_ it had an intelligent agent behind it. Hence the development of [“hyperactive” agent detection](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VH9-3YF3BY5-C&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=aaf98f6150c878d349d8a8bcc61290cf). [/quote] You appear to believe that agent detection is determined by a gene or genes, and that leads to obvious questions. Can you tell me what chromosome(s) and what location(s) on those chromosomes carry the genes for agent detection? Can you explain how the proteins coded by those genes lead to the facility of agent detection? Can you show me the structure in the brain that’s responsible? Or if current science is not adequate for finding those things, can you at least offer a hypothetical mechanism for this? The idea of that our genes affect when and where we suspect human involvement seems strange to me. For instance, whether a man is suspicious of infidelity has a lot to do with both the society he grows up in and the choices he makes. Some men learn to expect it at evert turn, while others are barely aware of the possibility. Obviously there are many instances where we teach ourselves and our children whether or not to suspect someone else’s involvement. And if it were genetic (or memetic or whatever) I don’t see why it would be advantageous. Yes it would confer advantages in some situations but disadvantages in others. Suppose we have a hominid (let’s call him Thag Simmons) who stores food somewhere and later finds that it’s gone missing. If he immediately suspects that some other hominid stole the food, that could lead to a fight where Thag gets killed. Far better to keep the possibility of natural causes in mind. It seems to me that if evolution is the deciding factor, it would lead humans to identify human actions where there are human actions, rather than to identify human actions in all cases. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088/180 "2008-04-09T23:21:56Z")
[QUOTE=SentientMeat] So, back to the timeline of the emergence of religion. Once language and agent detection had evolved, an interesting question arises: _What do you actually **talk about** _? Of course, the daylight hours can be filled with the jibber-jabber necessary for everyday hominid life. But for at least 12 hours, and up to 18 in the southernmost reaches of the African savannah in winter, there will be pitch darkness. What do you talk about then? If there is one thing that anthropology tells us, it is that _stories_ are universal to language-using hominids. So we would expect stories of great hunts, terrible storms, or other events which dominated the hominid memory. And after agent detection evolves, what else do you think these stories might address? Why _agents_ of course - causal intelligences who are responsible for, well, whatever. Add to this the prevalence of dreams, psychotropic plants/fungi and [temporal lobe epilepsy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_lobe_epilepsy#Temporal_Lobe_Epilepsy.2C_Neurotheology_and_Paranormal_Experience) in which some individuals find all kinds of thoughts “cosmic”, and one can see how a prehistoric individual might come up with a _heck_ of a story (and, of course, how story-making and story-telling abilities would be subject to sexual selection). [/QUOTE] Early hominids telling stories including stories of the type you describe seems quite reasonable. There’s no reason for the audience to take the stories at face value. After all, to recklessly believe in everything you hear would not confer survival value. Quite the opposite, in fact. Expecting the wind to obey your commands is not a good strategy. In any case, how do we get from generic stories to humans focusing their minds and reconnecting themselves to the way of the universe? (Or at least believing that they’re doing so.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wishful-thinking-and-the-science-of-religion/443088.md?page=10)