[quote=“gao_bo_han”] [quote=“Erhu”]
This assumes that there are no survival advantages of belief in a higher power today. However, studiesshow that there is a clear link between health (both physical and mental) and religious faith. I would argue that this still puts those of us who have some sort of faith at an evolutionary advantage over those who don’t.[/quote]
I disagree with your conclusion. In the link you provided, the subjects who faired the best were the most religious. High levels of personal religiosity and high levels of church attendance and participation in religious activities accounted for less depression, less illness, less propensity for smoking cigarettes, etc. in patients compared to those with low levels of personal religiosity, church attendance, and participation in other religion activities. The studies were not between those with “some sort of faith” versus people with no faith, but between those with very strong faith versus those with weaker faith. [/quote]
True that. I attribute my words “some sort of faith” to my PC American background which prevents me from making strong exclusionary statements, especially when talking about matters of faith. Of course, based on the evidence, I should have said that those of us with strong religious faith have an evolutionary advantage over those who don’t. I stand by that conclusion.
[quote=“gao_bo_han”]
I need to do some more reading on the subject before I comment further. After I read Dennett’s “Breaking the Spell” I will probably resurrect this thread. Anybody read it? [/quote]
I haven’t read it yet, but it looks interesting. If Dennett’s premise is that there is a rational explanation for religious beliefs, then I agree with that. However, I assume that he’s coming at it from the vantage point of one who doesn’t believe that “God” exists, and I am coming from the vantage point of one who does. I’ll give it a read if I can get my hands on it. I’m not threatened by others’ disbelief, as I believe that science is not oppositional to faith in God.
I believe that if we look, we can find God with both our eyes and with our hearts.
I don’t know about physical health, but I find that mental illness and religious faith often go together extremely well. Foucault talks about how, back in the day, the mentally ill were often seen as ‘oracles.’ Dostoyevsky’s “Idiot” seems to also draw some power from the confluence of epilepsy and christianity. So it can go either way.
Although I believe in the theory of evolution, it’s pretty imperfect. Consider the appendix, aka ‘vermiform appendage.’ Some people think it still has a use, others believe it’s totally unused by the human body. It can be removed without any ill effects.
[quote]The most common explanation is that the appendix is a vestigial structure with no current purpose. In The Story of Evolution Joseph McCabe argued thus:
The vermiform appendage—in which some recent medical writers have vainly endeavoured to find a utility—is the shrunken remainder of a large and normal intestine of a remote ancestor. This interpretation of it would stand even if it were found to have a certain use in the human body. Vestigial organs are sometimes pressed into a secondary use when their original function has been lost.
[/quote]
Well, that’s just it. It’s these shifts that matter most. Religion encourages marriage and child-bearing, sacrifice, group cooperation, and other behaviors that are likely to replicate themselves The Mormons (and others like the Mormons) will inherit the earth, while liberal feminist atheists will fail to reproduce either their values or themselves.
We’re not talking about religion causing physical evolution, but evolution creating a tendency to create religion (just as we do language). That’s just the kind of animal we are.
Greek drama was originally a religious event, so yeah, I can accept that the participants would have much the same psychological experiences of it that we moderns have been known to have at rock concerts or Megdugorje (sp?) or whatnot. But we know there were atheists and mockers of religion back then, and that the poets were often accused of inventing stuff. Funny how Jaynes leaves Homer feeling that his generation and ours are utterly different, while my impression was the opposite–that we are basically similar.
Funny how a lot of scientific types seem to go around using language that describes evolution as if it was directed by some intelligence. They talk about species’ “solutions” to problems, the changes they have “made” to their bodies in order to survive and prosper. Spare organs are “pressed into” use by some kind of mass decision to somehow direct how our bodies will work.
For evolutionary theory to hold water, aren’t the mutations supposed to be random and be passed on when they confer an advantage? To describe evolutionary change as being in response to the environment surely implies that there is some form of conscious control by someone?
“Gee, that beach sure looks nice. Think I’ll grow me some lungs and go take a look.”
Yup. Random changes are not purposeful. Their differential survivability is not purposeful, and the population-level changes which follow are a result of (not in purposeful response to) the environment.
Oh, and BTW, mutations can also be passed along even when they don’t confer an advantage, as long as they don’t confer a disadvantage which overwhelms any advantages – especially in situations where the environment allows survival by most or all individuals.
Both the theory and the action are imperfect, I’m saying, D-bone.
Here we are, many centuries into the evolutionary process, and religion is still with us. Some people argue that this in itself is a good thing. Let’s just assume for one moment that it is, and that it’s a “good” aspect of humanity that has been preserved by evolution, and that that itself is a justification for both religious belief and evolution as a theory.
OK. Here’s another aspect of humanity that has been with us all the way through evolution: Rape. Rape, I guess, is something that only humans can do: animals don’t seem to have the ability to consent (they may pick their partners in the wild, depending on the species, i know). And from a strictly reproductive, animal point of view, this could be seen as a “good” aspect of humanity. However, most educated people (even one as stupid as me) consider it to be a horrid aberration and one that should be prohibited by law. I doubt there is even one primitive or civilized culture in the world, though, where it doesn’t happen regularly.
Religious belief is a naturally-occuring phenomenon, OK. So is rape. Both have survived the evolutionary process — something that humanity can’t yet control. But we, as humans, recognize that rape is a ‘darker element’ of the human psyche, and that we have to protect ourselves as a species from encouraging it, through the establishment of laws — something humanity can control.
[quote=“The Raven”]For evolutionary theory to hold water, aren’t the mutations supposed to be random and be passed on when they confer an advantage? To describe evolutionary change as being in response to the environment surely implies that there is some form of conscious control by someone?
“Gee, that beach sure looks nice. Think I’ll grow me some lungs and go take a look.”[/quote]
I think when people talk about evolutionary change being in response to the environment they are talking about a change that takes place within a species over a given period of time. I don’t think anyone has your beach-viewing lung-grower in mind.
Imagine a population of brown rabbits living in Wiltshire, for example. Imagine that Wiltshire suddenly undergoes a mini ice age. If the ice age goes on long enough maybe the number of rabbits with white fur increases (because those few who randomly happen to be born with white fur survive and reproduce more successfully than their brown-furred friends). Eventually, almost all of them have white fur.
While it would be silly to think that any of the individual rabbits thought to themselves “Hey, I’ll bet I’d be harder to see if I had white fur. I’ll have to work on evolving myself a white coat”, I don’t think it would be unreasonable for someone to say: [color=black]Over many generations, the rabbits of Wiltshire changed their colour in response to the environment.[/color]
No they didn’t. They didn’t change anything, it changed by itself. It didn’t change “in response to” anything, a random mutation simply became the dominant trait due to the fact that it conferred a greater advantage in a changed environment. The random mutation would have happened anyway, but would have disappeared if it made the rabbits easier to see. It became dominant “as a result of”, not “in response to” the environment.
The point is not whether evolution takes place, it can be seen to happen even if you believe that everything was created in the first instance. But there is still room for disagreement about how it happens. And supposedly rational people talk about the process in terms that seem to contradict the point they’re trying to make. They’re saying that it’s totally random, but happens “in response to” something and they usually describe it actively rather than passively. “The rabbits changed their colour,” rather than “the colour of the rabbits changed”. It’s an important distinction.
Why don’t scientists talk using language that accurately describes what (they say) happens when they talk about evolution? Why do atheists use language that infers some conscious control over evolution, instead of describing it in terms that clearly leave the God hypothesis in the cold? It’s easy to do, but they don’t. Why not?
All right. The dominant color of a population of rabbits in a certain area changed as a result of enviromental changes that caused the pre-existing color to become hazardous to the population’s health. I think it’s an accidental anthropomorphizing, and I don’t think it detracts that much from the argument.
Humans, unlike rabbits, think they have some kind of free will and can choose to be religious or not. The legal system that most countries have these days backs them up on this: it says that they can choose whether to rape and murder, unless they are found to be mentally incompetent. But legal issues aside, philosophically it’s still unclear whether humans can make decisions or whether those decisions are a result of pre-existing environmental conditions.
Many humans feel they are in control of their own destiny, for sure. They also feel they are able to choose to believe in a religion. This too may be a vestigial appendage.
Although I basically agree, there are good reasons for strict eschewal of phrasing which suggests purposefulness. Not only does it lead to misunderstandings among those who don’t have a full grasp of evolutionary theory, but even those who do may soon slip into erroneous assumptions such as the notion that any existing trait must be advantageous, and so on.
Free will, if it exists, would apply at the level of individuals, not at the macro level of generalized human behavior (much of which seems to be urged on by various hormones, whose mix is in turn genetically determined). Given a large enough group, we become the slaves of statistics.
But humans do try to make free will operate on a macro level. That’s why voters go to the polls to choose their leaders in a democratic country (if you believe that democracy works). And those leaders elected today will have more effect on the environment than many who preceded them. I don’t wanna drag in global warming, but suffice it to say it’s still a topic of heated debate. The elected leaders of democracies (and some unelected ones too) are going to make the decisions that combat or encourage global warming (if it exists or is a result of human behavior). The illusion of free will has already been applied on a macro and even global scale, in this case.
If religious belief is a result of evolution, would that mean the the more religiously fanatical amongst us are more evolved? Would it also mean that those who see religion for what it truly is are even higher up the evolutionary ladder?
I doubt that…Group solidarity? Group solidarity can be as well defined as by nationality as by religion…regardless in today’s world I hardly think it makes a difference since group solidarity isn’t a requirement for survival.
The only advantage I can think of is that religious peoples’ tend to be less money orientated. Thus having more children is less of a hindrance and the people who have the most children are the most successful in evolutionary terms.
[quote=“Erhu”]
I believe that if we look, we can find God with both our eyes and with our hearts.[/quote]
I don’t believe faith-based statements belong in this thread…lets not confuse science and religion like some parts of the U.S. (sorry I couldn’t resist)
I don’t believe individuals can be classified as more evolved than other individuals. Otherwise perhaps you can claim that less hairy people, more intelligent people etc. And then you can start looking at characteristics at a racial level, as pretty soon you’ve found that you’ve got a little black moustache and stop bending your knees when you walk.
[quote=“Stray Dog”]
Would it also mean that those who see religion for what it truly is are even higher up the evolutionary ladder?[/quote]
Nope. To be most successful in evolutionary terms, its best to move to a 3rd world country (or anywhere really cheap) and have as many children as feasibly possible. Perhaps if you make enough money teaching in Taiwan, you can retire to the Philipines and support 5 wives and have 100 children.
So looking at the world today, its the worlds poor and rural citizens who are the most successful in evolutionary terms. Clearly technological progress and financial success, do not bode well for your genes.
