Religious rituals are adaptive BECAUSE they are onerous

As evidenced by various posts at this site, I have long been intrigued by the idea that religious rituals are adaptive in that they constitute expensive displays of group loyalty. I recently found a 2004 article by anthropologist Richard Sosis, who has come to this same conclusion. His article, which was published in 2004 by American Scientist (Volume 92), is entitled "The Adaptive Value of Religious Ritual." Sosis holds that "rituals promote group cohesion by requiring members to engage in behavior that is too costly to fake." He thus argues that religious rituals are adaptive in an evolutionary sense. Sosis begins his article by surveying various tedious or grueling religious rituals. His examples include ultraorthodox Jews who wear stiflingly hot clothing in the hot summer, but it also includes Moonies who shave their heads and "Jain monks of India [who] wear contraptions on their heads and feet to avoid killing insects." The list also includes various types of surgical alteration including circumcision and Native American religious rituals that include icy baths, and one ritual that requires the person to lie motionless while being bitten by hordes of ants. The questions raised by these rituals include A) why do people engage in such practices? and B) Is it "rational" to do such things to one's self? Sosis relies upon the research done by "a new generation of anthropologists" in concluding that

The strangeness of religious practices and their inherent costs are actually the critical features that contribute to the success of religion as a universal cultural strategy . . . To understand this unexpected benefit we need to recognize the adaptive problem that ritual behavior solves.

Continue ReadingReligious rituals are adaptive BECAUSE they are onerous

Scientists who disagree: is religion an aberration or an adaptation?

For many scientists who study it, religion should be placed into one of two camps: 1) religion is an aberration, a mental virus; or 2) religion is an adaptation–that religion enhanced the survival of Believers.  A well-written article by Robin Marantz Henig explores this issue in the New York Times.  The title is “HeavenBound: a Scientific Exploration of How We Have Come to Believe in God.” Henig sums up the alternatives by reference to blood.  A trait might be “adaptive,” like the ability of blood cells to transport oxygen.  On the other hand, a trait might be simply a byproduct, such as the “redness” of blood.

Is blood prominent because it’s red or because it actually carries oxygen?

Several notable scientists and philosophers lead the charge from the first camp (that religion is a byproduct).  One of them is Richard Dawkins, who argues that “religion is nothing more than a useless, and sometimes dangerous, evolutionary accident.”  Others falling into this camp include Sam Harris, Scott Atran, Pascal Boyer and Daniel Dennett. These believers in religion as a “byproduct” would also include Stephen Jay Gould, who proposed the use of the term “spandrel” to describe traits that have no adaptive value of their own.

If religion is a byproduct or a “spandrel,” of what is it a byproduct or “spandrel” of?  Psychologists have looked carefully at several candidates: agent detection, causal reasoning and theory of mind.

We see agents everywhere, it turns out, even in inanimate objects.  The byproduct argument is …

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Continue ReadingScientists who disagree: is religion an aberration or an adaptation?