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?
December 31st, 2009 at 9:35 am
I was very happy to learn about the project Evolution of Religion and the gathering of astute scholars in the field, to enlighten the very fundamental question of the origin of human belief. When looking at the gowns and gadgets of the clergy, the similarity with the plumage of the peacock is striking, both phenomena being overt examples of Nature’s splendour that paradoxical as it may seem, has gained value for the survival and promotion of the two species. It is clear to me that religion is an inexorable expense that evolution has been willing to pay, at least hitherto, for the creation of an intelligent being who eventually must fathom the conundrum of the limits of time, space and energy. I will follow the home page and the progress of your project with great interest. Good luck!
March 19th, 2010 at 12:33 am
Why are there no women involved in your work? Considering the topic … I would consider having a female perspective would be important and essential.
February 4th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
Well, the problem of the approach of most evolutionary psychologists towards religion is that they presuppose without evidence the truth of reductive materialism:, namely that the mind, our emotions and our thoughts, can be fully reduced to the interactions of molecules.
Assuming that, they then wonder: but why do so many people believe they have a soul, and that invisible beings exist, and that there is a God beyond the universe ?
By investigating the possible explanations, they fully rule out the possibility that people have these beliefs because they may be partially true.
They have therefore to resort to materialistic explanations like the idea we are deceived by this hyperactive agent detection device.
But let us examine the problem of religion’s origin from an other standpoint: let us just assume, like many modern philosophers, that feelings (qualia) and thoughts are immaterial, that they are a part of nature, but irreducible to material processes.
Thomas Nagel argued for example that the full knowdlege of the neuronal processes going on in a bat sending out signals can not show us how it is felt by the bat itself, and that therefore subjectivity is something radically different from the material world studied by science.
If one presupposes this is truly the case, the explanation of religion’s appearance looks quite different: people are rightly aware that their feelings, thoughts and personality is something different from matter, and they infer that other humans and animals must also have this kind of subjective experience, they form thus their own theory of mind in this way.
Like philosopher Keith Ward argued, since their immaterial mind is the first reality they encounter, they intuitively think that there may be also invisible minds, and that the ultimate reality itself must rather be something spiritual rather than material.
The fear of death, coupled with the queerness of their own existence may then lead them to believe they are immortal.
Note that my non-reductive account of religion may be fully naturalistic, if one accepts that subjective feelings, ideas, and concepts like mathematical truths are a part of nature, although not reducible to matter.
Likewise, I am not a dualist in the traditional sense: I believe that the immaterial feelings, thoughts which makes us a person emerge from the brain and are completely dependent on it, and would disappear if the brain was damaged.
According to my non-reductive theory, people began to believe in immaterial spirits mainly because they were puzzled and amazed by the non-material character of their being which they intuitively recognized.
Now, many religious beliefs could be false of course: it is quite possible, like Thomas Nagel postulated, that nature does not only consist of matter but also of ideas and the potentiality for subjectivity , but that there is no God, no invisible spirits, and no afterlife. By the way, I believe there are strong reasons for believing so, like the problem of evil and poor design in nature.
Basically, I don’t agree with the evolutionary psychologists because they assume the truth of reductive materialism and limit the possible explanations to material processes, although many philosophers of mind hold a non reductive position.