Re: What Use is Religion

RAGLANDMYCOOL@xxxxxxx wrote:

When it comes to Dawkins theory of religion being a misfiring of the
brain the reviews I've read and Dawkins own words below are pretty
vague. Clearly, religion has no adaptive value in a strict Darwinian
sense. I stated before it was a biological adaptaption but the honest
answer is I don't know how it developed. I think it is similar to
language in that regard. Dawkins argument seems to hinge on the
following, "Darwinian selection sets up childhood brains with a
tendency to believe their elders. It sets up brains with a tendency to
imitate, hence indirectly to spread rumors, spread urban legends, and
believe religions. However, given that genetic selection has set up
brains of this kind, they then provide the equivalent of a new kind of
non-genetic heredity, which might form the basis for a new kind of
epidemiology, and perhaps even a new kind of non-genetic Darwinian
selection. I believe that religion is one of a group of phenomena
explained by this kind of non-genetic epidemiology, with the possible
admixture of non-genetic Darwinian selection. If I am right, religion
has no survival value for individual human beings, or for the benefit
of their genes. The benefit, if there is any, is to religion itself."

I am not convinced of the maladaptiveness of religion:

``After a century of modest decline, the share of the world's
population that is religious is growing?for the simple
reason that the religious tend to have more children,
irrespective of age, education or wealth. Nor is "secular"
Europe an exception. In an analysis of data from 10 European
countries for the years 1981-2004, I found that next to age
and marital status, a woman's religiosity was the strongest
predictor of her number of offspring.''

- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15563826/site/newsweek/

Men prefer to invest in fine, upstanding, healthy, good women
(and similarly women prefer fine, good, healthy, faithful men).

Religion is regarded as being a marker for those desirable qualities.

Religion typically also provides a social support network for
those that participate in its rituals - and creates environments
in which to meet like-minded individuals.

I see little evidence to suggest that religion has "no survival
value for individual human beings, or for [...] their genes".
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@xxxxxxxxxxx Remove lock to reply.

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