RE: Evolutionary explanation of religion
November 27, 2020 at 9:04 pm
(This post was last modified: November 27, 2020 at 9:10 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
I'd say any digression into identifying a gene or sequence of genes or pattern of heredity is a necessary one to insisting that a salient detail of god belief finds a credible explanation in evolutionary biology. As it stands, with no evidence in it's favor, evidence which we would expect to find if it were false readily apparent, and the existence of better explanations....it's just doesn't seem like a fit.
The belief that someone or something watches over us and guides our way is not interchangeable with a belief in gods. That belief is common to current and historic hunter gatherer societies and we suspect it was common to prehistoric ones as well. Largely due to surveys regarding the homology of existing and historic beliefs combined with the similarities in cultural artifact production between those beliefs and prehistoric sites, both of which can be mapped in-time. God belief is comparatively rare in that homology, and we suspect it would have been even more so before the point at which all the evidence we have of definite god beliefs show up in the archaeological record.
We're going to be as hard pressed to describe our metrics for comparative refinement of this or that idea as we are to find evidence of evolutionary biology meaningfully explaining god beliefs. Which period of tens of thousands of years do we have in mind? All of our religious beliefs map to teleological thinking, not just the very specific set of god beliefs. This doesn't set them apart or explain why we selected them over others.
The utility of a god belief to the organization and preservation of a society or culture appears, for all the world and by all the evidence we have, to be the salient set of facts. The belief in and of itself may not be the operative part of that, even. As we see god beliefs assume their underlying normative content from a range of places and make changes to it (and, ultimately, transition to secular normativity). All of this, ostensibly, that refinement™ towards some goal or another. We'd have to establish that god belief isn't a free rider, right off the bat.
The belief that someone or something watches over us and guides our way is not interchangeable with a belief in gods. That belief is common to current and historic hunter gatherer societies and we suspect it was common to prehistoric ones as well. Largely due to surveys regarding the homology of existing and historic beliefs combined with the similarities in cultural artifact production between those beliefs and prehistoric sites, both of which can be mapped in-time. God belief is comparatively rare in that homology, and we suspect it would have been even more so before the point at which all the evidence we have of definite god beliefs show up in the archaeological record.
We're going to be as hard pressed to describe our metrics for comparative refinement of this or that idea as we are to find evidence of evolutionary biology meaningfully explaining god beliefs. Which period of tens of thousands of years do we have in mind? All of our religious beliefs map to teleological thinking, not just the very specific set of god beliefs. This doesn't set them apart or explain why we selected them over others.
The utility of a god belief to the organization and preservation of a society or culture appears, for all the world and by all the evidence we have, to be the salient set of facts. The belief in and of itself may not be the operative part of that, even. As we see god beliefs assume their underlying normative content from a range of places and make changes to it (and, ultimately, transition to secular normativity). All of this, ostensibly, that refinement™ towards some goal or another. We'd have to establish that god belief isn't a free rider, right off the bat.
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