The Evolution of Religion
Posted 04 May 2009 by DominicRecent years have seen an explosion of interest in the idea that religion may be a product of evolution. Many prominent authors, such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, argue that religion is an evolutionary accident—a by-product of big human brains.
We suggest exactly the opposite hypothesis. If religious beliefs and behaviors promoted survival and reproduction in our ancestral past, then they may have been favored by natural selection over human evolutionary history. This would mean that religious beliefs and behaviors are “adaptive”, and that religion evolved as a natural product of Darwinian processes. Religion may thus not be an accident of evolution, but rather an example of evolution.
The “Evolution of Religion” project is dedicated to exploring this hypothesis using scientific methods from anthropology, psychology and evolutionary biology (see our aims). The main adaptive advantages of religion appear to revolve around promoting cooperation. The power of religion to promote solidarity and trust offers a remarkably effective way of solving the thorny problem of ”collective action”—how to trump individual self-interests and promote collective benefits instead. The dark side of religion’s power to promote cooperation is that, although cooperation works wonders within groups, it can exacerbate differences and conflicts between groups.
An evolutionary approach to religion does not exclude the possibility that supernatural agents are genuine (gods and evolution might coexist). However, it does suggest an alternative scientific hypothesis for the origin and persistence of religion. Evolutionary theories of religion are important because if belief in supernatural agents and related phenomena were subject to natural selection, then religious beliefs and behaviors are likely to be deeply ingrained features of human cognition, difficult to alter and unlikely to disappear from human culture anytime soon. Although it appears that many cultures around the globe are becoming more secular, the proportion of believers is growing, and even atheists are not immune from common perceptions of supernatural causation in everyday life—as E.O. Wilson wrote, “The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology” (Consilience, p.292). Our ability to understand, predict, and intervene in religious conflicts around the world will be incomplete without a solid scientific understanding of religion’s evolutionary origins, adaptive functions, and cognitive mechanisms.
Edinburgh is a fitting base for our project, where Charles Darwin spent two formative years at Edinburgh University Medical School from 1825-1827. Given the times in which Darwin arrived in Edinburgh, it is likely that his creative ideas were fueled by the Scottish Enlightenment. As described by the Head of Collections at Edinburgh University: “We have one of the greatest intellectual fireworks displays that ever happened in Europe. And then one of the greatest minds which the UK ever produces happens to settle on it. You would expect something very important to happen” (How Edinburgh Inspired Darwin’s Origin of Species, The Times, February 2009).
The timing is also fitting—2009 is the anniversary of Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. It is striking that it has taken a century and a half for scientists to seriously think about whether religious beliefs and behaviors, like other beliefs and behaviors, may be subject to the evolutionary processes that Darwin first revealed.
Edinburgh University is celebrating Darwin’s birthday with a variety of seminars, exhibitions, and tours throughout 2009. We are celebrating by launching a project to address perhaps the greatest challenge yet for Darwinism and evolutionary biology: does its power extend to explaining even the phenomenon that was long thought to lie beyond the realm of science?
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