Religion as a product of evolution

Religion vs evolution? No, religion as a product/result of evolution!


As we experience life, we build a model of reality that enable us to cope with it, more or lesss succesfully, later. The success is not dependent on the rightness/accuracy of the model, but on it's "fitness".

What if irrationality in humans and/or religions ( /images/graemlins/smile.gif ) was just an evolutionary product that prevents us from freezing on the spot when we have an inaccurate or inadequate model, as when we don't/can't make a decision fast enough. I would see such a mechanism as very advantageous to the species and the individual.

To get the ball rolling, could I suggest a read of this article in the The Guardian (http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/scienceandnature/story/0,6000,1557073,00.html) . This gives good background/context for this question. It is rather longish, but very gripping /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Enjoy


MidGe

[sexdrugsmoney]

Déjà vu

Correct and my apologies if that is not according to the posting rules. I'll incorporate it in my model of "what/how to post" on 2+2 /images/graemlins/smile.gif

I did it because it offered a different slant from my first mention of it, I thought it had sufficient importance on it's own, and, I was seeking views without hijacking the other thread.

Noted /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[benkahuna]

I recommend Descartes's Error by Antonio Damasio. He discusses in detail the necessariness of emotion and the ability to make arbitrary decisions.
The case of Phineas Gage is both amusing and sad, like most strange psych disorders.
Religion seems mostly to take advantage of the need for life to have meaning as a mechanism for social control. It's not the only route to irrationality, nor does irrationality seem necessary, per se.

benkahuna,

Unfortunately, I was dissatisfied with Descartes statement a very lomg time ago. The only thing you can infer from "I am thinking", is , that there is thinking.. not that there is a thinker.

[benkahuna]

That has nothing to do with the book. And the book criticizes Descartes, too, hence his error.

benkahuna,

on re-reading your post, I realise my mistake. We both agree: Descartes was wrong /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Sorry for my mistake /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Yes I'd bet that religion has been a result of evolution

One simple argument that comes to mind is that if there was a war between two civilisations, with one being mostly religious and the other being mostly atheist, my money would be put on the religous to win

[benkahuna]

Yes, because nothing says evolved like the ability to destroy other members of your gene pool!

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Yes, because nothing says evolved like the ability to destroy other members of your gene pool!

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It sounds like you're being sarcastic, but you're right...

[benkahuna]

Exactly, genetic diversity within a population has never shown any value. I can think of no more useful trait in terms of competitive advantage than skill in self-destruction.

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I can think of no more useful trait in terms of competitive advantage than skill in self-destruction.

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I'm not sure what you mean exactly here, but being able to destroy members of your species that are very very distant relatives can increase the chance that your decendents will have more decendets, that's what I mean

[benkahuna]

I'm being completely sarcastic here, all the way. I'll give you a real response.

Your reasoning is flawed. A bigger gene pool is considered the greatest possible insurance against total annihilation when environmental conditions change. Competitive self-destruction, at the very least, results in a lowering of the gene pool. Obviously when there's a competition for resources, interspecies competition becomes useful, but the problem is that the merits of those that live and those that don't, from an evolutionary perspective should be the individuals most capable of reproducing fertile offspring in non-contrived scenarios.

By your argument, Americans have greater evolutionary fitness because they're more skillful at destroying other groups of people than those other people are capable of destroying Americans. If we were talking about a level playing field involving hand to hand or other non assymetrical combat, this might be true. As it now stands, the tremendous nutritional, economical, technological and training advantages offered by US armed forces make all combat highly assymetrical (even considering the urban combat and other weaknesses of US forces). Thus, military might is not necessarily positively correlated with economic fitness at all. It could even be negatively correlated with that fitness as with scarce resources and difficult conditions, the more robust, efficient individuals would be more likely to survive. It only matters if they die before they're able to reproduce fertile offspring, naturally.

Additionally, anti-social tendencies within a population need to have their disruptive and self-destructive tendencies not outweigh the benefits derived from cooperation and benevolence. They do not always. Some aggressive tendencies directed toward the same shared gene pool (a species) merely lead to decreased chances of survivability of a species. You find frequent examples in the animal kingdom of interspecies competition. However, you also find they rarely kill or permanently maim each other, instead opting for other means of securing reproductive rights, territory, or other access to needed resources. Humans on the other hand wipe out large portions of only mildly different ethnic groups.

The benefits of an aggressive, militaristic and destructive species may come from contact with hostile otherworldly entities, but if we damage ourselves before such a contact were to occur, it would not be helpful.

Killing other species member may benefit your genes, but at the expense of the gene pool and increased chances of species survivability.

For the most part, I was making fun of your argument because it's not logical. Military might =/> (does not imply) evolutionary fitness.

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A bigger gene pool is considered the greatest possible insurance against total annihilation when environmental conditions change.

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It would appear that humans have had almost no chance of being annihilated for about the last 10,000 years I'd say, Basically the point in time where humans had spread throughout the world, every continent except Antarctica, and it is only in this recent time when we have had civilisations at war with each other


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By your argument, Americans have greater evolutionary fitness because they're more skillful at destroying other groups of people than those other people are capable of destroying Americans.

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The evolutionary pressure I am postulating I don't think exists today, I think it existed from about 10,000 years ago to about 500 hundred years ago or so


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You find frequent examples in the animal kingdom of interspecies competition. However, you also find they rarely kill or permanently maim each other, instead opting for other means of securing reproductive rights, territory, or other access to needed resources. Humans on the other hand wipe out large portions of only mildly different ethnic groups.


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Well, animals don't seem to form social groups the way we humans do, I think we are a unique animal in that way

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You find frequent examples in the animal kingdom of interspecies competition. However, you also find they rarely kill or permanently maim each other, instead opting for other means of securing reproductive rights, territory, or other access to needed resources. Humans on the other hand wipe out large portions of only mildly different ethnic groups.


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Yeah basically I am saying that as of about 10,000 years ago or so human survivability has not been a problem at all

[benkahuna]

I think assuming survivability is almost assured is an attitude lacking in imagination. One good knock from a decent asteroid and almost all of us our history.

Your timeline for the usefulness of warlike behavior is arbitrary. I don't see why being warlike and self-destructive would have been good then, but isn't now.

Animals form different social groups. That's true, but why still would killing each other be good if we form different social groups. Animals get to form harems. Lucky guys...

Even in warfare 500 years ago or more, technology still ruled the day. Maybe the traits leading to better technology were favorable, making societies successful at war more fit, but only as sideproduct of another useful trait, like creativity.

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I think assuming survivability is almost assured is an attitude lacking in imagination. One good knock from a decent asteroid and almost all of us our history.

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True, but what's relevent is that I reckon that killing off an occaisonal civilization will not affect the chances of humans surviving

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Your timeline for the usefulness of warlike behavior is arbitrary. I don't see why being warlike and self-destructive would have been good then, but isn't now.

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Well I don't know why, but from about -10,000 to -500 years seems to be where entire civilisations/cultures have been destroyed, but recently I can't recall this happening. I may be off by a few thousands years, I'm not a historian, but I do know of many times this has happened in the timeframe I specified

But yeah, for some reason this has seemed to have stopped happening recently, not sure why. There are still losers, but their culture seems to survive loosing the war

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Animals form different social groups. That's true, but why still would killing each other be good if we form different social groups. Animals get to form harems. Lucky guys...

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To sum it up I'm basically thinking "suvival of the fittest social group". And as you said groups killing other groups doesn't seem to happen with non-human animals because there overall species survival is not assured

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Even in warfare 500 years ago or more, technology still ruled the day. Maybe the traits leading to better technology were favorable, making societies successful at war more fit, but only as sideproduct of another useful trait, like creativity.

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Well I can't really argue against that, it's a chicken and egg question and I don't see any evidence pointing to one or the other

[benkahuna]

Destroying an occasional civilization seems likely to hurt, rather than no affect, the chances for survivability of the human species. Unique adaptations to their environmental conditions, a few uniquely robust or talented individuals, etc.

There have been a number of nations and clans in North America that have essentially gone extinct in the time period you've described. The same goes for some other indigenous groups in other parts of the world. Given the greater time period these groups have had in particular environments, wiping out such people would throw away all the adaptations that these people have for local conditions (disease, environmental toxins, weather, better digestion of local foods, etc.). Wiping out their knowledge sets is a setback for humanity as well.

You mistake what I said. I was mainly pointing out that animals often don't cripple or kill each other, questioning why it would be useful for humans to do so. I made no point about the relative likelihood of their species surviving. I do think our likelihood of survival is greater than any other animal because we seem to be the most able to adapt and thrive in the widest variety of environments.

It is a chicken and egg argument which doesn't strengthen your idea that being warlike is beneficial in an evolutionary sense. I was just trying to be fair and open-minded suggesting that maybe there was a factor that contributed to warlike behavior that meant those people had an advantage and that success in violent conflict was correlated with, but not responsible for the evolutionary advantage.

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Destroying an occasional civilization seems likely to hurt, rather than no affect, the chances for survivability of the human species. Unique adaptations to their environmental conditions, a few uniquely robust or talented individuals, etc.

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ok let me ask this:

Some one proposes to wipe Europe right now, every single living person there. How much has the chances we will survive for the next 200 years changed?

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There have been a number of nations and clans in North America that have essentially gone extinct in the time period you've described. The same goes for some other indigenous groups in other parts of the world. Given the greater time period these groups have had in particular environments, wiping out such people would throw away all the adaptations that these people have for local conditions (disease, environmental toxins, weather, better digestion of local foods, etc.). Wiping out their knowledge sets is a setback for humanity as well.

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It may setback overall knowledge and other things, but again, I still reckon a few hundred years after the first humans set foot in Northern America, the chances of longterm survival were very near 100%, so wiping out even half of the American population was never any real danger, there's still enough adaptations and knowledge to go around.

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It is a chicken and egg argument which doesn't strengthen your idea that being warlike is beneficial in an evolutionary sense. I was just trying to be fair and open-minded suggesting that maybe there was a factor that contributed to warlike behavior that meant those people had an advantage and that success in violent conflict was correlated with, but not responsible for the evolutionary advantage.

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Yes, like I said, I can't argue against that, it seems just as plausible, but no more no less IMO

[benkahuna]

I can't answer how much wiping out Europe hurts us because I have no way to quantify this question. And I don't feel like making one up. It goes down certainly.

I think the single greatest threat to the long term survival of man is a large extraplanery body such as a large comet or meteor. Because of that, having as much good science worked up to colonize other worlds and get there would be helpful. We would also need to build a society so other skills would be helpful.

In 500 million years, we lose much of the earth's water due to the expansion of the sun. We'll need a new home then.

You pretty much seem to be of the attitude that if we wipe out a large group of people we'll be fine. We might, but if you really want to survive, any time you do so is taking a chance.


Back to the broader question, I often think that destructive tendencies are not even ok or neutral as you seem to think. I think that such activities problem decrease our chances of survival and are thus evolutionarily disadvantagous.

I suspect I'm being more cautious than you and also thinking more long term.

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Back to the broader question, I often think that destructive tendencies are not even ok or neutral as you seem to think. I think that such activities problem decrease our chances of survival and are thus evolutionarily disadvantagous.


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That pretty much sums up our argument, I don't think much more can be said