Noted British medical researcher Robert Winston’s forthcoming book, The Story of God, due out next month, sounds like it might be worth reading. Judging by excerpts published in The Guardian this past Thursday, Lord Winston views religion as something that may be hard-wired into our genetic code. If true, this should make us shake our heads in amazement, yet again, at God’s cleverness.
Excerpts (with extra paragraphing and bullet points added):
In his book Darwin's Cathedral, David Sloan Wilson, professor of biology and anthropology at Binghamton University in New York state, says that religiosity emerged as a "useful" genetic trait because it had the effect of making social groups more unified.
The communal nature of religion certainly would have given groups of hunter-gatherers a stronger sense of togetherness. This produced a leaner, meaner survival machine, a group that was more likely to be able to defend a waterhole, or kill more antelope, or capture their opponents' daughters.
The better the religion was at producing an organised and disciplined group, the more effective they would have been at staying alive, and hence at passing their genes on to the next generation.
This is what we mean by "natural selection": adaptations which help survival and reproduction get passed down through the genes.
Taking into account the additional suggestion, from various studies of twins, that we may have an inherited disposition towards religious belief, is there any evidence that the Divine Idea might be carried in our genes?
While nobody has identified any gene for religion, there are certainly some candidate genes that may influence human personality and confer a tendency to religious feelings. Some of the genes likely to be involved are those which control levels of different chemicals called neurotransmitters in the brain. . . .
And it is easy to suggest a mechanism by which religious beliefs could help us to pass on our genes.
[Ed: Rodney Stark’s The Rise of Christianity makes a similar argument: The practice of caritas by early Christians may have given the church, not just a biological advantage for its members, but also a “marketing advantage” in attracting converts.]
But this is not the whole story. Although religion might be useful in developing a solid moral framework - and enforcing it - we can quite easily develop moral intuitions without relying on religion. Psychologist Eliot Turiel observed that even three- and four-year-olds could distinguish between moral rules (for example, not hitting someone) and conventional rules (such as not talking when the teacher is talking). Furthermore, they could understand that a moral breach, such as hitting someone, was wrong whether you had been told not to do it or not, whereas a conventional breach, such as talking in class, was wrong only if it had been expressly forbidden. They were also clearly able to distinguish between prudential rules (such as not leaving your notebook next to the fireplace) and moral rules.
This would suggest that there is a sort of "morality module" in the brain that is activated at an early age. Evidence from neuroscience would back this up, to a degree. In my last book, The Human Mind, I noted that certain brain areas become activated when we engage in cooperation with others, and that these areas are associated with feelings of pleasure and reward. It also seems that certain areas of the brain are brought into action in situations where we feel empathy and forgiveness.
So religion does not seem to be produced by a specific part of our psychological make-up.
Is it more likely, then, that religious ideas are something of an accidental by-product created by other parts of our basic blueprint, by processes deep in the unconscious mind that evolved to help us survive?
Let’s assume arguendo that our religious ideas are indeed “something of an accidental by-product.” That would not rule out a role for a Creator. I’m reminded of a comment by the Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne, FRS, KBE (a former particle physicist) in one of his books: God didn’t create a ready-made world. He did something much more clever than that. He created a world able to make itself. To which I would add:
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Polkinghorne wraps it all up so nicely. In its broadest sense, the controversy between ID and random natural selection boils down to: some people see God in everything, some say there is no God to see in anything. That we have some genetic predisposition towards morality and/or religion is on the face of it blindingly obvious. We also have a genetic predisposition to see, (but not infrared or UV), smell, (but nowhere near as well as the mangiest mutt with congested sinuses), hear, (pretty much ditto), taste and receive sense data by touch. That we have these, even accepting that they resulted from and were refined by Darwinian evolutionary proceses, hardly rules out the possibility (and my belief) that a creator intended us to have them. It proves neither theism nor atheism, ID nor Darwin. That a radio contains the necessary apparatus to receive sound waves and render them audible hardly proves that it was not made. (And that it also receives static and cosmic background radiation does not prove that it was not built primarily to receive muaic, news, sports, right-wing jabber, fundamentalist drivel, etc.)
As for Dawkins, his remarks may tell us much about his tastes in art, music and architecture; but they are not even good Darwin. As obviously as we have a genetic capacity for morality, we have them for aesthetics and worship. Sometimes these are directed towards Caesar; sometimes Christ; sometimes Mammon. And in the three cases above - art, music and architecture, the styles used to worship the one come to be used for the other. The church and the courthouse may look almost identical.
Posted by: BobW | October 16, 2005 at 04:14 PM
This is ridiculous to even mention! A religious gene yeah right! The major point with the children knowing the difference between right and wrong and not to hit others or speak when the teacher is speaking is due to parental and school training! It's called teaching kid's good manners and rules before they go to school. Maybe that child had good parents but this example does not hold true for all children. Not every child knows not to hit others and the don't even know that it was a bad thing to do. They reacted. So you have two children in a play ground. One has learned not to push and shove, instead knowing how to share and play nicely. The second child never learned these rules and has always gotten his/her own way so on the playground when playing in the same area the first child would be more inclined (through upbringing and not by some gene) to share and be nice. While the second would push the first child off of the play set or out of the way for them to play. Granted each child is different so their personalities vary (some are mild mannered while others are very curious etc.). But even so social rules must be LEARNED, children do not know right from wrong when they are little.
Children hit and do not realize that they have hurt the person that they have hit until they have been explained and shown the damage that they have done. I think to have concrete evidence there would need to be experiments made where the children are born and once capable of crawling and functioning with out their mothers to some degree and see how they come out. But this is not something I think anyone would want to see children being put through.
Posted by: Liz | October 05, 2007 at 05:28 AM
Religion can be the back bone or stronghold for many things. Community, better health, sense of unity, stronger children... I see that religion can help but so does positive thinking. You do not NEED a religion to have a strong community and connection with people or to even have people that will support you.
Posted by: Liz | October 05, 2007 at 05:32 AM