Evolution and Religion - Darwin's God - Robin Marantz Henig - New York Times

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March 4,


Darwin's God
By ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG God has always been a puzzle for Scott Atran. When he was 10 years old, he scrawled a plaintive message on the wall of his bedroom in Baltimore. "God exists," he wrote in black and orange paint, "or ifhe doesn't, we're in trouble." Atran has been struggling with questions about religion ever since - why he himself no longer believes in God and why so many other people, everywhere in the world, apparently do. Call it God; call it superstition; call it, as Atran does, ''belief in hope beyond reason" - whatever you call it, there seems an inherent human drive to believe in something transcendent, unfathomable beyond the reach or understanding and otherworldly, something








Robin Marantz Henig . a philosopher at Tufts University who wrote "Breaking the Spell. and is religion at its core an empty undertaking." William James wrote in "The Varieties of Religious Experience.nytimes. what then? Is explaining religion the same thing as explaining it away? Are the nonbelievers right. He is joined by two other best-selling authors . based his book on a 1901 lecture series in which he took some early tentative steps at breaching the science-religion divide. promoting their secular world view with a fervor that seems almost evangelical. Science. evolutionary accident. Which is the better biological explanation for a belief in God . useful. are we hard-wired to believe in God? And if we are.evolutionary adaptation or neurological accident? Is there something about the cognitive functioning of humans that makes us receptive to belief in a supernatural deity? And if scientists are able to explain God.not whether God exists. 3127/2007 . are equally organically founded. whether it was because belief itself was adaptive or because it was just an evolutionary byproduct...Sam Harris.Evolution and Religion . as the old trope had it. but why the belief does. a polite convention generally separated science and religion. a mere consequence of some other adaptation in the evolution of the human brain.Darwin's God . the Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins concludes that religion is nothing more than a useless. who taught philosophy and experimental psychology at Harvard for more than 30 years." and Daniel Dennett. Lost in the hullabaloo over the neo-atheists is a quieter and potentially more illuminating debate. These scholars tend to agree on one point: that religious belief is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved during early human history. or once was. religious. http://www." The three men differ in their personal styles and whether they are engaged in a battle against religiosity. and sometimes dangerous. in the form of best-selling books from scientific atheists who see religion as a scourge. our longings and pantings. our questions and beliefs . a misdirection. was assigned the territory that describes how the heavens go. who wrote "The End of Faith. a vestigial artifact of a primitive mind? Or are the believers right. "Religious behavior may be a misfiring. In the century that followed. What they disagree about is why a tendency to believe evolved. which is a matter for This is different from the scientific assault on religion that has been garnering attention recently. how and why did that happen? "All of our raptures and our drynesses. specifically among the scientists studying the evolution of religion.coml2007/03/04/magazine/04evolution. It is taking place not between science and religion but within science itself. and does the fact that we have the mental capacities for discerning God suggest that it was God who put them there? In short. They have been portrayed as an unholy trinity of neo-atheists." Dawkins wrote.. In "The God Delusion.New York Times Page 2 of 15 The magic-box demonstration helped set Atran on a career studying why humans might have evolved to be '80S." published last year and still on best-seller lists. but their names are often mentioned together." James. the effort has gained momentum.t.. as scientists search for an evolutionary explanation for why belief in God exists . an unfortunate byproduct of an underlying psychological propensity which in other circumstances is. something few people were doing back in the philosophers and theologians. at least in much of the Western world. Today.html?ei=5090&en=43cfb468.

heaven and the existence of miracles and oflife after death. About 6 in 10 Americans. joined anthropologists study of religion. that person will still exist.are found in virtually every culture on earth.Darwin's God . but the mutual hands-off policy really began to shift in the 1990s. looking for a way to explain religion as a fluke." One example of this is the belief that even after someone dies and the body demonstrably disintegrates. making God an object of scientific inquiry. to feel pain and joy.coml2007 103/04/magazine/04evolution. gods and witches have peppered folk religions since mankind first started telling stories.html ?ei=5090&en=43cfb468." "A belief in all-pervading spiritual agencies. Religion made incursions into the traditional domain of science with attempts to bring intelligent design into the biology classroom and to choke off human embryonic stem-cell research on religious grounds. say. belief in the afterlife. a bigger forehead.Robin Marantz Henig . will still be able to laugh and cry. A 2006 survey at Baylor University found that 92 percent of respondents believe in a personal God . And this is just one sign of how complex and surprising this debate has become. This confusion httn. "seems to be universal. spirits. believe in the devil and hell." According to anthropologists. Or you might think they would all be atheists. Angels. a God with a distinct set of character traits ranging from "distant" to "benevolent. religions that share certain supernatural features belief in a non corporeal God or gods. Wouldn't this be a liability in the survival-of-the-fittest competition? To Atran. Charles Darwin noted this in "The Descent of Man. In many ways. because what believer would want to subject his own devotion to rationalism's cold. a better thumb? How about certain behavioral traits.nvtimes.that is. how to go to heaven. wizards. t. evolutionary biologists look for a genetic explanation and wonder how that gene or genes might enhance survival or reproductive success. and about 7 in 10 believe in angels. like a tendency for risk-taking or for kindness? Atran saw such questions as a puzzle when applied to religion. 312712007 ./ Iwww. like evolutionary biology and cognitive neuroscience." When a trait is universal. it's an exercise in post-hoc hypothesizing: what would have been the advantage. for an individual who happened to have a mutation that led to. a smaller jaw. The debate over why belief evolved is between byproduct theorists and adaptationists. This is certainly true in the United States.." he wrote. So many aspects of religious belief involve misattribution and misunderstanding of the real world.Evolution and Religion . Scientists responded with counterincursions. belief in the ability of prayer or ritual to change the course of human events . religious belief requires taking "what is materially false to be true" and "what is materially true to be false.. while the adaptationists would be more likely to be believers who can intuit the emotional. You might think that the Experts from the hard and psychologists in the byproduct theorists would tend to be nonbelievers. sciences. hard scrutiny? But a scientist's personal religious view does not always predict which side he will take. when the human species first evolved. Anthropologists like Atran and psychologists as far back as James had been looking at the roots of religion. according to a 2005 Harris Poll. demons. spiritual and community advantages that accompany faith.New York Times Page 3 of 15 religion.

coml2007 103/04/magazine/04evolution. in fact. Atran decided to explore these questions by organizing a conference on universal "Young man. Atran says. see me in my office?" Atran. Maybe it took less mental work than Atran realized to hold belief in God in one's mind. To his astonishment. everyone he invited agreed to come.and ended up working for Mead. he encountered the passion of religious belief. One day in his freshman year.Evolution and Religion .." Atran wrote in "In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion" in 2002. Why. "Imagine another animal that took injury for health or big for small or fast for slow or dead for alive. Atran.. t." He began to look for a sideways explanation: if religious belief was not adaptive. It's unlikely that such a species could survive. "I started looking at history. While still an undergraduate. the intuitive and the counterintuitive? Maybe cognitive effort was precisely the point. Wherever he turned. something that took no cognitive effort at all. and the only site he could find for the conference was at a location just outside Paris. the anthropologists Claude Levi-Strauss and Gregory Bateson (who was also Margaret Mead's exhusband).nytimes. equally unflappable. Atran intended to study mathematics when he entered Columbia as a precocious 17-year-old. he accumulated friends who were thinking about the issues he was: how culture is transmitted among human groups and what evolutionary function it might serve. stood up and called her a sellout for saying the protesters should be writing to their congressmen instead of staging demonstrations.New York Times Page 4 of 15 "does not appear to be a reasonable evolutionary strategy. then perhaps the most famous anthropologist in America. But he was distracted by the radical politics of the late '60S. Many of the museum specimens were religious. did people work so hard against their preference for logical explanations to maintain two views of the world. spending much of his time exploring the cabinets of curiosities in her tower office at the American Museum of Natural History. So were the artifacts he dug up on archaeological excursions in Israel in the early '70S. did go to see her . the real and the unreal. It was 1974. the psychologist Jean Piaget. dressed in a flamboyant Uncle Sam suit.the evolution of human cognition. Soon he turned to an emerging subset of evolutionary theory . perhaps it was associated with something else that was. and I wondered why no society ever survived more than three generations without a religious foundation as its raison d'etre. http://www. Atran was a scraggly zz-year-old with a guitar who had learned his French from comic books." he says. belief was the default position for the human mind. Atran is a sociable man with sharp hazel eyes. Maybe.Robin Marantz Henig .html ?ei=5090&en=43cfb468. the Nobel Prize-winning biologists Jacques Monod and Francois Jacob. he wondered. 3127/2007 . As he traveled in the '70S and '80S.Darwin's God . he found himself at an antiwar rally listening to Margaret Mead." the unflappable Mead said. Soon he switched his major to anthropology. "why don't you come aspects of culture and inviting all his intellectual heroes: the linguist Noam Chomsky. who sparks provocative conversations the way other men pick bar fights.

. They borrowed the term from architecture. and traits that are bypro ducts of adaptations. now at Washington University. is "a family of cognitive phenomena that involves the extraordinary use of everyday cognitive processes. machines." Gould wrote. in this view. Something similar explains aspects of brain evolution. 3/27/2007 . the under-stairs space takes on a function. a series of interconnected usually consider belief in God a consequence of other mental modules. http://www. Justin Barrett. say the byproduct theorists. where it originally referred to the V-shaped structure formed between two rounded arches.that is.sort of triangle. nonadaptive side consequences of building a device with such structural complexity. But if you put a closet there.Pascal Boyer. Paul Bloom at Yale . and his colleague Richard Lewontin proposed "spandrel" to describe a trait that has no adaptive value of its own. the famed evolutionary biologist at Harvard who died in 2002. to come up with causal narratives for natural events and to recognize the evolution of religion. an unintended byproduct.html ?ei=5090&en=43cfb468. now at Oxford. Which brings us to the idea of the spandrel. They do not tend to talk about a God module per se.. creates a space underneath that is innocuous." Atran wrote in "In Gods We Trust. Darwinians who study physical evolution distinguish between traits that are themselves adaptive.Evolution and Religion .Darwin's God . among them the ability to infer the presence of organisms that might do harm. the space under the stairs is a spandrel. In synchrony they were moving toward the byproduct theory.coml2007 103/04/magazine/04evolution.New York Times Page 5 of 15 Some cognitive scientists think of brain functioning in terms of modules. The structure is not there for any purpose. a spandrel can be neutral or it can be made functional.nytimes. functional or nonfunctional. Either way." At around the time "In Gods We Trust" appeared five years ago. exactly? Hardships of early human life favored the evolution of certain cognitive tools. any more than biological species and varieties exist independently ofthe individual organisms that compose them and the environments that conform them. "Natural selection made the human brain big. they Religion. unrelated to the staircase's but useful nonetheless." "Religions do not exist apart from the individual minds that constitute them and the environments that constrain them. There is no survival advantage to blood's being red instead of turquoise. having blood that contains hemoglobin. SteRhen Jay Gould. Building a staircase. just a blank. ''but most of our mental properties and potentials may be spandrels . each one responsible for a particular mental trick." The possibility that God could be a spandrel offered Atran a new way of understanding But a spandrel of what.Robin Marantz Henig . like the redness of blood. like having blood cells that can transport oxygen. In architecture. a handful of other scientists . too. it is there because that is what happens when arches align.were addressing these same questions.t. for instance. it is just a byproduct of the trait that is adaptive.

agent detection. "The most central concepts in religions are related to agents.. or a reward for prayer. wrote in his 2004 summary of the byproduct theory.Darwin's God . It's an odd phrase for something so automatic." Justin Barrett. Psychologists call these tools. make fine candidates for causes of many of these unusual events. no matter how apparently random. like intentional stance and social cognition. planning. 3/27/2007 . t. "We automatically. "people with superpowers.nytimes. "Why Would Anyone Believe in God?" Religious agents are often supernatural. causal reasoning and theory of mind. lots of people mistake a rock for a bear. A third cognitive trick is a kind of social intuition known as theory of mind. respectively. This usually operates in one direction only. since the word "theory" suggests formality and self-consciousness. by virtue of their strange physical properties and their mysterious superpowers. statues that can answer requests or disembodied minds that can act on us and the world. you are dead. Gods. folkpsychology. even if you are wrong. So if there is motion just out of our line of sight. A classic experiment from the 1940S by the psychologists Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel suggested that imputing agency is so automatic that people may do it even for geometric shapes. complete with chronology and cause-and-effect logic. than for it to be just a lucky roll of the dice. What does this mean for belief in the supernatural? It means our brains are primed for it. If it turns out to have been just the rustling of leaves. "and 'stuff just happens' is no explanation. If you are a caveman on the savannah. Agent detection evolved because assuming the presence of an agent . on whatever it encounters.. an animal or person with the ability to move independently.New York Times Page 6 of 15 that other people have minds of their own with their own beliefs. but almost no one mistakes a bear for a rock. ready to presume the presence of agents even when such presence confounds logic. The human brain has evolved the capacity to impose a narrative. independent behavior . look for an explanation of why things happen to us." Barrett wrote. subjects watched a film of triangles and circles moving around." A second mental module that primes us for religion is causal reasoning. you are still alive.html ?ei=5090&en=43cfb468. When asked what they had been watching. if what you took to be leaves rustling was really a hyena about to pounce. Similarly. Other terms have been used for the same concept.is more adaptive than assuming its absence. they saw pursuit." The ancient Greeks believed thunder was the sound of Zeus's thunderbolt. For the experiment. desires and intentions. One good alternative is the term Atran uses: http://www. It fits better with her causal-reasoning tool for her recovery to be a miracle. we presume it is caused by an agent. the subjects used words like "chase" and "capture. he wrote.coml2007 103/04/magazine/04evolution. a psychologist. a contemporary woman whose cancer treatment works despite 1O-tO-1odds might look for a story to explain her survival.which is jargon for any creature with volitional. escape. you are better off presuming that the motion you detect out of the corner of your eye is an agent and something to run from. and often unconsciously." They did not just see the random movement of shapes on a screen.Evolution and Religion .Robin Marantz Henig .

since they know that's where the marble is. why did they persist? Atran ascribes the persistence to evolutionary misdirection. are impaired. it is at the heart of everything from marriage to office politics to poker. This leaves us open.an understanding belief in supernatural.Robin Marantz Henig . opens Box A.Evolution and Religion . Mary comes on stage. John comes back onstage. he said. puts it in Box B and walks off.New York Times Page 7 of 15 Folkpsychology. Children watch a puppet show with a simple plot: J ohn comes onstage holding a marble. our ancestors needed it to survive their harsh environment. children think that minds are permeable and that everyone knows whatever the child himself knows.coml2007 103/04/magazine/04evolution. a psychologist and the author of "Descartes' Baby. And from there. All other people. puts it in Box A and walks off. or autistic children of any age. If you can posit minds in other people that you cannot verify empirically. they respond that John will look for it in Box A. just as it has been since prehistoric times." published in 2004.html ?ei=5090&en=43cfb468. The traditional psychological view has been that until about age 4. of ordinary people's ordinary minds . since folkpsychology allowed them to "rapidly and economically" distinguish good guys from bad guys. which. 3/27/2007 . in Box A. it is another short step to positing an immaterial soul and a transcendent God. he tried to think of an analogy and grinned when he came up with an old standby: women's breasts.. But how did folkpsychology .allow for a omniscient minds? And if the byproduct theorists are right and these beliefs were oflittle use in finding food or leaving more offspring. as Atran and his colleagues see it. especially Mother and Father.) The "false-belief test" is a classic experiment that highlights the boundary. and then there's no control for however else it's used. takes out the marble. to belief in the separation of the body (the visible) and the mind (the invisible). is essential to getting along in the contemporary world. it is a short step to positing minds that do not have to be anchored to a body. Older children have developed a theory of mind.. They know that John never saw Mary move the marble and that as far as he is concerned it is still where he put it. almost instinctively. that we cannot see or feel." On a sunny weekday morning. (Some new research suggests this might occur as early as 15 months. It allows us to anticipate the actions of others and to lead others to believe what we want them to believe. But at a certain point in development. But older children give a more sophisticated answer. they understand that other people sometimes have false beliefs. are thought to have the same sort of insight as an all-knowing God. Because they are associated with http://www. this changes. Even though they know that the marble is in Box B. like those with severe autism. over breakfast at a French cafe on upper Broadway. To a young child. happens all the time: "Evolution always produces something that works for what it works for. unable to imagine themselves in other people's heads. he says.nytimes. The adaptive advantage offolkpsychology is obvious. suggests Paul Bloom. Where will John look for the marble? Very young children. our own and others'. The process begins with positing the existence of minds. The children are asked. According to Atran. People without this trait. everyone is infallible. t.Darwin's God . say John will look in Box B.

Whatever the specifics. for instance.New York Times Page 8 of 15 female hormones.Darwin's God .' " Atran said. like any other person. It is a little like language acquisition. whether the soul goes to heaven or occupies another animal after death are culturally shaped. that people attend to. thinking it must have evolved to make people behave a certain way or feel a certain allegiance. and the evolution of the male brain's preference for them was a clever mating strategy. of course. with the essential difference that language is a biological adaptation and religion. too. invisible minds.and 6-year-olds had learned that Mother. "Rocks. But the Martian would. be wrong.whether there is one God or many. we are born with an innate tendency for belief. yes. You can see this in the experiment Justin Barrett conducted recently . according to byproduct theorists. hardwired for belief. and remember. 'Oh. is that children are born with a tendency to believe in omniscience. That is what most fascinated Atran.Evolution and Religion . immaterial souls . as Barrett understood it. something children readily accept.comI2007 103/04/magazinel04evolution. in certain situations. who were all Protestants. "A Martian anthropologist might look at this and say. "Crackers. "Why is God in there?" he wondered. could hold a false belief in her mind. who. they assumed she would know it. and they tended to respond that she would be fooled by the packaging and would say. 3. Paul Bloom says. told Barrett that God would answer." And what would God say? No matter what their age.html ?ei=5090&en=43cfb468." Next he opened it and showed them that the box was filled with rocks. t.. certain beliefs can be found in all religions. to sell anything from deodorant to beer.and 4-year-olds tended to think Mother was infallible. The idea of an infallible God is comfortable and familiar." This was true even for the older children.but they had also learned that there is no fooling God. and since the children knew the right answer. The bottom line.nytimes. 3/27/2007 . "Crackers. They usually responded that Mother would say the box contained rocks. In much the same way.and then they grow up in cultures that fill their minds. but the specifics of what we grow up believing . Psychologists have shown. But breasts are now used for purposes unrelated to reproduction. are those that fit most comfortably with our mental architecture.a version of the traditional false-belief test but with a religious twist. What do you think is inside this box? he asked. with specifics. We are born with an innate facility for language but the specific language we learn depends on the environment in which we are raised. but not so strange as to be http://www. and the children said. Then he asked two follow-up questions: What would your mother say is inside this box? And what would God say? As earlier theory-of-mind experiments already showed. Barrett showed young children a box with a picture of crackers on the outside. things that are unfamiliar and strange.Robin Marantz Henig . in his view. he explained. so these breasts must have somehow evolved to sell hygienic stuff or food to human beings. according to the byproduct theorists. Those that prevail. full breasts indicate a woman is fertile. is not.. Equally wrong would be to make the same mistake about religion. people could be fooled . the children. had developed folkpsychology and had used it when predicting a wrong response for Mother. he says. But 5. They had learned that.

. immortal deities. "designs executed.coml2007 103/04/magazineI04evolution. to help humans deal with the grim certainty of death." 14-year-old David spends a lot of time thinking about death." he cries to his mother. and with a "slipping sensation along his nerves that seemed to give the air hands. "If your emotions are involved.not the turtle that chatters and climbs or the squealing. An emotional component is often needed. They presented college students with lists of fantastical creatures and asked them to choose the ones that seemed most "religious." And suddenly the fears that have plagued him are lifted. is when someone comes face to face with mortality. which he uses to shoot down some pigeons that have been nesting in his grandmother's barn.. Giggling seaweed meets the requirement of being minimally counterintuitive. The spirits of dead ancestors. flowering marble ." The story ends with David's tiny revelation and his boundless relief. According to some adaptationists. bowing in unison during group prayer. along with Ara Norenzayan of the University of British Columbia. it seemed. for which religion can offer powerfully comforting answers. The most intense personal crisis. He suspects that adults are lying when they say his spirit will live on after he dies. singing. Ideas about God or other supernatural Pascal Boyer. "if when we die there's nothing. He is amazed by their swirls of color. horror? It's just an ocean of horror. were not the most outlandish .nytimes. if belief is to take hold. too. ah. then that's the time when you're most likely to believe whatever the religion tells you to believe. called "minimally counterintuitive": attention and lodge in your memory but not so weird that you reject them altogether. a talking horse. So does a God who has a human personality except that he knows everything or a God who has a mind but has no body.Robin Marantz Henig . an anthropologist agents tend to fit these criteria. 3/27/2007 . the students said. He keeps catching them in inconsistencies when he asks where exactly his soul will spend eternity. In John Ugdike's celebrated early Sh01t story "Pigeon Feathers. when the faithful often turn to shamans or priests. Before he buries them. heaven and hell.New York Times Page 9 of 15 impossible to assimilate. A tree that talks is minimally counterintuitive. he studies the dead birds' feathers. It is not enough for an agent to be minimally counterintuitive for it to earn a spot in people's belief systems. and you might believe it as a supernatural maximally counterintuitive.html ?ei=5090&en=43cfb468. They are what weird enough to get your and psychologist. Atran.Darwin's God . the everlasting soul: the notion of spiritual existence after death is at the heart of almost every religion. ghosts." Atran says.but those that were just outlandish enough: giggling seaweed. this is part of religion's role.Evolution and Religion . he was robed in this certainty: that the God who had lavished such craft upon these worthless birds would not destroy His whole Creation by refusing to let David live forever." Fear of death is an undercurrent of belief.t. in a controlled rapture. agent. A tree that talks and flies and time-travels is and you are more likely to reject it. sometimes working people up to a state of physical arousal that can border on frenzy. http://www." The convincingly religious agents. a sobbing oak. "Don't you see.swaying. studied the idea of minimally counterintuitive agents earlier this decade. The boy gets a gun for his 15th birthday. And religions gain strength during the natural heightening of emotions that occurs in times of personal crisis. Atran wrote. Religions stir up emotions through their rituals . all your sun and fields and what not are all.

what it meant for Brown Mouse to be "not alive anymore." the Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno wrote in "Tragic Sense of Life. especially the younger ones.nytimes. still loved his mother and still liked cheese.. "The human mind does not produce adequate comforting delusions against all situations of stress or fear. so it's natural for it to continue much as before after the other person's death. We cannot conceive of ourselves as not existing. any organism that was prone to such delusions would not survive long. But the spandrelists counter that saying these beliefs are consolation does not mean they offered an adaptive advantage to our ancestors. The children understood what it meant for the mouse's body to cease to function. This brings us back to folkpsychology. Northern Ireland.Robin Marantz Henig ." Is he still hungry? Is he still sleepy? Does he still want to go home? Most said the mouse no longer needed to eat or drink. belief in the afterlife gains power in two ways: from the intensity with which people wish it to be true and from the confirmation it seems to get from the real world. But when we think about being dead. Religion can offer solace to the bereaved and comfort to the frightened.. A large part of any relationship takes place in our minds. This is what young children seem to do. the reason afterlife beliefs are so prevalent is that underlying them is our inability to simulate our nonexistence. who is spotted by an alligator. ages 4 to 12. How can we possibly think about not thinking? "Try to fill your consciousness with the representation of no-consciousness. a leading byproduct theorist. "Brown Mouse is not alive anymore. In addition. a spectral shape http://www. It is easy to forget that your sister is dead when you reach for the phone to call her. we run into a cognitive wall." Whether or not it is adaptive." which came out a year before Atran's book. then." Much easier. "Indeed. and you will see the impossibility of it." wrote Pascal Boyer. Bering and Bjorklund asked their subjects.html ?ei=5090&en=43cfb468." the narrator says at the end." It might be just as impossible to simulate the nonexistence of loved ones. The wind brushes our cheek.Darwin's God . "In this study. But a large proportion. how we give meaning to this brutish and short existence. they say. t.com!2007 /03/04/magazine/04evolution. said that he still had thoughts. since your relationship was based so much on memory and imagined conversations even when she was alive. it looks like Brown Mouse got eaten by Mr. to imagine that the thinking somehow continues. in "Religion Explained." says Bering. hungry and lost. "Our psychological architecture makes us think in particular ways. it seems. now at Queens University in Belfast. Bering said. 3/27/2007 . our agent-detection device sometimes confirms the sensation that the dead are still with us.Evolution and Religion . Alligator. used finger puppets to act out the story of a mouse." Afterward. the psychologists who conducted the study. "Well. as a study at the Florida Atlantic University demonstrated a few years ago. is how we make sense of the brevity of our time on earth.New York Times Page 10 of 15 Believing in God and the afterlife. but many believed that something about the mouse was still alive. We try to make sense of other people partly by imagining what it is like to be them. an adaptive trait that allowed our ancestors to outwit potential enemies." "The effort to comprehend it causes the most tormenting dizziness. Jesse Bering and David Bjorklund.

which is a detriment in today's food-rich society. it's how our minds work. qualify as organismic in this sense. more focused on the future. Wilson. a preponderance affections." Such sentiments. an assurance of safety and a temper of peace and. more willing to take care of themselves.by asking whether they might have helped our distant ancestors form social groups. seeming very much alive. to see deeper meaning where there is none. The advantage might have worked at the group level too. obedience and sober living. too. the same year as Arran's book. "Organisms are a product of natural selection.. and religious groups in particular. it might have had one long ago. probably helped our ancestors survive cyclical famines. of religious belief. feed themselves. an evolutionary biologist at the State University of New York at Binghamton. As William James put it. My purpose is to see if human groups in general.New York Times Page 11 of 15 somehow looks familiar and our agent detection goes into overdrive. A facility for storing calories as fat. an occasional thorn in the side of both Scott Atran and Richard Dawkins..com/2007 I03/04/magazine/04evolution. and the Nature of Society. this could have worked on two levels. there is another way to think about the evolution of religion: that religion evolved because it offered survival advantages to our distant ancestors. religion filled people with "a new zest which adds itself like a gift to life . made the faithful better at finding and storing food." he wrote in "Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution. with dead relatives appearing in dreams as if from beyond the grave..Darwin's God . Dreams.Evolution and Religion . [organisms] acquire properties that enable them to survive and reproduce in their environments. "Through countless generations of variation and selection. in relation to others. some adaptationists say." http://www. This is where the action is in the science of God debate.. Religion made people feel better.html ?ei=5090&en=43cfb468. in terms of survival advantages. according to Bering. for instance. for instance. The trick in thinking about adaptation is that even if a trait offers no survival advantage today. more likely to contain individuals willing to make sacrifices for the group and more adept at sharing resources and preparing for warfare. have a way of confirming belief in the afterlife. 3/2712007 . t. Belief is our fallback position. As some adaptationists see it. find suitable mates or keep from getting killed. with a coterie of adaptationists arguing on behalf of the primary benefits." he says. focuses much of his argument at the group level. with religious groups outlasting others because they were more 'cohesive. "It's natural. One of the most vocal adaptationists is David Sloan Wilson. Religion. "We have a basic psychological capacity that allows anyone to reason about unexpected natural events. and staked out the adaptationist view." Intriguing as the spandrel logic might be. individual and group. and ofloving helped them attract better mates because of their reputations for morality. less tormented by thoughts about death. This is how Darwinians explain how certain physical characteristics persist even if they do not currently seem adaptive ." which came out in 2002. it is our reflexive style of thought.Robin Marantz Henig . So trying to explain the adaptiveness of religion means looking for how it might have helped early humans survive and reproduce.nytimes.

Darwin's God .Robin Marantz Henig .that Mary is both a mother and a virgin. Begin. which is doubly harmed: by keeping watch. "They cannot explain why people can be more steadfast in their commitment to admittedly counterfactual and counterintuitive beliefs . too. If there are 10 sentries in one group and none in the other. the narrative Wilson devised about group selection and the evolution of religion is clear. But the flock with sentries will probably outlast the flock that has no early-warning system. "so I chose something as far as possible from literature .html ?ei=5090&en=43cfb468. 3 or 4 of the sentries might be sacrificed." Atran wrote. So he decided to become the man who rescued this discredited idea..nytimes. has been dismissive of this approach. author of "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. The adaptationists "cannot in principle distinguish Marxism from monotheism. So in the Darwinian struggle. defending group selection . "I thought. It wasn't until the 1990S." an emblem of mid-lgos suburban anomie that was turned into a film starring Gregory Peck. Darwinians were critical of group selection. that he realized that "religion offered an opportunity to show that group selection was right after all. and by issuing a warning call. with young women asking for his autograph. "A Summer Place. scanning the horizon for predators and calling out warnings. Having a sentry is good for the group but bad for the sentry. Wilson eventually chose to study religion not because religion mattered to him personally . When Wilson was a graduate student at Michigan State University in the 1970S. so the other 6 or 7 sentries will survive to pass on the genes. the sentry has less time to gather food. How.as well as a novelist's flair for narrative. Wow.he was raised in a secular Protestant household and says he has long been an atheist . ideology from religious belief. and God is sentient but bodiless . struggles and alliances . for all its controversial elements. and I wanted to make a mark. Some birds serve as sentries." became another blockbuster movie. head-in-bag perversity." He is disarmingly honest about what motivated him: "I was very ambitious.coml2007 103/04/magazineI04evolution. then. 3127/2007 ." He chose to study human evolution. in part because he had some of his father's literary leanings and the field required a novelist's attention to human motivations. calling it "mind blind" for essentially ignoring the role of the brain's mental machinery. t.but because it was a lens through which to look at and revivify a branch of evolution that had fallen into disrepute." Atran. could the sentry gene survive for more than a generation or two? To explain how a self-sacrificing gene can persist. Wilson looks to the level of the group..Evolution and Religion ." said Wilson. that would be big." Still. "I knew I couldn't be a novelist. especially after his next novel. he says." Dawkins once called Wilson's defense of group selection "sheer. he said. In http://www. it is more likely to be spotted by the predator. he said. The son grew up wanting to do something to make his famous father proud. Sloan Wilson became a celebrity. the idea that human groups can function as single organisms the way beehives or anthills do.I chose science. economically or scientifically persuasive account of the way things are or should be. with an imaginary flock of birds. the birds most likely to pass on their genes are the nonsentries.now. who crackled with intensity during a telephone interview. perhaps a legacy of his novelist father." he recalled.than to the most politically.New York Times Page 12 of 15 Wilson's father was Sloan Wilson. wanton.

There is another element here too. "The study of evolution is largely the study of trade-offs. But even adaptations that help an individual survive can sometimes play But religious rituals "generate greater belief and commitment" because they depend on belief rather than on proof. Consider religious rituals. "Religious and secular rituals can both promote cooperation. he wrote." he wrote. There are costs to any individual of being religious: the time and resources spent on rituals. the pain of some initiation rites. spread through the written and spoken word. A person's behavior is observed not only by those in his immediate surroundings but also by anyone who can hear about it." Sosis wrote in American Scientist in 2004. in Sosis's view.but in humans. according to Wilson. if the whole-group advantage outweighs the cost to any individual bird of being a sentry.a commitment that is." Even if Wilson is right that religion enhances group fitness. risks losing his job. has suggested a partial answer.. say.a group of fraternity brothers.Evolution and Religion . then the sentry gene will prevail.New York Times Page 13 of 15 other words. for someone to favor religious over rationalistic explanations that would point to where the food and danger are. it might be more adaptive to have "highly sophisticated mental modules for acquiring factual knowledge and for building symbolic belief systems" than to have only one or the other.html ?ei=5090&en=43cfb468. The rituals are "beyond the possibility of examination. the costs can be outweighed by the benefits of being in a cohesive group that out-competes the others. it might be that a mixture of hardheaded realists and symbolically minded visionaries is most adaptive and that "what seems to be an adversarial relationship" between theists and atheists within a community is really a division of cognitive labor that "keeps social groups as a whole on an even keel. One way that reputation is enhanced is by being ostentatiously religious. 3/27/2007 . in terms of foraging for sustenance and safety." It might seem disadvantageous. themselves out through the group.. Sosis focuses on the way religion might be adaptive at the individual level. the psychic energy devoted to following certain injunctions. going to jail or getting beaten by the police . an anthropologist with positions at the University of Connecticut and Hebrew University of Jerusalem. it might give him an advantage in many oflife's challenges.coml2007 103/04/magazinel04evolution. If a particular selfless trait enhances a person's reputation. the question remains: Where does God come in? Why is a religious group any different from groups for which a fitness argument is never even offered . for instance. "a symbolic belief system that departs from factual reality fares better. There might be clear costs to taking on a role analogous to the sentry bird . But in terms of intergroup struggle. For the group. unique to humans because it depends on language. like finding a mate. deeper and more long-lasting. Like many adaptationists. or Yankees fans? Richard Sosis. and a commitment to them is therefore emotional rather than logical . according to Wilson.a person who stands up to authority. http://www." Wilson wrote in "Darwin's Cathedral.nytimes.Darwin's God . these local costs might be outweighed by long-distance benefits. But in some circumstances." For the individual. t.Robin Marantz Henig .

you can trust me because why else would I be dressed like this?' " These "signaling" rituals can grant the individual a sense of belonging and grant the group some freedom from constant and costly monitoring to ensure that their members are loyal and committed. To Sosis. http://www." "Why shouldn't we comment on God." Sosis wrote. "Gould carried the art of bending over backward to positively supine lengths. other critics said. The rituals are harsh enough to weed out the infidels. A universe with a creative superintendent would be a very different kind of universe from one without. It just means science can't do what religion does. while those from secular communes tended to be more selfish. is not as bluntly antireligious as Dawkins and Harris are)." says Daniel Dennett (who." Gould was emphatic about keeping the domains separate. They based their study on a standard economic game that measures cooperation. "By donning several layers of clothing and standing out in the midday sun. Sam Harris practices Buddhist-inspired meditation." He called the demarcation "nonoverlapping magisteria" from the Latin magister. thereby earning loyalty from others in the group. These rituals. It was the men who attended synagogue daily.. Not necessarily.'Jew. he wrote. and both the group and the individual believers benefit. meaning "canon. "ultraorthodox Jewish men are signaling to others: 'Hey! Look.. what religion does and what science does. "The net of science covers the empirical universe. Daniel Dennett holds an annual Christmas sing-along.Robin Marantz Henig . not the religious women or the less observant men. led to greater cooperation in the religious communes. "The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value.." he wrote in "The God Delusion.html ?ei=5090&en=43cfb468. Why is that not a scientific matter?" The separation. But he reserved some of his most venomous words for nonoverlapping magisteria. "that doesn't mean science can't study what religion does. Stephen Jay Gould wrote an essay in Natural History that called for a truce between religion and science. Individuals from religious communes played the game more cooperatively. In 1997. as scientists? . with whom he disagreed about almost everything related to the timing and focus of evolution. who showed the biggest differences.nytimes." The idea that religion can be studied as a natural phenomenon might seem to require an atheistic philosophy as a starting point.Darwin's God .. this suggested that what mattered most was the frequent public display of devotion.Evolution and Religion . despite his neo-atheist label.com/2007 I03/04/magazine/04evolution. urging "respectful discourse" and "mutual humility. Even some neo-atheists aren't entirely opposed to religion." Richard Dawkins had a history of spirited arguments with Gould. I'm a haredi' . complete with hymns and carols that are not only harmonically lush but explicitly pious. "Even if Gould was right that there were two domains. If you are also a member of this group. Sosis and Bradley Ruffle of Ben Gurion University in Israel sought an explanation for why Israel's religious communes did better on average than secular communes in the wake of the economic crash of most of the country's kibbutzim. 3/27/2007 . left untapped the potential richness ofletting one worldview inform the other. In 2003. t.or extremely pious ." he wrote.New York Times Page 14 of 15 Rituals are a way of signaling a sincere commitment to the religion's core beliefs. which helped them maintain their communal structure during economic hard times.

"Why wouldn't God. Barrett's faith might seem confusing. according to both adaptationists and byproduct theorists. all-powerful. Research about the evolution of religion suggests otherwise.. he wrote.Robin Marantz Henig . It is like an atavistic theism erupting when his guard is down.Evolution and Religion . is an observant Christian who believes in "an all-knowing. and probably will become more so as he gets closer to the end of his life. then. Atran says he faces an emotional and intellectual struggle to live without God in a nonatheist world. they have to work hard at being atheists." At first blush. God would be invoked to answer fewer. and he suspects that is where his little superstitions come from.coml2007 103/04/magazine/04evolution. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company http://www. to resist slipping into intrinsic habits of mind that make it easier to believe than not to believe. the real gap that God fills is an emptiness that our big-brained mental architecture interprets as a yearning for the supernatural. design us in such a way as to find belief in divinity quite natural?" Having a scientific explanation for mental phenomena does not mean we should stop believing in them." as he wrote in an e-mail message. The drive to satisfy that yearning.Darwin's God . Robin Marantz Henig. The presumption was that as science was able to answer more questions about the natural world. and religion would eventually recede. has written recently for the magazine about the neurobiology of lying and about obesity.html ?ei=5090&en=43cfb468. might be an inevitable and eternal part of what Atran calls the tragedy of human cognition. This internal push and pull between the spiritual and the rational reflects what used to be called the "God of the gaps" view of religion. he says. t. 3/27/2007 . "Suppose science produces a convincing account for why I think my wife loves me should I then stop believing that she does?" What can be made of atheists. The comforts and consolations of belief are alluring even to him. his passing thought about crossing his fingers during turbulence or knocking on wood just in case. Justin Barrett. How does his view of God as a byproduct of our mental architecture coexist with his Christianity? Why doesn't the byproduct theory turn him into a skeptic? "Christian theology teaches that people were crafted by God to be in a loving relationship with him and other people.New York Times Page 15 of 15 And one prominent member of the byproduct camp. No matter how much science can explain. a contributing writer." Barrett wrote in his e-mail message. "I believe that the purpose for people is to love God and love each other. He fights it because he is a scientist and holds the values of rationalism higher than the values of spiritualism. perfectly good God who brought the universe into being. then? If the evolutionary view of religion is true.. it seems.nytimes.

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