Evolution and Religion

Biol 105Spring 2008

Oct 14

If you are seriously interested…

• Consider taking Cultural Evolutionary Theory (Biol 452) in the spring semester.

• Oriented toward the study of religion.

• Students will take part in a professional-level study of religious conceptions of the afterlife from an evolutionary perspective.

• See http://evolution.binghamton.edu/religion/ to learn more about the new field of Evolutionary Religious Studies and the Afterlife Project

What makes religion so fascinating?

• An important part of one’s culture.

• An important part of one’s upbringing.

• An important part of one’s current life.

Why do people belief in stuff that doesn’t appear to be out there?

• From a scientific and rational perspective, we are supposed to believe things when they supported by factual evidence.

• Religious belief seems irrational from this perspective.

• Religious belief also seems costly in addition to irrational.

What’s not new about studying religion from an evolutionary perspective

• Studying religion as a natural phenomenon is NOT new.

• Durkheim, Fraser, Weber, Freud, Marx, and everyone else who studies religion from a scholarly perspective assumes that it is a human-constructed phenomenon.

• The distinction between a religious studies department and a theology department.

• Even many theologians study religion as a natural phenomenon.

What is new: Major hypotheses that evolutionists use to study all traits

Adaptation hypotheses

--group level

--individual level

--cultural parasite

Non-adaptation hypotheses

--adaptive in past, maladaptive in present

--byproduct

--drift

What is new:The Proximate-Ultimate distinction

Proximate-Ultimate: All adaptations require two complementary explanations, one based on fitness and the other based on proximate mechanisms.

The Good NewsThe evolutionary framework elegantly applies

to the study of religion

RELIGION AS AN ADAPTATION RELIGION AS NONADAPTIVE

Group-level adaptation (benefits groups,

compared to other groups)

Adaptive in small groups of related

individuals but not in modern social

environments.

Individual-level adaptation (benefits

individuals, compared to other individuals

within the same group)

Byproduct of t raits that are adaptive in

non-religious contexts.

Cultural parasite (benefits cultural traits

without regard to the welfare of human

individuals or groups)

Neutral traits (drift)

The Evolutionary Framework classifies past theories of religion, that were formulated without using the E-

word.

A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things…which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.

--Durkheim and the traditional of functionalism.--In evolutionary terms, a group-level adaptation hypothesis.

First we evolved self-awareness, which is hugely beneficial but also made us aware of our own deaths. Religion is a way of alleviating our fear of death.

--Ernst Becker and many others.--In evolutionary terms, a byproduct hypothesis.

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Rodney Stark’s theory of religion as a byproduct hypothesis

• Sociologist of religion, inspired by economic theory. • Economic mind good at forming explanations and cost-benefit

reasoning to obtain what can be had in the real world. • This is easy to explain in evolutionary terms. • Some things can’t be had, such as rain during a drought or

everlasting life. • That doesn’t prevent the economic mind from wanting them. • Religion is the invention of supernatural agents, with whom we

bargain for what we can’t have. • Religion has no practical utility and exists as a byproduct of the

economic mind.

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The Bad NewsUntil recently, there appeared to be no consensus

whatsoever among evolutionists as to which hypothesis is most likely to explain the elements of religion!

RELIGION AS AN ADAPTATION RELIGION AS NONADAPTIVE

Group-level adaptation (benefits groups,

compared to other groups)

Adaptive in small groups of related

individuals but not in modern social

environments.

Individual-level adaptation (benefits

individuals, compared to other individuals

within the same group)

Byproduct of t raits that are adaptive in

non-religious contexts.

Cultural parasite (benefits cultural traits

without regard to the welfare of human

individuals or groups)

Neutral traits (drift)

Wilson, Richerson & Boyd

Johnson, Cronk

Dawkins, Dennett

Atran, Boyer

Alexander

???????????

Religion as a cultural parasite

Dan Dennett onThe Demonic Meme Hypothesis

On Religious Conflict

“You’re basically killing each other to see who has the best imaginary friend.”

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On Religious Ascetics

“In what way are they morally superior to people who have devoted their lives to improving their stamp collections or their golf swing? “

Richard Dawkins onThe Demonic Meme Hypothesis

“Imagine, with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of the Jews as ‘Christ-killers,’ no Northern Ireland ‘troubles’, no ‘honour killings’…

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The Good News

There appears to be a convergence of views, so that Evolutionary Religious Studies is entering a mature phase comparable to the study of traits in nonhuman species.

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Examples

• Religion as primarily a group-level adaptation• What does it mean for a religious trait to be

individually advantageous?• Exploitation within religious groups• Byproducts vs. Adaptations in Genetic vs. Cultural

Evolution• Explaining religious diversity as similar to ecological

diversity• An example of religious drift• The Afterlife Project as a model research program in

Evolutionary Religious Studies

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Religion and Prosociality• Most enduring religions

are adapted to foster prosociality within the religious community.

• Aspire to create a human beehive.

• Both old (e.g. Durkheim) and new (e.g. my survey of a random sample of 36 religions).

• Can appear obvious in retrospect.

• It didn’t have to turn out that way!

“True love means growth for the whole organism, whose members are all interdependent and serve each other. That is the outward form of the inner working of the Spirit, the organism of the Body governed by Christ. We see the same thing among the bees, who all work with equal zeal gathering honey.” --Ehrenpreis 1650

Bodies, Beehives, and Religions

The “beehive” nature of religion is NOT predicted by some of these major hypotheses!

RELIGION AS AN ADAPTATION RELIGION AS NONADAPTIVE

Group-level adaptation (benefits groups,

compared to other groups)

Adaptive in small groups of related

individuals but not in modern social

environments.

Individual-level adaptation (benefits

individuals, compared to other individuals

within the same group)

Byproduct of t raits that are adaptive in

non-religious contexts.

Cultural parasite (benefits cultural traits

without regard to the welfare of human

individuals or groups)

Neutral traits (drift)

No matter how obvious in retrospect, we need to acknowledge progress when it occurs!

The group-level adaptation hypothesis becomes a force to be

reckoned with.

CALVIN’S GENEVA AS AN ADAPTIVE UNIT

“Events in the absence of Farel and Calvin had demonstrated the close interdependence of reformation and autonomy, of morals and morale. Although the city council was concerned primarily with the independence and morale of the city, the fact that Farel’s religious agenda could not be evaded gradually dawned. The pro-Farel party probably had little enthusiasm for religious reformation or the enforcement of public morals; nevertheless, it seemed that the survival of the Genevan republic hinged upon them”

--A. McGrath 1990

Early Christian congregations as adaptive units

The author of Mark, then, offers a rudimentary model for Christian community life. The gospels that the majority of Christians adopted in common all follow, to some extent, Mark’s example. Successive generations found in the New Testament gospels what they did not find in many other elements of the early Jesus tradition--a practical design of Christian communities.

--E. Pagels 1995

“I do not see how it is possible, in the nature of things, for any revival of true religion to continue for long. For religion must necessarily produce both industry and frugality. And these cannot but produce riches. But as riches increase, so will pride, anger, and love of the world in all its branches.” --John Wesley

Vol Page Entry Description1 149 Agudat Yisra'el Orthodox Judaism, 20th century1 161 Airyana Vaejah Zoroastrianism, Persia, 10th century BCE1 211 Allen, R. African methodist Episcopal Church, 19th century1 492 Atisa Tibetan Buddhism, 10th century3 72 Cao Dai Composite of traditions, Vietnam, 20th century3 120 Catherine of Siena Catholic church, Italy, 14th century3 230 Chen-Jen Chinese Taoism, 3rd century3 328 Chinggis Kahn Ancestor Cult, Mongolia, 13th century3 333 Chinul Korean Buddhism, 13th century4 172 Cult of Saints Catholic Church, general4 200 Dalai Lama Tibetan Buddhism, general4 236 Dan Fodio, Usuman Nigerian Islamic revivalist movement, 18th century4 326 Dge-Lugs-Pa Tibetan Buddhism, 15th century5 72 Eisai Rinzai school of Japanese Zen Buddhism, 12th century5 156 Eshmun Phoenician healer god, 15th century BCE6 66 Gokalp, Z. Turkish nationalism, 20th century7 119 Iman and Islam Islam, general7 215 Indus valley religion Western India, 25th century BCE8 104 Jodoshu Pure land sect of Japanese Buddhism, 12th century8 423 Lahori, Muhammad Ali Lahori branch of the Ahmadiyah movement, Islamic, 20th century9 128 Mahavira Jainism (India) , 6th century BCE9 188 Maranke, J. Apostolic Church of John Maranke (Africa), 20th century9 287 Maurice, F.D. Christian Socialism (England), 20th century9 291 Mawdudi, Sayyid Abu Al-a'la Indian Islamic revivalist movement, 20th century9 303 Mbona African territorial cult, 19th century9 579 Mithra/Mithraism Iranian deity and God of Roman mystery religion, app. 4th century BCE

10 290 Nagarjuna Indian Buddhism, 2nd century10 297 Nahman of Bratslav Bratslav sect of Hasidic Judaism, Ukraine, 18th century10 360 Neo-orthodoxy Protestant revivalist movement, Europe and America, 20th century11 226 Pelagianism Christian doctrine opposed by Augustine, 4th century11 324 Pietism Protestant reformation movement, Europe, 17th century12 335 Rennyo Pure land true sect of Japanese Buddhism, 15th century14 38 Spurgeon, C.H. English Baptist Church, 19th century14 464 Theosophical Society Composite of traditions, America, 19th century15 539 Young, B. Mormonism, America, 19th century

The problem of selection bias and its solution

•Eliade’s 16 volume encyclopedia of region. • Volume and page numbers selected at random.• Page forward until first entry that satisfies criteria for being a religion.• Repeat 36 times.• Study random sample with respect to major evolutionary hypotheses. • Results highly supportive of group-level adaptation hypothesis (Wilson 2005; available on my website).

Jainism: A cultural disease or a group-level adaptation?

Jain ascetics as police•Jain ascetics must beg for food but their food restrictions are

so severe that they can only accept food from the most upright Jain households.

• Principle of non-action means that they can only accept small amounts of food from each household.

• Inspect each household and interrogate members to insure purity.

• Leaving with food a badge of honor and leaving without food a badge of shame visible to the entire community.

• This is only one of many ways in which the Jain ascetics play an essential role in the “social physiology” of the group.

The secular utility of religion“How then, is it possible to live by impossible

ideals? The advantage for addressing this question to Jainism is that the problem is so very graphic there. The demands of Jain asceticism have a pretty good claim to be the most uncompromising of any enduring historical tradition: the most aggressively impractical set of injunctions which any large number of diverse families and communities has ever tried to live by. They have done so, albeit in a turbulent history of change, schism, and occasionally recriminatory ‘reform’, for well over two millennia…

The secular utility of religion

“…This directs our attention to the fact that yawning gaps between hope and reality are not necessarily dysfunctions of social organization, or deviations from religious systems. The fact that lay Jains make up what is—in thoroughly worldly material terms—one of the most conspicuously successful communities in India, only makes more striking and visible a question which must also arise in the case of renouncers themselves

--J. Laidlaw, p 7

What counts as an individual-level adaptation?

Artificial selection for egg productivity in hens

In both experiments hens are housed in multiple groups (cages).

• Experiment 1: Select the best egg-layer within each group.

• Experiment 2: Select the best group of egg-layers in a population of groups.

Within-group selection

Between-group selection

•These hens are thriving as individuals.• Their traits did not evolve by “individual-level selection” (e.g., by causing individuals bearing the trait to survive and reproduce better than other individuals within the same group).

Implications for Evolutionary Religious Studies

• If religious participation causes members to thrive as individuals, this does not by itself provide evidence for “individual-level selection”

• We must examine the elements of religion that cause members to thrive as individuals.

• If these elements emanate from other individuals, they count as public goods, often provided at private expense.

• Paradoxically, an individual can make a purely selfish decision to join a religion because of its benefits, but that doesn’t mean that the religion can be explained purely on the basis of individual-level benefits.

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The importance of between-group dynamics

• We should not let the turbulent history of group selection in evolutionary biology deter us from recognizing the importance of between-group interactions in the study of religion.

• Group selection has become respectable again within evolutionary biology (e.g., my articles with E.O. Wilson in Quarterly Review of Biology and current issue of American Scientist).

• Hugely important in religious dynamics. • Including, but by no means restricted to, violent between-group

conflict.• Most of the religions in my random sample spread non-violently

(e.g., early Christianity, Mormonism).

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The importance of within-group dynamics

• Exploitation exists in all social systems, including those that are impressively designed to prevent it.• We should expect to find elements of within-group selection in religious systems.• Novelistic example: I.B. Singer’s The Slave

The Life Cycle of Religions

• Begin small, high need and capacity to cooperate.• Grow large, reducing both need and capacity to cooperate. • Non-cooperative strategies begin to increase in frequency within the group (this should be measurable). • Losers in within-group competition create new groups, repeating the cycle. • This is a truly multilevel theory of religion that accords importance to more than one level.

Byproduct hypotheses revisited

• Byproduct hypotheses need to be evaluated separately for genetic and cultural evolution.

• Example of genetic byproduct hypothesis: Use of kinship terminology, “hyperactive agent detection device” etc. evolved as genetic adaptations without reference to religion, and then became the basis for religious belief.

• Even if true, these elements of religion might continue to trigger inappropriate behaviors or serve as highly adaptive building block in current-day religions.

• Most current-day adaptations began as byproducts (=exaptations).

Byproduct hypotheses revisited

Byproduct Adaptation

GeneticEvolution

CulturalEvolution

X

X

Many byproduct theorists are concerned primarily with genetic evolution and comfortable with the possibility of religion as acultural adaptation.

In addition, two of the most fundamental aspects of religion evolved directly as genetic

adaptations

1) Religions as moral systems (the essence of Durkheim’s definition)

2) Why religious beliefs often defy the canons of rational thought and empirical evidence.

Stone throwing--the first human adaptation?

LOW-COST SOCIAL CONTROL

FACTUAL VS. PRACTICAL REALISM

All beliefs can be evaluated according to two criteria:

1) How well to they represent the real world (factual realism)?

2) How do they cause individuals to behave in the real world (practical realism)?

3) The mind is designed to maximize practical realism.

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FACTUAL VS. PRACTICAL REALISM

4) How beliefs score on the basis of factual realism depends upon the trade-off between factual vs. practical realism.

5) Sometimes the trade-off is positive (e.g. knowing the precise location of one’s prey).

6) Sometimes the trade-off is negative—beliefs become more adaptive by becoming less factually realistic.

7) The irrational nature of adaptive beliefs associated with religion is totally unsurprising—and present from the beginning of human evolution.

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Religions and Stealth Religions

• Adaptive distortions of factual reality are not confined to religious belief!

• Patriotic histories of nations• Ideological beliefs of all sorts• Free market fundamentalism• Atheism as a stealth religion--Ayn Rand--The New Atheistshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-

wilson/#blogger_bio

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Explaining religious diversity as similar to ecological diversity

• Human cultures as like biological species

• Obvious at a course scale (e.g., arctic and desert people adapted to their respective environments).

• Also true where less expected.

• Conservative vs. Liberal cultures adapted to Low vs. High Existential Security.

• Sacred and Secular by P. Norris and R. Inglehart.

•With Ingrid Storm, comparison of conservative vs. liberal Protestant denominations (in press, Human Nature).

Liberalism and Conservatism as “cultural species” adapted to

different environments• Liberals and conservatives dumbfounded by each other. • A cultural difference at least as great as religious vs. non-

religious. • Liberalism/Conservatism and Religious/Non-religious vary

in all combinations! • Extensive social science literature.• Applying the intuition of an evolutionary ecologist.

Liberalism• Liberalism places a premium on individuals as “agentic”,

actively experimenting to achieve new solutions. The guiding assumption is that the best solutions have not yet been discovered, so that new things are at least potentially good. The value of discovering new solutions outweigh the costs of error.

• One niche for liberalism: very fast-changing environments. • Another niche: cumulative cultural change in stable,

affluent societies, high in “existential security” . • Experimentation requires time, energy, safety, education,

etc.

Conservatism• Conservatism places a premium on obedience to authority.

This does not necessarily mean an incapacity for change--as long as the change is initiated by the authorities. Obedience requires clear-cut distinctions between “right” and “wrong” Rules are followed because they are the rules, and they are not to be questioned by anyone other than the authority.

• Elites interested in preserving the status quo• Dangerous and uncertain environments low in “existential

security” that do not provide enough time, energy, safety, education, etc. for individuals to function as their own moral agents.

• Environments that create a strong need for immediate collective action.

Conservative childrearing practices

“Obedience is the foundation for all character. It is the foundation for the home. It is the foundation for a school. It is the foundation for a society. It is absolutely necessary for law and order to prevail. “

--Hyles, J. (1972). How to rear children. Hammond: Hyles-Anderson.

“But what if parents command something wrong?” This is precocious inquisitiveness. Such a question should perish on the lips of a Christian child.

--L. Christenson (1970). The Christian family. Minneapolis: Bethany

House.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The Experience Sampling Method (ESM)

• Day divided into 2-hour segments.

• Individuals are “beeped” once at a random time within each segment.

• Fill out a short questionnaire recording their immediate experience.

Information gathered with every beep

• Where were you?

• What were you doing?

• Who were you with? • What were you thinking?

Item # Item1 How well were you concentrating?2 Were you living up to the expectations of others?3 Was it hard to concentrate?4 Did you feel self-conscious or embarrassed? 5 Did you feel good about yourself? 6 Did you enjoy what you were doing? 7 Were you living up to your expectations? 8 Did you feel in control of the situation? 9 Did you expect to get what you want easily?

Describe your feelings as you were beeped on scale from..10 Sad-Happy11 Weak-Strong12 Passive-Active13 Lonely-Sociable14 Ashamed-Proud15 Detached-Involved16 Bored-Excited17 Confused-Clear18 Worried-Relaxed19 Competitive-Cooperative20 Discouraged-Hopeful21 Tired-Alert

Indicate how you felt about the main activity22 Challenges of the activity23 Skills in the activity24 Was this activity important to you? 25 How difficult did you find this activity?26 Were you succeeding at what you were doing?27 Did you wish you had been doing something else? 28 Was this activity interesting? 29 How important was it to your future goals?30 How angry did you feel? 31 Were you making the best possible use of your time?32 What did the people you were with think of you? 33 Did you feel any physical pain or discomfort?

Advantages of the ESM

• Similar to the point sampling method in animal behavior research.

• As close as psychological research gets to the field studies that provide the foundation for EEB research in nonhuman species.

The Sloan Study of youth and social development

• Multimillion dollar study of how young people prepare to enter the workforce.

• Thousands of American high school students nationwide.

• Our study focuses on a comparison of teenagers belonging to liberal vs. conservative protestant denominations.

• Everyone is American• Everyone is a teenager• Everyone comes from the same major religious tradition.

In these respects, they are culturally uniform.

• But some are Episcopalians and others are Pentecostals (for example).

This cultural difference creates astonishing differences in how the teenagers respond to their environments--what in evolutionary terms we would call their norms of reaction.

0.5

0.55

0.6

0.65

0.7

0.75

0.8

0.85

0.9

0.95

no

yes, somewhat

yes, very

Do you think of yourself as a religious person?

In my family, we express

opinions even when they differ

Liberal

Conservative

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

1 2 3 4 5

In my family, I am the one to decide

which friends I can spend time with

Do you usually feel stressed?

LiberalConservative

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

Liberal Conservative

Protestant group

Time spent alone

3.6

3.8

4

4.2

4.4

4.6

4.8

alone not alone

Bored - Excited

Liberal

Conservative

4.6

4.8

5

5.2

5.4

5.6

5.8

6

alone not aloneDid you wish you had been doing something else?

Liberal

Conservative

6

6.5

7

7.5

8

8.5

9

9.5

alone not alone

Did not feel self-conscious or

embarrassed

Liberal

Conservative

4.2

4.4

4.6

4.8

5

5.2

5.4

not with relative with relative

Lonely - Sociable

Liberal

Conservative

4.6

4.8

5

5.2

5.4

5.6

5.8

not with relative with relative

Sad - Happy

Liberal

Conservarive

Worldwide variation in religiosity

Adaptation vs. Drift

• Conference on the golden rule in religions around the world.

• Bard College’s Institute for Advanced Theology

• Funded by Templeton Foundation.

• A love-fest?

• I needn’t have worried!

The Golden Rule takes a beating!

• Most enduring religions promote prosociality in a broad sense.

• Don’t all embody the Golden Rule in any narrow sense.

• Don’t use the Golden Rule to derive specific behavioral prescriptions.

• Even the story about Rabbi Hillel standing on one foot was not about the golden rule!

The Golden Rule takes a beating!• Judaism based on “measure for measure,” not

“Do unto others”

• The Golden Rule wouldn’t last a day in Hellenic society.

• The Golden Rule makes no sense whatsoever in hierarchical Confucian society.

• ”The Golden Rules of Religion”

• All compatible with the concept of religious diversity as like species diversity

The positive vs. negative form of the Golden Rule

• Has been claimed to be an important difference between Judaism and Christianity.

• Scholar after scholar reported that the difference was not salient for their particular religion.

• A potential example of a neutral religious trait subject to drift.

• Worth documenting in detail to illustrate the concept of religious drift and how it can be documented in the same way as genetic drift.

The proximate/ultimate distinction is similar to the vertical/horizontal distinction in

religious thoughtA noun derived from the verb aslama (“to submit or

surrender [to God]”), designates the act by which an individual recognizes his or her relationship to the divine and, at the same time, the community of all of those who respond in submission. It describes, therefore, both the singular vertical relationship between the human being and God and the collective, horizontal relationship of all who join together in common faith and practice (v 7 p 119).

Two kinds of religious diversity

• Functional diversity• A diversity of potential proximate

mechanisms for any given behavior• “many ways to skin a cat”

Belief in a glorious afterlife

• Often thought to be a religious fundamental.• It would be if the purpose of religion is to

allay fear of death. • Highly variable among religions• Even largely absent from Judaism• One of many potential proximate

mechanisms for motivating behavior.

Abrahamic religions, Eastern religions, Confusianism, atheism

• Highly variable in their belief systems, from anthropomorphic to utterly pragmatic.

• All designed in their own ways to coordinate group life.

• Exactly what we’d expect from a cultural evolutionary perspective, when we keep the proximate/ultimate distinction in mind.

Individual differences within a religious tradition

• Even many devout Christians understand the utilitarian nature of their own beliefs.

• Miles Horton and his Mother

From his autobiography

“One day I went to my mother and said, “I don’t know, this predestination doesn’t make any sense to me, I don’t believe any of this. I guess I shouldn’t be in this church.”

From his autobiography

“Mom laughed and said, “Don’t bother about that, that’s not important, that’s just preacher’s talk. The only thing that’s important is that you’ve got to love your neighbor.” She didn’t say “Love God,” she said “Love your neighbor, that’s all it’s all about.” …It was a good nondoctrinaire background, and it gave me a sense of what was right and what was wrong.”

Is it possible for there to be a vibrant religion that also respects

factual reality? Michael DowdThank God for Evolution!http://www.thegreatstory.org/who_we_are.html