03/23/2007
New York Times Magazine, March 4, 2007
This is an article about the two sides in the debate about the science of belief, specifically about the possible biological origin of the belief in god and other religiosity. The argument proceeds roughly that belief in spirits, supernatural forces, omnipresent, omniscient or omnipotent is a universal component of human culture. This is prima facie evidence that it has a biological component. To start off, this article misses a few major distinctions at the outset that are important: religion vs. belief in god, and old-time religion vs. modern-day theologically souped-up religions.
The big debate is between 'spandrelists' (Atran) and 'adaptationists' (Wilson). The spandrelists claim that it is a mixture of other adaptive traits that, when working in conjunction, make it very easy to believe in a god. The three main candidates are the aspects of our brains that deal with 'agent detection', 'causal reasoning' and 'theory of mind'.
'Agent Detection' the default assumption is the presence of agency (a creature with beliefs/desires) when dealing with events or things.
'Causal Reasoning' the belief that things happen because of previous causes, rather than at random.
'Theory of Mind' another term used is 'folkpsychology', but it is the intuition that other individuals have beliefs and desires similar to how we do.
The argument is that the conjunction of these adaptive biases 'primes' us to believe in god-- a causal force with agency behind the occurrences in the world. The adaptationists claim that belief in god is itself adaptive. This claim immediately finds objections, since acting religiously (when there is no basis in reality) would likely hurt an individual agent's survival prospects. Yet this view is championed by Wilson, who claims that this might be the best example of group selection. Group selection is an out-of-favor theory that claims that some adaptations can take place at the level of the group, or, perhaps more appropriately, that genetic adaptations that take place across generations of individuals will be responsive to the relative fitness of the group those genes evolved in, not the individual's fitness.
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