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16 14

The Evolution of the God Gene

by
Nicholas Wade

[excerpt]

“This and other research is pointing to a new perspective on religion, one that seeks to explain why religious behavior has occurred in societies at every stage of development and in every region of the world. Religion has the hallmarks of an evolved behavior, meaning that it exists because it was favored by natural selection. It is universal because it was wired into our neural circuitry before the ancestral human population dispersed from its African homeland.

For atheists, it is not a particularly welcome thought that religion evolved because it conferred essential benefits on early human societies and their successors. If religion is a lifebelt, it is hard to portray it as useless.

For believers, it may seem threatening to think that the mind has been shaped to believe in gods, since the actual existence of the divine may then seem less likely.

But the evolutionary perspective on religion does not necessarily threaten the central position of either side. That religious behavior was favored by natural selection neither proves nor disproves the existence of gods.

For believers, if one accepts that evolution has shaped the human body, why not the mind too? What evolution has done is to endow people with a genetic predisposition to learn the religion of their community, just as they are predisposed to learn its language. With both religion and language, it is culture, not genetics, that then supplies the content of what is learned.”

Full article here:

[nytimes.com]

.

skado 9 July 10
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16 comments

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0

Seeking scientific explanations for beliefs of any kind is sheer nonsense and the chief preoccupation of pseudo-scientists and religious people who would love scientific endorsement as would believers of every creed and ilk. The quest for an answer to religious belief does not lie in genes, which, in the minds of some or many people might 'explain' beliefs.

"Science will find the chemical causes of schizophrenia when they find the chemical cause of Christianity and Judaism, no sooner and no later. " Thomas Szasz

The kind of pseudoscience you’re talking about certainly does exist, and “intelligent design” for example, is a prime example of religious ideology masquerading as science.

This article is not about that. There is a growing academic interest in understanding the evolutionary roots of behaviors that may have been adaptive in our ancestral environment but could become maladaptive in modern societies. These researchers are typically die-hard atheists, doing the highest quality science possible, given the subject. Nothing should be out of bounds for legitimate scientific inquiry.

1

I would attribute religiousness as an effect, not a cause.
An effect of fear, sometimes masquerading as love.
We don’t need religion to prioritise the well-being of ourselves and others.

Mvtt Level 7 July 10, 2021
2

Hmmm, can’t read the article and it’s pretty old. Not sure if Wade piggybacked on Dean Hamer and the fanfare of his alleged “god gene”, but Carl Zimmer had apt criticism to offer toward that one suggesting a reworked title: A Gene That Accounts for Less Than One Percent of the Variance Found in Scores on Psychological Questionnaires Designed to Measure a Factor Called Self-Transcendence, Which Can Signify Everything from Belonging to the Green Party to Believing in ESP, According to One Unpublished, Unreplicated Study.

[carlzimmer.com]

This too is apropos: “ [Hamer] did not, for example, try to rule out the possibility that natural selection has not favored self-transcendence, but some other function of VMAT2. (Among other things, the gene protects the brain from neurotoxins.) Nor does Hamer rule out the possibility that the God gene offers no evolutionary benefit at all. Sometimes genes that seem to be common thanks to natural selection turn out to have been spread merely by random genetic drift.”

Which is where the important all-purpose short-circuit of most evolutionary psychology whereby its speculation gets tossed by consideration that presumed adaptations are merely nonadaptive byproducts (spandrels) of some other feature. In the case of religion Gould suggested a large brain facilitated a self-awareness and fear of death. Ernest Becker rings a bell here though Gould cites Freud oddly.

Gould SJ. 1991. Exaptation: A Crucial Tool for an Evolutionary Psychology. Journal of Social Issues Vol 47, No. 3 p. 43-65

And I think one of the strongest psychological features Hamer explored was the more mundane oceanic feeling of self-transcendence. Some people happen to be spiritual but not religious. I’m skeptical of tight genetic ties to such a propensity in people, but it doesn’t necessitate religion to fill an empty God hole. Buddhists are nontheistic. Some people may tend to want something greater (higher or larger) than themselves.

Yes, lots of competing hypotheses out there. It’s definitely not a “settled” field.

1

[languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu]
A critique, i think?
But i was trying to get to the full article, any chance you would pm me a copy/paste? Ty

2

So religion is a gene defect that figures

bobwjr Level 10 July 10, 2021

That’s not indicated in the article.

Skado is right.

Depending upon how one defines religion, but could be more about how we choose to manifest/practice what is essentially a “feeling” right?

Filling a hole or whatever iow

3

It may have once served a purpose but it has long since outlived it's usefulness. A few years ago was an interesting article in the "Humanist" magazine about Existential Risk Analysis. This is the study of potential risks to humans that cause our extinction. [existential-risk.org] The article went on to include universal intelligent life forms and concluded religion is a universal symptom. It went on to surmise that religion probably led to the extinction of many species. This is a new emerging study in such places as Cambridge and Harvard.

Thanks. Looks interesting. After a cursory scan, the part on religion wasn’t readily apparent. Could you tell me which page/pages it’s on? I’d like to read it, but don’t feel motivated to wade through the entire paper.

@skado Here's a link. I need to add this to my listing as I recommend it often. [thehumanist.com]

@JackPedigo

Thanks.

1

Can't read the article, your link is behind a pay wall. Religion is human kinds answer to the unknown. Science has explained the unknown, and religion has shrank. Religion is a con job, the leaders are the con men and the followers are the conned. Religion is full of fear and hate.

Would you like to read the full article?

@skado No don't need to, to understand it's basis to religion.

@xenoview
That was my guess.

I am one person who is sooo anti-religion, from childhood, but you miss the point of its having some value as a cohesiveness medium. Granted that this has been used to hurt the "Other," but it may have served a useful purpose way, way, back in the day.

@BirdMan1
If it was, as I suspect, a counterbalance to evolutionary mismatch, it may still be serving that vital purpose, because I don’t see any other system doing that job. In that case, it’s abandonment would send us immediately back to pre-neolithic times, if not farther. Possibly to extinction.

@skado You could have a point there!

5

Without God to anoint them kings would be peasants.

RCRX87 Level 4 July 10, 2021
5

I don't buy it. We might just as well think that we've evolved and are genetically predisposed to racism or violence. Better just accept it. But look at changes in these respects in the modern era. I remain hopeful that just maybe we can as a species outgrow our species childhood belief in supernaturalism because it makes the big scary world seem a bit more comprehensible, if falsely so. Perhaps I'm an idealist, but I'm also a realist. I think there will always be people in the human population who are born hard wired to believe in mysticism. But I remain hopeful that the majority of people might one day lead essentially secular lives. I think the majority in many western countries now already do. That's why religions are becoming more toxic, revisionist, authoritarian and anti modernist. They fear the trend. They should.

Ideally, science would never be for sale.

@skado In it's dependence on govt to supply it with cash science already is for sale. I think that's what 45's response to the science of COVID-19 demonstrated. Like our minds, science retains an independence from its need for money, however.

@rainmanjr
Right, that’s why I say, “ideally”. There are certainly places where human behavior veers from the ideals of science.

@rainmanjr “ Like our minds, science retains an independence from its need for money, however”
hmm
“ In it's dependence on govt to supply it with cash science already is for sale”
im having trouble reconciling the two i guess

5

"Religion is often blamed for its spectacular excesses, whether in promoting persecution or warfare, but gets less credit for its staple function of patching up the moral fabric of society. But perhaps it doesn’t deserve either blame or credit. If religion is seen as a means of generating social cohesion, it is a society and its leaders that put that cohesion to good or bad ends."
This speaks to me of a sort of epigenetic feature.

Good thought. May well be.

I think the answer is not to push for abolition of religion but for a new story which is science based but allows for spiritual experience. The idea of a God would not be part of such a story but connection to the natural elements of Universe would. I have conceived of such a story and posted it.

@rainmanjr
Where? Did I read it? I’d like to.
A literal god wouldn’t fit in that story, but a metaphorical one would fit nicely. The less you have to change, the closer to consonance with existing momentum you come.

@skado

Couple of follow up vid's filling out the idea.
1

I do not see why atheists (or agnostics ) should feel it is not a "welcome thought". Since most atheists do not generally feel the need for the existence of any theistic style free will. And therefore do not generally have a problem with the idea of genetic determinism, and that all things in human life follow from that. That is just silly.

At least though, this is the first of these in which the point that it is the culture which "supplies the content" is plainly accepted and made, and there is not the foolish attempt at the logically impossible leap made from genetic determinism, programing natural values such as social compliance and a tendency to favour false positives over false negatives. To the idea that genetics render, plainly culturally designed artifacts, not found across all cultures anyway, such as the subset of belief known as theistic religions, inevitable. This fits with my point of view perfectly.

I do wish you would be more careful in who you choose to quote.

I’m not aware of having quoted anyone specifically expressing otherwise. As you and I have discussed often, that word religion has many different understandings. I have never believed genes create specific doctrine, but very likely do afford a propensity for behaviors that humans in general have come to regard as specifically religious, rather than only a general capacity for belief.

@skado Your video person was certainly propounding that. Do not forget that it is a point where it is very needful to avoid misinterpretation by the literalists, which they will do at the drop of a hat, even a failing to propound the difference between belief and religion as the main point is dangerous.

The only other objections which I still have to all of these is as said the misrepresentation of atheists, and the usual fake revissionist claim that the science is new, when even I can trace the hypothesis back to the seventies.

@Fernapple
Have you revived an interest in continuing that conversation?

@skado Ok, I will go further on your video and say that. Deceit by omission even partial omission or under emphasis is no better morally than deceit by misrepresentation.

@Fernapple I disagree with your assessment of omission. Sometimes, maybe often, people omit a truth about themselves for the fine justification that it isn't major and, therefore, unimportant to the bigger goal. Just because that often bites a person in the ass is not justification for it being as evil as misrepresentation (but I have skin in that game).

@Fernapple
Well there is no way I can aggregate everything Dr. Ritchie has said about the subject just for a post on AgDotCom. I didn’t even post the entire video. It’s just a conversation starter, not a master thesis.

If you are interested in getting to the bottom of the issue I would be willing to explore it with you. You may have a point that I haven’t seen yet. But so far, it appears to me you are reading your personal interpretations into her words in a way that is out of step with current scholarship. Who do you think is being deceitful, me or her?

your comment minds me (for whatever reason) that up until about 100 years ago, even going to the doctor was a “religious” experience, and i guess is still fairly quasi-religious

politics is also pretty easily compared to a religion, even how we eat can easily become one i think

3

I don’t see how the natural evolution of religion requires any special hard-wiring; rather, I suspect that in issues not easily falsifiable (such as whether there is a God or afterlife) people naturally tend to believe what makes them happier. Even today atheists generally are happy believing there is no cosmic ethical commander and while theists generally are happy believing there is a heavenly father who cares for them. So in earlier times the picture that those who overran your tribe—who killed the elders, raped the women, and kidnapped the children—would be eternally tormented while you would be reunited with your loved ones in an eternal bliss would be a very, very attractive scenario! And surely the optimism or those who accepted this would be favored by natural selection over the defeatism of those who didn’t.

Yes, there are still a lot of particulars as yet untested by science, and some that may never lend themselves to scientific scrutiny. Often things are more complicated and messy than we tend to think at first.

@skado That's why, I think, the next step in the evolution of spirituality isn't atheism. That denies too much of what religion soothes.

@rainmanjr
Exactly! As long as scientists feel religion is beneath them we may not know the full extent to which our species depends on it for survival. If everything were obvious to the amateur, we wouldn’t need science. I’m with Dan Dennett on this - we should understand religion better than we currently do scientifically, before we go sawing off the limb we may be sitting on.

@skado I just replied to another post that philosophical inquiry should be a yearly aspect of education's curriculum and religious doctrines part of that inquiry.

@rainmanjr
I agree wholeheartedly. And if I recall correctly, Dennett himself has suggested something similar.

@rainmanjr, @skado problem there might be that it would almost inevitably be taught by a believer

@bbyrd009
It’s a subject, unlike physics for example, which almost everyone has an emotional investment in, one way or the other. So it would be difficult to find an impartial teacher for sure. But they wouldn’t be just teaching their own religion; they would be required to teach all of them. And it wouldn’t be focused on how to be a good religious person, as would be taught in a church, but more from an analytical, philosophical, and scientific perspective. Who knows - the teachers might be required to learn something about that subject they didn’t know. I have an idea the teaching profession has ways to monitor and regulate the content taught. If not, it would need to be developed. Maybe some teachers here can tell us how course materials are regulated.

@skado ya…i have a thing about teachers in general, and try to seek natural analogs, though; but of course any prof on this subject would necessarily be a student too i guess. You’d think this would be addressed in comparative religion?

@bbyrd009

" any proof on this subject would necessarily be a student too"

not sure I catch your meaning here. could you unpack that a bit

@skado ah sorry, autocorrected to proof from "prof," professor

@bbyrd009
ah, yes. Comparative Religion would surely be the domain it would be modeled on I’d think. And yes, there’d be a lot of learning going on in all quarters.

@skado I wouldn't limit philosophy to religion. Over grades 6-12 schools can cover lots of various ideas. More if we start an interest in philosophy from grade 3.

@rainmanjr but that would surely engender thoughtful ppl, something i doubt public indoc would be amenable to?

@skado I was a philosophy professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Mississippi State University for 30+ years (Department head for seven) and taught the course, Philosophy OF Religion, every other year throughout my tenure there. I do believe I was even-handed as I believe are most other professors of Philosophy OF Religion in state supported institutions (and many private ones, too). My agnosticism may have served me well in this capacity but in philosophy courses generally the standard procedure is to present/criticize both sides as forcefully as possible--: proselytizing for one's personal beliefs is always a professional no-no and is also strictly forbidden in state schools.

@rainmanjr
Total agreement here.

@Wallace
Thanks. That's sort of what I would have assumed or hoped. Glad to hear it..

4

When we start separating the mind and the body we end up back into some nutball kind of religion every time.

Exactly that.

Possibly the next stage of evolution needs to connect both, then?

@rainmanjr true religion is taking care of widows and orphans in their time of need paraphrased

4

Religion, like the appendix, may have been evolutionarily useful. But also like the appendix, it may also wither into uselessness in the future.

...or worse. It can easily metastasize if we aren’t paying attention and understanding its true nature.

Useless yet highly schooled professionals still advocate for leaving it in place until a problem develops.

@skado, @rainmanjr might be the repository for probiotics? I read somewhere…

@skado It's removal is compulsory if you are going to Antarctica for its winter. There is no help available for appendicitis during those winter months.

4

The mind is the body. I reject the notion that they are somehow separate. We evolved, all of us, and adapted in a way that allowed us to survive.

I respectively disagree until you can then tell us where consciousness comes from.

@rainmanjr medium…i think it is, just had an article claiming that scientists just figured that out 🙂 i didn’t bother though, but it might be pertinent, dunno

@bbyrd009 It's a raging debate. My answer is an electro-magnetic neural network being a parasite that anchors into a cerebral cortex and provides consciousness. This is biology but with that spiritual connection.

@rainmanjr hmm
i suspect frontal lobes, and doubt a disconnect of mind/body myself, but that we are essentially "two" people has been theorized before, plus our disconnect from...everything else, and our proclivity for selfishness and perceiving our "selves" as separate also speaks to that i guess?

remember when you did not recognize your"self" in a mirror?
there's a native american thing for that, took me a while though

@bbyrd009 when you look for your self and pay attention to the “looker”, what happens?

@Mvtt hmm, the observer's observer...i give up, what?

@bbyrd009 one would hope, you transcend the illusory concept of duality.

@Mvtt a similar to that has worked well for like re-centering sometimes, for me; but id say that one still must meet their monster so to speak, via sensory deprivation or whatever, otherwise youre just playing at it. But ya, good way to shift perspective, if you can exercise that in the moment

@rainmanjr If I could answer this, I'd be a Nobel prize winner. Alas, I can't.

Having said that, I stand by my comment. Your "explain to me" is akin to the god-of-the-gaps argument used by the religious. I could just as easily say, prove to me that consciousness isn't just another manifestation of our mental processes.

@Mitch07102 So, since I do explain where consciousness comes from but can not prove a thing which would exist in quantum mechanics (scientists can not explain most of the quantum arena but we know it's there), I expect a nomination. It is not quite like the God of the gaps because we know consciousness exists. It's just explaining it that is difficult. Nothing supernatural about my explanation because we also know that:
1: Parasites commonly exist
2: Parasites commonly exist in the human body. Gut bacteria, which might play a major role to mental process, is an excellent example of some.
3: Electro-magnetic energy is timeless and has no end. So, when the brain dies, what happens to that energy in our brain? My theory explains that question.
4: There is no consequence for not accepting this explanation. However, by doing so we have a better idea of why limiting sensory perception connects us to a strong voice within. A more accurate voice, if I may venture that, because senses are limited or rely on instruments for truth. All biological creatures also share the same ability for such a parasite so it would explain their consciousness.
5: Acceptance of a biological/spiritual idea would eliminate ALL division over soul and God. We become our own God because consciousness is the ultimate personal connection to natural fabric.

11

I may never have been a believer, or found any compelling personal reason or need for religion, but I have also never thought religion was useless. It is self evident that it brings benefit and comfort to many people…we who do not ourselves believe, cannot deny that fact. I can certainly see an argument in favour of us believing that we have evolved a religious belief gene, and agree that it does however in no way confer or confirm the existence of any god or gods…merely an intrinsic human need to believe in them.

Well said indeed!

Solomon said where there is no vision, the people perish, which is usually interpreted to mean “have a vision,” but i suspect now might be more a condemnation of it, dunno

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