Interesting read, but Dawkins writes like a blind man trying to explain the existence of color: he clearly doesn't understand his subject on any but a superficial level.
When he says "as a Darwinian...", he sounds like any other religious debater. With a perspective limited to his self-identification, this implies his mind is closed to other possibilities.
The more I read Dawkin's work, the more I think him to be a religious zealot in deep denial.
Yes, interesting stuff: but not at all convincing. Dawkins' argument here seems to embrace a flat contradiction. First we are asked to believe that human children might have evolved a hereditary tendency to believe what they are told (because that works better than making up their own beliefs): then we're told that this makes them more prone to accepting arbitrary beliefs with no factual basis than they would otherwise have been. A tendency to believe what you're told cannot be both better and worse than thinking for yourself.
I think the truth is that there is no sharp dividing line between religion, human culture in general, and human nature in general. Evolution equipped human beings with spare capacity to think about things not directly related to survival. In early times, most of this spare thinking was of the kind we would now characterise as religious: later on it differentiated into discrete forms. But beliefs aren't genetic, and are therefore not subject to Darwinian evolution. The main reason religions survive is not because they have adaptive value, but because people think they are true.
ironic that his arguments seem to require several leaps of faith. however, there is a real benefit in being able to convince your legions of soldiers, before sending them into battle, that there is an afterlife... promising virgins and/or concubines, or clouds and angels, grapes, and long lost relatives. hypothetically speaking, if we knew for certain that the afterlife didn't exist, wouldn't we think twice before volunteering to kill foreign 18-20 year olds, or be killed, ourselves? without an 'infinite life cheat code', human existance/life/consciousness suddenly becomes much more precious. and if trees could scream, would we still cut them down? perhaps, if they screamed all the time for no good reason.
Dawkins: As a Darwinian, the aspect of religion that catches my attention is its profligate wastefulness, its extravagant display of baroque uselessness. Nature is a miserly accountant, grudging the pennies, watching the clock, punishing the smallest waste.
Nietzsche: Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves indifference as a power. [Beyond Good and Evil, 9]
Dunno. Seems there's a lot of waste in nature.
Good linky, Holmes. Especially enjoyed that Diamond piece.
But beliefs aren't genetic, and are therefore not subject to Darwinian evolution
Isn't Dawkins whole "meme" thing to do with the idea that ideas are subject to Darwinian selection?
A tendency to believe what you're told cannot be both better and worse than thinking for yourself.
Of course it can! What makes the transition is experience and the context it creates. One must crawl before one can walk.
PF: Therein lies the rub. One of the things we've learned in evolutionary science since Darwin's groundbreaking work is that there's a whole bunch of stuff which has no real bearing on your chance of propogating your genes, and hence evolution.
His comment that he believes birds bathing in ants must have an evolutionary outcome, even though he can't show what it might be, is on a par with the wishful thinking of creation non-scientists everywhere.
nails: Yeah, it's kind of odd, since I'm fairly sure Dawkins himself cited religion as a memeti virus. The obvious thing relgions select for is that unbelievers tend to meet sticky ends.
...there's a whole bunch of stuff which has no real bearing on your chance of propogating your genes, and hence evolution.
Rodgerd, would you mind elaborating on that a bit? Sounds interesting. For me, the point (and I think the one Dawkins is trying to make) is that Darwinian evolution is such a powerful force - following on automatically from a very basic set of conditions - that the onus is on people to demonstrate how any phenotypic trait couldn't be subject to its forces. As such, it's perfectly reasonable to assume that, say, "Anting" has some form of evolutionary advantage. While assumptions like that may look superficially similar to religious faith, it's a very different set of thought processes going on to get there.
The main reason religions survive is not because they have adaptive value, but because people think they are true.
Yes, but a religion does not have to be literally true, as long as the symbols continue to have meaning.
It's possible that people are experiencing something real, and ritualizing that experience into a religious context. The social and historical role of religion (and ritual) is more complex than an arbitrary set of rules derived from history and legend.
As an atheist, I find Dawkins to be frustratingly condescending.
I'm too drunk to contribute anything other than that.
nails - yes, you're right of course. Although Dawkins doesn't leave himself space to expound it here, the meme theory is clearly an ingredient of the theory. But I think it's false.
rushmc - you mean people begin by believing what they're told and then move on to forming their own judgements? Fair enough, but that wouldn't explain the propagation of religious beliefs - they'd be like the tooth fairy, something we accept to start with and then abandon later?
zedediah - no, I agree: a religion doesn't have to be literally true (and in fact I don't believe any of them are).
I think Dawkins (and others of a similar persuasion) would quote extreme examples like the Shakers, whose absolute ban on sex led, predictably, to the extinction of their religion. But the immediate cause of that extinction was not their failure to reproduce, but their failure to make converts. If Dawkins were right, people would have picked up Shaker beliefs by contagion, like a virus.
Of course human beings tend to have beliefs which are compatible with their survival and reproduction, but that's because they foresee the consequences of their beliefs, not because some people randomly adopt death-bringing beliefs and then die. The fact that human culture tends to be compatible with human survival is actually one of the least interesting or iluminating points about it, if you ask me. Sorry if I'm ranting, but I also agree with dirigibleman...
What use is religion?
Like many devices which predate and follow it, religion is nothing more than a means to control a population. Ideology, system of government, economic theory -- they all have at their heart a quality that too many people refuse to see. If you want to be the shepherd, all you have to do is tell the flock what to do, with mumbo-jumbo that mystifies them, but which they want to believe.
Like many devices which predate and follow it, religion is nothing more than a means to control a population.
How do you explain religious practices popping up spontaneously in small tribal groups or isolated communities? Not every religion has a shepherd; sometimes the flock is self governing.
And I'm curious about these 'devices' that predate religion. Could you name some?
Maybe he is referring only to organized religion.
And I'm curious about these 'devices' that predate religion. Could you name some?Psycheledics like amanita muscaria, perhaps.
Er, coppermac, there's a huge difference between religion and political/economic theory. It isn't a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. There are observable reasons for us to believe in, say, the problems caused by economic externalities, or the prisoner's dilemma, or any number of sound theories. I can't believe you'd put them in the same league.
Can these things be used to control people who don't understand them? Yes, I suppose. That doesn't mean it's the raison d'etre behind it all. I'd extend that part to religion as well. You can talk all you want about a functional effect (i.e. control) of religion, ideology, social science, etc. But that's a limited view, and an inadequate way to explain away these things; they are far more complex than that.
homunculus, I think it would be interesting to find out from other monkeys, who have taken psychedelics, how their views of religion, or their own personal faith, spirituality or philosophy may have been affected by the experience. It seems to be a major part of most peoples recall. BTW, you've been posting some really good links on several threads!
Have you seen any of Benny Shanon's stuff about ayahuasca and philosophy? As you may know, ayahuasca is legal when used for religious purposes (and evidently this extends to field trips for Western academics).
zedediah: Explanatory power. Religion does provide explanations about how the world works. It's only realatively recently we've come to get a handle on such simple things as rain and earthquakes.
It's worth noting that older religions and place a huge emphasis on that sort of mundane thing, while newer religions, especially in their more modern interpretations (such as Christianity and Islam) don't spend a lot of time on "where rain comes from."
(Granted, Christianity is hamstrung by the Pauline/Augiustinian contempt for reason compared to, say Judaism, but that's another story...)
Explanatory power as a motivation for religion starts to fall off as we need it less, though. On the other hand, "not being religious" was a pretty counter-evolutionary trait throughout most Western European history. It still seems to be very problematic in some nominally Western nations like the USA, and you won't likely get to breeding age in many other parts of the world - Saudi Arabia, for example - if you suggest you think this God thing is a load of old cobblers.
(Consider the cathedral building example Dawkins gives: if you didn't put something into building the Cathederal, you'd likely be sanctioned by the Church. Given the power the Church has in medieval communities, this would quite possibly affect your chances of breeding).
dirigibleman: As a materialist and an atheist, I find often find Dawkins sound, but he suffers from a propensity to view everything as though everything we do must a rational base driven by our chances of breeding, and a tendancy to discount factors which do not fit into that box (eg his extremely stupid essay about jury trials in "A Devil's Chaplain", which mostly displays his complete ignorance of the history and power relationships that lead to jury trials first appearing and being maintained since).
flashboy: Dawkins himself provides an example which he simply asserts has evolutionary value, but can't demonstrate.
But beyond that, consider third nipples in humans: they have no benefits, but they don't actually have any real drawbacks, either. Why are they there? It's a mutation or recessive gene that we throw up from time to time. Ditto earlobes/no earlobes; tongue curling/no tongue curling.
Dawkins also ignores that animals, like us, with copious leisure time, tools, and an abundance of resources, can afford all sorts of what might otherwise be counter-evolutionary traits. Consider me: I have very bad eyesight and moderate asthma. It's very unlikely I'd have survived childhood prior to the invention of drugs like ventolin. It's almost completely unimportant to my chances of reproducing now.
In a similar fashion it's entirely possible religion is simply an artifact of humans having a bunch of spare time to worry about things like "Why does it rain?" and "Why are we here?"
I think rodgerd is right about explanatory power. Maybe "why?", aka "curiosity" is the trait that led to both religion and science.
zebediah -- Family structure and hierarchy and tribal hierarchies predate religion, and it's obvious to note the control mechanisms therein.
Explaining 'spontaneous' religious expression is easy -- from spirituality, a quality shared by many people, some less than honest people have developed religions. If you're asking how seemingly unconnected groups develop similar religions, I think that's easily explained as the Elisha Gray/Alexander Graham Bell syndrome -- elaborating on the work of their predecessors, some shamans/inventors can almost simultaneously produce identical results.
As for your shepherdless flocks, I disagree that they exist. Spirituality can be individualistic in the way you describe, but religions have leaders and followers.
Smo -- Of course there are huge differences between religion and political/economic theory. What I said was that they are identical in one particular quality, that of being used and designed to manage the herd. They differ in thousands of other ways, but in this they are exactly alike.
You have a more charitable view of the leaders and followers than I do, but we are free to disagree on this. I stand by my assessment of control being the central tenet of dominant/submissive interpersonal relations.
coppermac - since there is no historical evidence of the first religion, or the origin of family structures (both of which lie in the early prehistory of humanity), I fear your argument kind of falls flat on the evidence side.
Also, your thesis fails to explain all sorts of things about religion - like why would anyone follow a heresy, against their social superiors, even to the death? Who inspired the Cathars, or the Hussites or Lollards? How is it that popular religion flourished throughout the middle ages, with only an occasional to the theology of the elites?
Sorry - that should be an "occasional nod"
Seriously, I took a course on popular religion last year - it was lots of fun, and trust me, what I learned would upset any ideas that religion is just a top down affair. Never was, never will be. Oh, the religious elites tried their damnedest, but they couldn't control the conciences of the masses. They believed what they wanted to, whether it was orthodox or not. They kept their maypoles, and believed in witches after the elites decided not to. Some would be Protestants in Catholic countries, and Catholics in Protestant countries.
coppermac, why do I get the feeling you've had some traumatic encounters with the religious?
Pre-historical evidence implys that religious and spiritual practices have been with us as long as we've been people. Humans are a ritualistic species, and most of our activities, from courtship to sports to spirituality, eventually become ritualized.
Of course, some unscrupulous folks have used religion to further their own goals (also using politics and propaganda and anything else handy), but in spite of this, religion clearly fills a need that many people have, and I expect it will survive in one form or another as long as humanity exists.
You are apparently one of the few born without this need. Accept that you're different, and move along; trying to change the world to fit your views will lead to many frustrations.
(As for those 'shepherdless flocks', I can assure you that they do indeed exist.)
coppermac, surely you don't believe that a group of people got together, decided they wanted to control everyone else, and invented a bunch of theories to accomplish this goal. That's the way I read this, anyway:
Of course there are huge differences between religion and political/economic theory. What I said was that they are identical in one particular quality, that of being used and designed to manage the herd.
Isn't it more likely that ideas about politics and economics and religious doctrine are/were crafted by people who want to understand or improve the way the world operates?
45
True perfection seems imperfect,
yet it is perfectly itself.
True fullmess seems empty,
yet it is fully present.
True straightness seems crooked.
True wisdom seems foolish.
True art seems srtless.
The Master allows things to happen.
She shapes events as they come.
She steps out of the way
and lets the Tao speak for itself.-- Tao Te Ching, trans Stephen Mitchell
Carl Sagan put forth the theory that mans fear of fire was encoded in our DNA. It's been proven that ideas or thoughts are passed on to through generations, just as sub aomic particles pass on or impart a spin or vibration on anothr particle, so too does a being impart or instill his "vibe on another. Humans should not to endeavor to understand the workings of the gods nor should they try. The only interesting philosophie or real contribution to intelectual thoght in recent time was "Itelligent design" which was quikly squashed by simple minded ostrich headed atheists. For them Stephen hawkins will do.
Wot?
Yeah, but let's face it, that's just your genes talking, isn't it, Crackpot?
-- Tao Te Ching, trans Stephen Mitchell