In my 3/6/07 post, I noted that "I am inclined to think that God-belief is adaptive.... God-belief is essentially an aspirational component of our psychological make-up. It is in some sense an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with our inherent limitations (mortality, physical frailty) and a longing to be somehow connected with something bigger and greater than us that will outlast us. What could be more adaptive than that?"
Here is some additional fleshing-out of that concept (with help from Nicholas Wade's 3/20/07 NYT article on the intersection of evolutionary biology and morality).
Question 1: How can belief in a deity or deities enhance survival of individuals or groups?
(I am trying to be very general here, rather than speaking from my own monotheistic view.)
a. Belief in a deity or deities can set the stage for prescribing, enforcing and (significantly) self-enforcing a moral code, i.e., behaviors that enable individuals to live in harmony together, thus enhancing their collective likelihood of survival.
According to the 3/20 NYT article: Dr. Frans de Waal, a primatologist at Emory University (and director of the Living Links Center, whatever that means), "argues that all social animals have had to constrain or alter their behavior in various ways for group living to be worthwhile."
Dr. de Waal has identified four core behaviors that make group living feasible and advantageous for the group: (1) empathy, (2) the ability to learn and follow social rules, (3) reciprocity and (4) peacemaking.
These behaviors are found in chimpanzees,* but they are more highly developed in humans. Religion is one of "two extra levels of sophistication" found in human morality.**
The NYT reports that "[t]here are clear precursors of morality in nonhuman primates, but no precursors of religion. So it seems reasonable to assume that as humans evolved away from chimps, morality emerged first, followed by religion."
b. Belief in a deity or deities can give individuals a reason to undertake works for the long-term collective good, whether or not the individual has any rational hope of living to benefit from those works.
Now that I consider this argument further, I think it could be a spandrel -- i.e., it could be that the same built-in aspirational component*** that causes us to be open to belief in a higher power also causes us to want to leave some sort of legacy that will outlive and outlast us.
Either way, I think it is clear that surprisingly large numbers of people have, over the course of human history, felt compelled to invent and improve and build things that will outlast them.
Perhaps this aspirational component of our nature also enhances the overall likelihood of survival of our species, because the vast majority of people (not just the wisest or most powerful) can achieve a sort of "immortality" by having children.
c. In conflicts between two groups, if one group believes that it is backed by a deity or deities, and the other group doesn't, the deist group probably has a natural advantage.
The belief that "god is on our side" is likely to be a self-fulfilling prophecy unless there is a tremendous disparity (of health or terrain-appropriate weaponry, for instance) between the two groups.
Specifically, the deists are (a) less likely to be demoralized by suffering and losses (all setbacks are "temporary" if you know that the godless infidels cannot ultimately prevail) and (b) more likely to take the kind of risks necessary to prevail.
Question 2: If belief in a deity or deities is "adaptive", can it also be true?
This is a trickier question, and I'm not likely to be able to convince the skeptical. But here's the way I look at it.
Suppose God exists. If so, he has created (via the slow, cruel miracle of evolution) one species that has, in some ways, grown to dominate the planet.**** This species is distinguished from others by a capacity for logic and reason, and a propensity to discern moral rules and a divine presence.
To me, it seems natural that (a) God would instill in us (one way or another) a desire and ability to seek him and (b) living in harmony with God's plan for us would enhance our collective survival.
I would even tentatively speculate that a group that has developed religious views that bring them closer to God's truth is more likely to be successful (from an evolutionary perspective) than other groups who are further from God's truth. I am not sure what this would mean for western civilization, which appears to be gravitating toward atheism, or for insects, which would seem to lack any God-belief but will presumably inherit the earth when we are all gone.
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FN * "Chimpanzees, who cannot swim, have drowned in zoo moats trying to save others. ... [Dr. de Waal] noticed [in the 1960s] that after fights between two combatants, other chimpanzees would console the loser. He found that consolation was universal among the
great apes but generally absent from monkeys — among macaques, mothers will not even reassure an injured infant. To console another, Dr. de Waal argues, requires empathy and a level of self-awareness that only apes and humans seem to possess. ... [Female chimpanzees] will [sometimes] head off a fight by taking stones out of the males’ hands. ... Chimps are more likely to share food with those who have groomed them." 3/20/07 NYT.
FN ** The other "extra level[] of sophistication" in human morality involves a capacity for logic and reason (as well as a propensity for greater and more complex systems of reward and punishment).
FN *** Cf. 3/20/07 NYT article: "Last year Marc Hauser, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard, proposed in his book “Moral Minds” that the brain has a genetically shaped mechanism for acquiring moral rules, a universal moral grammar similar to the neural machinery for learning language."
FN **** There are obvious limits on our ability to dominate the planet. Insects, for example, do not seem susceptible to our so-called dominion. And all our actions and technology are puny indeed in the face of the great power of the earth itself: e.g., volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis. Think about Krakatoa, which shook the entire earth and changed the weather.
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