different from those a human engineer might choose. But religion meets this criterion with flying colors. With nothing but rituals and symbols, it deftly induces members of a community to lay aside their self-interest and make an emotional commitment to the common good, including with the sacrifice of their lives if necessary. By what conceivable means, if not by religion, could such a goal be attained?
Dawkins is another well-known biologist who argues that religious behavior is nonadaptive. Like Pinker, he agrees with the proposals by Boyer and Atran that belief in supernatural agents is a nonadaptive by-product of other brain modules. He begins by conceding that religion is ubiquitous and acknowledging that “universal features of a species demand a Darwinian explanation.” 67
Dawkins raises one possible explanation, that religious behavior could indeed have been selected for when the societies with religion wiped out those without it. This raises the question, about which biologists have differing opinions, of whether natural selection can operate at the level of groups, rather than on individuals, an issue discussed further below. All that need be noted here is that Dawkins argues group selection could occur, but not to any significant degree. Hence religion could not have become adaptive through intergroup competition, in his view.
He then notes that people die and kill for their religious beliefs, behavior which he compares to the misfiring of a moth’s navigational system when it flies into a candle flame. Since the moth’s behavior is nonadaptive, so too is religion, Dawkins argues. So what, he asks, “is the primitively advantageous trait that sometimes misfires to generate religion?” His hypothesis is that “There will be a selective advantage to child brains that possess the rule of thumb: believe, without question, whatever your grown-ups tell you.” Religious belief, in his view, spreads like a virus from parents to impressionable children, a cycle that is repeated every generation. Religion, therefore, is the accidental by-product of children’s propensity to believe what their parents tell them.
This argument seems a little stretched because nonsensical information is not of great help in the struggle for survival and seems unlikely to have been passed on for 2,000 generations in every known human society since the dispersal from Africa. Religion can impose enormous costs, just in the amount of time it takes up, as is evident from the rites of Australian Aborigines. Had religion no benefit, tribes that devoted most of their time to religious ceremonies would have been at a severe disadvantage against tribes that spent all day on military preparations.
Dawkins does not seem highly confident in his gullible child theory because he stresses it is “only an example of the kind of thing that might be the analogue of moths navigating by the moon or the stars.” But without offering any more plausible explanation he insists that “the general theory of religion as an accidental by-product—a misfiring of something useful—is the one I wish to advocate.”
Dawkins’s gullible child conjecture, like Pinker’s manipulative priest proposal, seems to be driven less by any particular evidence than by the implicit premise that religion is bad, and therefore must be nonadaptive.
Religious Behavior and Group Selection
But if religious behavior is adaptive, how did it evolve? Religion, as has been argued above, is primarily a social behavior, meaning one that exists to benefit the group. But there is a serious general problem in accounting for the evolution of social behaviors. Biologists have not yet resolved the issue, so it cannot be resolved here, but the problem is easy enough to describe. Any individual who behaves so as to benefit his group will put himself at a disadvantage with respect to other individuals who behave selfishly. This altruist, by spending time and resources to benefit others,
Dawkins is another well-known biologist who argues that religious behavior is nonadaptive. Like Pinker, he agrees with the proposals by Boyer and Atran that belief in supernatural agents is a nonadaptive by-product of other brain modules. He begins by conceding that religion is ubiquitous and acknowledging that “universal features of a species demand a Darwinian explanation.” 67
Dawkins raises one possible explanation, that religious behavior could indeed have been selected for when the societies with religion wiped out those without it. This raises the question, about which biologists have differing opinions, of whether natural selection can operate at the level of groups, rather than on individuals, an issue discussed further below. All that need be noted here is that Dawkins argues group selection could occur, but not to any significant degree. Hence religion could not have become adaptive through intergroup competition, in his view.
He then notes that people die and kill for their religious beliefs, behavior which he compares to the misfiring of a moth’s navigational system when it flies into a candle flame. Since the moth’s behavior is nonadaptive, so too is religion, Dawkins argues. So what, he asks, “is the primitively advantageous trait that sometimes misfires to generate religion?” His hypothesis is that “There will be a selective advantage to child brains that possess the rule of thumb: believe, without question, whatever your grown-ups tell you.” Religious belief, in his view, spreads like a virus from parents to impressionable children, a cycle that is repeated every generation. Religion, therefore, is the accidental by-product of children’s propensity to believe what their parents tell them.
This argument seems a little stretched because nonsensical information is not of great help in the struggle for survival and seems unlikely to have been passed on for 2,000 generations in every known human society since the dispersal from Africa. Religion can impose enormous costs, just in the amount of time it takes up, as is evident from the rites of Australian Aborigines. Had religion no benefit, tribes that devoted most of their time to religious ceremonies would have been at a severe disadvantage against tribes that spent all day on military preparations.
Dawkins does not seem highly confident in his gullible child theory because he stresses it is “only an example of the kind of thing that might be the analogue of moths navigating by the moon or the stars.” But without offering any more plausible explanation he insists that “the general theory of religion as an accidental by-product—a misfiring of something useful—is the one I wish to advocate.”
Dawkins’s gullible child conjecture, like Pinker’s manipulative priest proposal, seems to be driven less by any particular evidence than by the implicit premise that religion is bad, and therefore must be nonadaptive.
Religious Behavior and Group Selection
But if religious behavior is adaptive, how did it evolve? Religion, as has been argued above, is primarily a social behavior, meaning one that exists to benefit the group. But there is a serious general problem in accounting for the evolution of social behaviors. Biologists have not yet resolved the issue, so it cannot be resolved here, but the problem is easy enough to describe. Any individual who behaves so as to benefit his group will put himself at a disadvantage with respect to other individuals who behave selfishly. This altruist, by spending time and resources to benefit others,
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