Tue, August 15, 2006
If Evolution Created God, Then Who Created Kansas?—4:00 PM
I read this asinine article in yesterday's paper, which claims that some scientists actually theorize that the belief in God is an evolved trait. That some part of our brain's structure has evolved to believe in a "supernatural enforcer," causing us to do good when altruism is otherwise less evolutionarily advantageous than selfishness.
I don't have time to get into how ridiculously stupid this is, but it starts with the difference between biological Darwinism and social or cultural Darwinism, then swerves through the territory of John Nash's non-cooperative equilibrium. Also, the big study that's cited in the article is that some people put a drawing of some eyes next to the honor-system jar in the shared coffee room, and the contributions doubled. So, therefore, the feeling of being watched triggers that brain part and reminds them to be good.
If that's a controlled scientific experiment, then I'm a purple hermaphrodite ocelot.
The thing that bugs me about this is the same thing that bothers me about Intelligent Design: it starts from a foundation of, "This seems strange and complex. Rather than admit that it's a complicated universe, I'll embrace some flimsy explanation."
Why are people good, when avarice seems more beneficial? Maybe it's as simple as those adorable new Coke ads. They always make me want to be a better man.
AC — Tue, 8/15/06 5:12pm
This reminds of this nugget I saw in the Times today.
Bee Boy — Tue, 8/15/06 10:02pm
Nice. Hot babes who believe in evolution? I'm moving to Iceland!
"Christi" — Tue, 8/15/06 11:59pm
Kansas was the unintended by-product of "intellegent design."
"Mike" — Thu, 8/17/06 10:08pm
Wacky. I don't mind people theorizing that belief in God is somehow genetic, but that study is crazy – and I don't buy their flimsy explanation either (altruism when selfishness is more efficient).
I think research that seriously examines genetics and behavior is really interesting and very important; this study seems hokey while retreading common territory (people act nice if they think they are being watched).
Research into what affects the likelihood of religious belief should be much more interesting than a pair of eyes and a tip jar.
Could some people be more predisposed to wondering what our purpose is, why we are here, what happens next? They might be more likely to believe in God.
Then again, a different gene or combination of genes may influence whether one is more likely to adhere to instruction, a major tenet of many religions.
Then again, maybe God put the God gene in us.
Bee Boy — Thu, 8/17/06 10:52pm
Whoa. You just blew my mind.
My question is, does the structure of the brain evolve to promote certain emotional tendencies in the brain's bearer? We know things like reflexes are hard-wired into the nervous system, but could something as intangible as "belief" or "response to the feeling of being watched (by authority)" really be coded into the structure of our neural pathways?
I have no idea. But I've always thought that physical traits were inherited genetically, and things like what you believe in or whether you think it's better to do good than do evil come from your upbringing and your surroundings. Being social animals and having an investment in our society for protection and nourishment (not having exoskeletons or chlorophyll to make us more independent), I thought we simply developed a social construct that provided us with that community, at the cost of sacrificing some of our selfishness.
This was covered extensively in Carl Sagan's Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, which is one of my favorite books I've read. But I forget a lot of the specifics. I'll have to read it again as soon as I finish the behemoth I'm working on now.
Very common territory. Didn't Stanley Milgram demonstrate that people will exhibit whatever behavior is desired if they are being watched? But that doesn't mean it's genetic, necessarily.
"Mike" — Sat, 8/19/06 8:19am
Of course (the Stanley Milgram point). That doesn't at all mean it is genetic. The experiments that produce these results do not control for genetic makeup or do any brain imaging to see which parts of the brain fire up at particular times, so they can't make any definitive statements about them.
That is what is so hokey, nay, irresponsible about the stuff the 'scientists' were touting in the paper you were reading. To extrapolate that people exhibit particular behaviors and say, "well, that must be why people believe in God" is a very weak argument.
Sagan's argument is well taken, but the idea that "we simply developed a social construct that provided us with that community. . ." is something you could attribute to either a nature or nurture paradigm.
Not everyone has developed this construct since everyone doesn't believe in God. Were they just not given the environment that would have helped them believe or are they hard wired to be less likely to believe? I don't know, but it is an open question.