Revising Cognitive and Evolutionary Science of Religion: Religion as an Adaptation (New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion, 8) 3030635155, 9783030635152

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New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion 8 Series Editors: Lluis Oviedo · Aku Visala

Konrad Szocik Hans Van Eyghen

Revising Cognitive and Evolutionary Science of Religion Religion as an Adaptation

New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion Volume 8

Series Editors Lluis Oviedo, Pontifical University Antonianum, Roma, Italy Aku Visala, Helsinki University, Helsingin Yliopisto, Finland

Editorial Board Helen de Cruz, Oxford Brookes University, UK Nathaniel Barrett, University of Navarra, Spain Joseph Bulbulia, Victoria University, New Zealand Miguel Farias, Coventry University, UK Jay R. Feierman, University of New Mexico, NM, USA Jonathan Jong, Oxford University, UK Justin McBrayer, Fort Lewis College, CO, USA

Introduction to the Series This series presents new approaches to the scientific study of religion, moving from the first generation of studies that try to ‘explain religion’ towards a more critical effort to explore alternative paths in correspondence with this highly complex human and social feature. The series supports the development of new scientific models that advance our understanding of religious faith, emotions, symbols, rituals, meaning, and religions’ anthropological and cultural dimensions, integrating them into more complex models. Recent decades have witnessed a growing interest in the study of religious mind and behavior from new disciplinary fields, such as cognitive psychology, neuroscience and bio-evolutionary science. The amount of published research is impressive and has reached a level that now calls for evaluation and revision of current models and developments. This new series supports this fast-moving development, encouraging the publication of new books that move on from current research towards larger horizons and innovative ideas. This series: • Increases academic communication and exchange in this multi-disciplinary research area. • Gives a new impetus to the science and religion dialogue. • Opens up new avenues of encounter and discussion between more scientific and more humanistic traditions. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15336

Konrad Szocik • Hans Van Eyghen

Revising Cognitive and Evolutionary Science of Religion Religion as an Adaptation

Konrad Szocik Department of Social Sciences University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow Rzeszów, Poland

Hans Van Eyghen Philosophy Tilburg University Tilburg, Noord Brabant The Netherlands

ISSN 2367-3494     ISSN 2367-3508 (electronic) New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion ISBN 978-3-030-63515-2    ISBN 978-3-030-63516-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63516-9 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   1 2 The Cognitive Approach����������������������������������������������������������������������������  11 3 Religion as Adaptive 1: Background��������������������������������������������������������  29 4 Religion as Adaptive 2: Adaptationist Approaches��������������������������������  37 5 Religion as Adaptive 3: Cultural Evolution��������������������������������������������  59 6 Religion as Adaptive 4: Sexual Selection of Religion������������������������������  67 7 Arguments for Adaptationism������������������������������������������������������������������  79 8 Religion as Cultural: Culture Shapes Cognitive Mechanisms��������������  87 9 Is Religion Still Natural? ������������������������������������������������������������������������  101 10 Atheism ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  111 11 Conclusion������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  123

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Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract  This chapter discusses the idea of explanation of religion in its historical and cultural contexts. First attempts of understanding and later explaining religion in naturalistic terms were made by philosophers in the modern era, beginning with the philosophy of Spinoza. There are good reasons to explain religion in biological terms because religion is often related, however in a specific sense, to human biology. Religion is also a very complex system which is still attractive for different ways of interpretation and explanation. This fact leads to tensions between naturalistic and non-naturalistic approaches to religion. Keywords  Religion · Interpretation · Explanation · Philosophy of religion · Enlightenment · Religion as a complex system

Laziness as the Essence of Natural Selection Laziness is the purpose, the essence, and in some special psychological sense, the dream of humanity. Laziness resembles the biblical Eden, and the biblical Eden may mean, in fact, laziness. The biblical Eden, when seen in biological and ecological terms, is the place where humans have plentiful access to food, are not bothered by predators, and have no problems gaining access to partners. In the Garden of Eden there is no need for natural selection. Natural selection only works where there is scarcity, variation and competition. Natural selection does not work in an environment where resources are plentiful and there is no predation (cf. Rothman 2015: pp. 58–59). The Fall from Eden implied an obligation to work for scarce resources. In a way, human evolutionary history is the history of how to come regain Eden; to get back to a place where people can save their time and energy and to avoid as many duties or requirements as possible. The evolutionary history of human species is also a history of increased laziness, from more to less and less costly activities and solutions. This history is best seen as a technological development. Laziness is the essence of all living animals, not only © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K. Szocik, H. Van Eyghen, Revising Cognitive and Evolutionary Science of Religion, New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63516-9_1

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1 Introduction

human species. No living organism works or moves if it does not have to for survival and/or reproduction. Everyone owner of pets knows that dogs and cats lie still and/or sleep if they do not eat or play. Humans don’t like to be this boring, and their daily activities includes additional behavior like sports, entertainment, or other hobbies. This may suggest that the human species is an exception to this natural tendency to laziness. However, this may be only partially true. People usually prefer to do everything else than their professional work. They look forward to the summer to leave their professional activities and go on holiday. The human propensity to laziness thus does not necessarily mean that humans do nothing. It means that they prefer to do other things than their normal order of duties necessary for survival. Human cultural activity is used to organize this extra biological kind of activity, mostly in one’s spare-time. There is a constant human attempt to stop natural selection. Humans want to catch and to possess available and sufficient resources, and to remove any predators and competitors as much as any other animal. If we take the propensity to laziness as the essence of humanity and one of the basic goals of evolution for granted, it is worth considering the role played by religious components in terms of their connections to that tendency. The main argument is a need for traits which make laziness possible. Laziness should be supported and achieved by a special set of evolved tools and abilities. In this conceptual framework, human cultural activities get a special, functional role. Some cultural activities may be regarded as useless and accidental traits from a natural selection’s point of view. However, on the other side, they are not useless if the entire living world including human species seeks to get to a state of laziness. This model understands humans as part of the rest of the biological world, and hence there is little space for accidental, random activities, or for redundant loss of energy. Even apparently useless cultural traits can be explained in terms of purposeful and non-random products of natural and/or sexual selection. This conceptual framework may be applied to religious components which at first glance appear to be an extravagant product of human cultural creativity. Religious components, like cultural components, could be affected by this supposed general evolutionary tendency of looking for laziness.

Explaining Religion Like many others before us, we investigate the evolutionary role of religion. Our approach fits into a long tradition of attempts at explaining religion. Claiming that religion can or should be explained was and is somewhat controversial. Through the centuries, the study of religion was considered as part of the domain of hermeneutics and phenomenology. Religion was regarded as a special subject matter that may be understood and described in naturalistic terms to some extent but not explained in this way. Many authors tended to regard religion as a sacred entity that must not be touched by science (cf. Tremlin 2013: p. 26). Among the first attempts to explain religion, rather than merely describe or understand religion, were those of modern philosophers. One example was Baruch

Explaining Religion

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Spinoza. He looked to the Bible as a “normal” literary book that can be interpreted, or rather explained by the methods used for literary studies. Such naturalistic approaches started to reconstruct the possible genesis, origin, and dissemination of religious components by looking for their natural origins. For Spinoza, the natural religious environment is rooted in the political and social structure of Ancient Israel. He argues that ancient Israelites needed religion to organize their community in a more efficient way. The first steps toward the current scientific study of religion made by philosophers like Spinoza had a specific historical, social, political, and ethical background. The first scientific-like approaches to the study of religion were philosophical as well, but they expressed a different methodological attitude that later became an essential part of psychology and sociology. This evolution was possible because in seventeenth century new critical approaches to religion appeared. Psychology and sociology did not exist as separated disciplines like we know them today. Some seventeenth century philosophers, however, can be regarded as “proto-­psychologists” and “proto-sociologists” as well. The first steps by modern philosophers were of high importance. Philosophers were the first who introduced the idea of religion as a natural phenomenon that could and should be explained in terms of natural – and not supernatural – rules, laws, and events. This paradigmatic shift opened up a new way of thinking about religion. We can safely say that understanding of religion was gradually replaced by attempts to explain it. The first philosophical theories of religion were also an attempt to explain, and not merely interpret, religion. The first attempts remained speculative and lacked experimental confirmation. There was, however, some empirical confirmation because philosophers used and applied knowledge from other fields to explain, test and eventually confirm some of their initial intuitions. One paradigmatic example of those approaches is found in approaches by English and French philosophers of the Enlightenment. English philosophers such as David Hume developed a psychological approach. In contrast to Hume’s psychological framework, French philosophers like La Mettrie, Helvetius, or Holbach worked more in a biological framework. Both the English and French philosophers can be contrasted to older hermeneutical approaches. In the works of La Mettrie or Holbach we find the first direct references to biological knowledge like correlations between ways of thinking and experiencing religiosity and blood pressure, human psychological nature, or the state of human hormones. While some Ancient thinkers like Xenopphanes already discussed the idea of human cognition in creation or inventions of gods, no one suggested that the particular biological conditions of the human body affect the way in which humans think about supernatural entities. What’s new is that English and French philosophers attempted to explain religion and human religiosity as a natural, human phenomenon which is the combined result of social and economic conditions, political impact, and human emotions and cognitive biases. One of the most representative theories of this new way of thinking about religion was the philosophy of Holbach. His explanation of religion assumes that religious beliefs are affected by fear and evil. This explanation of religion formulated in the middle of eighteenth century resonates with some research in cognitive science of religion

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(see: Guthrie 1993; Jong and Halberstadt 2016). The core idea of what some take to be the standard model of Cognitive Science of Religion states that human religiosity is the product of human fear, anxiety and the feeling of unpredictability, lack of sufficient knowledge about natural environment and about real causal relationships. CSR does not claim that fear and anxiety are the unique or main sources of religious beliefs and therefore CSR does not exactly repeat Holbach’s ideas, CSR does, however, continue Holbach’s heritage in its exploration of importance of fear in particular and cognitive, unconscious biases in general for the formation of religious beliefs. A similar story can be told about evolutionary approaches that try to explain religious phenomena in terms of their possible adaptive functions. It is worth noting that modern philosophers who made the first attempts to explain religion in a critical way, were usually skeptical to the idea that religion may provide any (evolutionary) benefits. The idea is shared by many contemporary religious thinkers, philosophers and scholars of religion. Today we can see a different approach. The idea of religion as an adaptation, while shared by only a small number of scholars in the field of the scientific study of religion, is shared by both religious and atheistic scholars. Applying evolutionary terms to the study of religion does not have to be supported by any personal religious attitude. Because of this we can find some kind of progress from a subjective to a possibly objective approach to the study of religion. While most modern thinkers who introduced naturalistic explanation of religion, shared a personal skepticism of religion or simply atheism, applying evolutionary terms is now equally shared across differences in personal beliefs. Modern philosophers, who shared a negative and critical approach towards religion wanted to show that religion and can be reduced to human social and cognitive capacities. Spinoza offered a rather critical explanation of religion by explaining the origin of Jewish religion in adaptive and functional terms. His act of breaking the spell of religion, while perceived as controversial by many believers, preserved the beneficial and pragmatic value of religion. Spinoza argued that Judaism was a cultural construction which has been important – perhaps even necessary – for providing social cohesion and, by consequence, the survival of the Jews. A similar kind of thinking, this time rooted in evolutionary terms instead of hermeneutic texts and historical context, can be found today in the concept of group selection applied to the study of religion by Wilson (2002). In the nineteenth century, German philosophers like Molleschott, Vogt, Büchner, Haeckel or Feuerbach continued to propose biological and physiological explanations of religion in terms of by-products of some biological and cognitive adaptations. Another idea which makes the bridge between the modern theories and the current cognitive explanation of human mind, is the idea of universal human cognition. Guthrie (2013: p. 43), one of the founders of CSR, refers to Francis Bacon’s concept of universal cognitive biases which are aimed at a theological interpretation of the world. This signals that anthropomorphic explanations of religion have a long and strong tradition in Western thought with some roots in the ancient world.

The Self-Perception of ‘Mankind as a Special Species’

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The Self-Perception of ‘Mankind as a Special Species’ The above mentioned paradigm shift in the study of religion which was anticipated by modern philosophers, and then developed deeper in cognitive and evolutionary theories, can be expressed in terms of a transition from the emic to the etic perspective. In the emic perspective, scholars explain a studied cultural phenomenon in terms of that very culture. The etic approach assumes that scholar should explain a studied phenomenon in terms of an external approach and associated research method. An etic approach opens up space for reductionism in science. Because the term “religion” includes a lot of various phenomena and traits, all of them should be reduced to simpler forms and to simpler and more clear concepts which are understandable, known and studied by other disciplines (cf. Xygalatas 2010: p. 467). Reductionism in science is, like McCauley (2013: p. 14) argues, the essence of scientific explanation. In fact, reductionism is the only kind of scientific explanation possible. McCauley argues that no science is able to offer a comprehensive and total explanation. Scientific explanation is possible only when it zooms in on aspects of objects and phenomena, which constitutes a reduction. It is interesting to note that, like McCauley shows, the idea of a full and comprehensive explanation only has a right to existence in a religious approach and is hardly ever the topic of much discussion in other domains. While reductionism is unavoidable, the process of fractioning of religion may, like Whitehouse et al. (2013, p. 78) argue, leads to problems. One of them is the fact that all religious ideas and traits belong to other kind of reality which can be expressed in terms of Durkheimian “the sacred.” Whitehouse discusses the opposition between the cognitive idea of dividing religion on various parts which are affected and shaped by various cognitive capacities, and the idea of connection of all religious components which is appropriate for the religious point of view. Sterelny (2017) also refers to this problem when he argues that it is justified – despite the strong methodological critique we mentioned above – to treat religion as a unitary phenomenon. One challenge to the idea of religion as a unitary phenomenon is the existence of a large number of definitions of religion, and the lack of any consensus. Boyer (2013) notes that many cultures do not have one common term that describes supernatural figures, moral rules and rituals. In some sense, the daily life of believers goes against the unifying tendency of science and philosophy. There might be some rationale to treat religion as a special phenomenon which cannot be adequately explained in purely naturalistic terms used by cognitive and evolutionary studies of religion. The specificity of religion could lie in its special roles of providing sense and meaning of life. It is hard to find any other similar set of cultural traits which could be compared to the impact religious components have on human life in this sense. Possible candidates might be philosophy, storytelling or science. However, there are substantial differences between religion and the mentioned alternatives. Philosophy is not able to provide a sense to life in the same way religion does ”1. Philosophy might offer a set of tools of thinking and ideas which  While this may be possible for older philosophical traditions like Stoicism, Neoplatonism or Epicureanism, contemporary philosophical traditions are rarely regarded as important sources for sense or meaning in life. 1

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may be useful to interpret the world. Philosophy is more like a formal framework without content which should be filled by particular contents. Furthermore, philosophical theories – like stoicism or existentialism are limited to a small part of population. Something similar can be said of science. It might even seems paradoxical that religion which is treated as an useful phenomenon in this sense, is simultaneously perceived as something extravagant and useless, like other cultural phenomena including storytelling or music (Sterelny 2018). The difference between religion and storytelling lies in the fact that storytelling is not supported by institutional policy and credibility enhancing displays. While both religious and storytelling figures are imaginative, storytelling belongs in the domain of thinking and imagination, while religious “storytelling” fits in the domain of action and practice. The alleged specificity and unity of religion, however, does not have to exclude the use of cognitive and evolutionary theories of religion. Because humans are an animal species that is governed by biology like non-human animal species are, correlations between religiosity and religious components on the one side, and human biology including cognition on the other side, should not be excluded a priori. However, religious narrations have exaggerated the distance between humans and their animal roots to an extremum. Religious narratives introduced the concept of a divine origin of humans, for example as expressed in the biblical concept of creation. While exaggerated from biological point of view, this phenomenon shows witness to the human tendency to treat themselves in a special way. The non-naturalistic concept of humans based on the Greek and Roman apotheosis of human reason, and then supported by religious transcendent concept of human being, has existed about two millennia. This idea of discontinuity and separation between humans and non-­human animals was replaced relatively fast by a naturalistic, positivistic idea of human being rooted in the enlightenment.

 he Puzzling Constellation of Biology and Religious T Components It seems almost unavoidable that the idea of a human being who sees himself as separated from his biological roots and from the natural world in general, should lead to wrong assumptions and ideas about a so-called human nature. This leads to explanatory challenges and difficulties. It is also worth keeping in mind that the new idea of humans as purely biological, animalistic and naturalistic seems just as wrong. Having biological, animal roots and origin does not exclude phenomena and traits that introduce meaning, sense, contents, and functions that go beyond a purely biological sense and “purpose”2 of human life. It refers also to many cultural traits, including the production of the religious components. Human biology and cogni-

2  The term purpose is used here in purely metaphorical sense, while theory of evolution by natural selection does not assume any purpose – the unique “purpose” is only fitness maximization.

The Puzzling Constellation of Biology and Religious Components

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tion may be only partially connected with emergence, evolution, and development of religious components. Traits and phenomena of cultural evolution come in degrees. Some of them, like technological tools are – or seem to be – more directly connected with human survival and/or reproduction than the human capacity for music and storytelling. The functionality and possible survival and/or reproduction advantage of the latter two capacities is not immediately obvious. Some scholars argue that every phenomenon – even those that seems to be apparently useless – is in some way connected with human reproduction. Some scholars try to prove the usefulness and pragmatic applications of music and storytelling, just to mention a few. This list of apparently useless cultural phenomena may include religion, art or sport. Sexual selection theory of culture, in turn, offers an explanation for all ­cultural phenomena which seem to be beyond the explanatory scope of natural selection theory. Sexual selection also provides a rescue for all these phenomena which are useless from natural selection theory’s point of view and, as a such, unexplainable by it. Sexual selection theory of culture can explain the evolution and dissemination of many traits and patterns that throughout the centuries have become the focal point of human life, like religion, music, art or sport. Explaining culture, including religious components, in terms of natural selection may fail, but this does not rule out an explanation in terms of sexual selection. Miller puts religious beliefs together with other cultural traits like art, music, or political convictions that are “extreme, striking, and costly; that are attractive to the opposite sex; and that have little apparent survival value.” He suggests that the runaway sexual selection is a reliable theoretical framework to explain their evolution (Miller 2001: p. 97). This approach is common in evolutionary psychology which is aimed at explanation of nearly every human behavior in terms of the past adaptations. Evolutionary psychology’s paradigm is broadly criticized because it may lead to the wrong conclusion that every feature and function is an adaptation or something which possesses (or possessed) some adaptive value. This form of ‘adaptationism’ has been criticized by many scholars, most famously by Gould and Lewontin (1979). In recent years, Koonin (2016) argues in his ‘refutation of adaptationism’ that one of reasons of widespread methodological misunderstandings and confusions is due to the wrong basic question “what is this for.” This question should be replaced by the question “how has this sequence evolved.” Such a conceptual switch is crucially important because it prevents the tendency to look for adaptive functions where no such function is at work. Religious components are good candidates to be phenomena which possess only apparent functions. Following the problems of adaptationism, these components do not have to be correlated with survival and/or reproduction, and they could have evolved independently of survival and/or reproduction benefits. This is the key idea of CSR which assumes that invention, evolution, and dissemination of religious components, is a by-product of human cognition. In this book we assume that there are good reasons to think that religious components could have evolved, among other reasons, to provide sense and meanings. They could evolve and be disseminated independently of adaptive functions and cognitive biases. However, we cannot exclude that the evolution of religious com-

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ponents involved some adaptive cognitive mechanisms. The human need and search for sense and explanation goes in accordance with the cultural tendency to assume a distance between human species and its own animal and biological roots. In that model, religious components provide a narrative framework by means of which human origins are explained and it offers sense and meaning for human life. The complexity and creativity of human brain and mind goes far beyond survival and reproduction’s needs in a way that is incomparable to the rest of a living world. Humans look for extra sense in their lives which – if focused only on survival and reproduction like natural selection theory assumes – would seem to be useless and senseless for species possessing such highly advanced brains and minds. This existential but also biological specificity of human species gives some rationale to explain the evolution of religion more in terms of Darwinian evolution than in terms of cognitive by-product of other adaptations. Religion may be explained as an adaptive human response for human need for sense and explanation. Even if the term adaptation, when applied to the study of religion, does not correspond strictly with the biological sense of adaptation connected with survival and reproduction, this term seems better fitted than the term by-product. The emergence/invention of religious beliefs is not necessary an accidental by-product because there are reasons to treat it as a non-random product of a human search for explanation, sense, and meaning.

Religion as a Complex System Religion is a complex phenomenon consisting of various, rather different components, like beliefs, rituals, institutions, etc. The first step to reduce the risk of misinterpretations and wrong generalizations is to replace the term religion by the term religious components. In philosophy of religion, the term religion usually designates religious beliefs. Beliefs are in the center of philosophical interests, but also of most cognitive and evolutionary approaches. In contrast to philosophy, the cognitive and evolutionary accounts also study religious behaviors and practices.3 The most puzzling and challenging question is why humans possess such kind of beliefs, and how these beliefs can affect human decisions, acts, and daily life. Religious actions usually are of secondary value when compared with the role played by religious beliefs. It seems almost impossible to engage in religious rituals without prior religious/supernatural beliefs. Beliefs open space for invention and transmission of religious rituals and behaviors. Religious beliefs may exist independently on the religious system even if they have been a part of this system in the past. They may exist independently on the official religious structure but only in rare situations they can be acquired without the social and cultural structure created by particular reli-

3  In recent years, some philosophers started discussing religious rituals as well. See for example (De Cruz 2018; Cuneo 2014).

References

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gion, often supported by religious institution. Despite this connection with cultural context and often institution, religious beliefs often emerge from these structures and live independently on their own. Defenders of cognitive explanations of religion tend to present explanations for religious components in isolation.4 The main focus is on religious beliefs and ritual behavior. Defenders of adaptationist explanations more often regard religious systems, with their various components, as adaptive. In the remainder of the book, we will use both terms where appropriate.

Overview We argue that religion and its various components can be explained as a (cultural) adaptation. Cultural processes can spread religious belief and behavior in a society and shape cognitive mechanisms and biases. In the next chapter, we discuss the main alternative to the view that religion is an adaptation, the view that religion is a functionless by-product. Since the view is common in cognitive science of religion (CSR), we present some of the main ideas and theories in CSR. In Chap. 3, we discuss the background of adaptationist theories. In Chap. 4, we discuss the main recent adaptationist explanations of religion. In Chap. 5, we zoom in on cultural evolution and how it features in some adaptationist explanations. In Chap. 6, we look at sexual selection theory and how it can explain various religious components. In Chap. 7, we provide arguments for regarding religion as an adaptation over and against arguments to regard religion as a functionless by-product. In Chap. 8, we argue that cognitive mechanisms and biases could be shaped by cultural processes rather than result from the cognitive architecture of humans. In Chap. 9, we discuss implications of our account for regarding religion as intuitive or natural. In Chap. 10, we discuss how our account can explain non-belief or atheism.

References Bloom, P. (2005). Is god an accident? The Atlantic Monthly, December. Boyer, P. (2013). Explaining religious concepts. Levi-Strauss the brilliant and problematic ancestor. In D. Xygalatas & W. M. McCorkle (Eds.), Mental culture, classical social theory and the cognitive science of religion (pp. 164–175). New York: Acumen. Boyer, P., & Liénard, P. (2006). Why ritualized behavior? Precaution systems and action parsing in developmental, pathological and cultural rituals. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 29(6), 595–613; discussion 613-650. Cuneo, T. (2014). Ritual knowledge. Faith and Philosophy, 31, 365–385. 4  For example, Pascal Boyer and Pierre Lienard discuss basic ritual behavior in isolation (Boyer and Liénard 2006). Paul Bloom discusses dualistic beliefs in isolation (Bloom 2005).

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De Cruz, H. (2018). Etiological Challenges to Religious Practices. American Philosophical Quarterly, 55(4), 329–340. Gould, S. J., & Lewontin, R. C. (1979). The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: A critique of the adaptationist programme. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 205(1161). Guthrie, S. (2013). Early cognitive theorists of religion. Robin Horton and his predecessors. In Mental culture. Classical social theory and the cognitive science of religion (pp.  33–51). New York: Acumen. Guthrie, S. E. (1993). Faces in the clouds: A new theory of religion. New York: Oxford University Press. Jong, J., & Halberstadt, J. (2016). Anxiety and religious belief: An existential psychology of religion. London: Bloomsbury. Koonin, E. (2016). Splendor and misery of adaptation, or the importance of neutral null for understanding evolution. BMC Biology, 14, 114. McCauley, R. N. (2013). Explanatory pluralism and the cognitive science of religion: Why scholars in religious studies should stop worrying about reductionism. In D.  Xygalatas & W.  W. J. McCorkle (Eds.), Mental culture: Classical social theory and the cognitive science of religion (pp. 11–32). New York: Acumen. Miller, G. F. (2001). The mating mind. How sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature. New York: Anchor Books. Rothman, S. (2015). The paradox of evolution. The strange relationship between natural selection and reproduction. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Sterelny, K. (2017). Religion well explained? A response to commentaries on “Religion Re-explained”. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 8(4), 452–460. Sterelny, K. (2018). Religion re-explained. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 8(4), 406–425. Tremlin, T. (2013). Evolutionary religious studies. Notes on a unified science of religion. In G. Dawes & J. Maclaurin (Eds.), A new science of religion. New York: Routledge. Whitehouse, H., Swann, W., Ingram, G., Prochownik, K., Lanman, J., Waring, T. M., Frost, K., Jones, D., Reeve, Z., & Johnson, D. (2013). Three wishes for the world (with comment). Cliodynamics: The Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History, 4. Wilson, D. S. (2002). Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, religion, and the nature of society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Xygalatas, D. (2010). Can the study of religion be scientific? In P.  Pachis & D.  Wiebe (Eds.), Chasing down religion in the sights of history and the cognitive sciences. Sheffield: Equinox.

Chapter 2

The Cognitive Approach

Abstract  This chapter presents some of the main theories and assumptions of cognitive science of religion (CSR). The main CSR theories and concepts discussed here include the concept of religion as by-product, the naturalness of religion, HADD, MCI hypothesis, theory of mind, and promiscuous teleology. Critical remarks on CSR refer to marginalized impact of social and cultural factors. We also discuss some objections to the notion of intuitiveness. Keywords  By-product · Naturalness of religion · HADD · MCI hypothesis · Theory of mind · Promiscuous teleology · Intuitiveness

Introduction In this book, we argue for an interdisciplinary, adaptationist approach to the study of religion. Before we develop this approach, we will first take a look at one major player in the domain, Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR).1 We do not aim to give a thorough overview of CSR-theories,2 but merely give a number of examples to illustrate common threads and claims within CSR. Before we do so, we first discuss the backgrounds and common assumptions of CSR. We end with discussing some main points of criticism.

1  While we were finishing up this book, word came that the International Association for Cognitive Science of Religion would push the term ‘Cognitive and Evolutionary Science of Religion’ (CESR). We continued to use the older term (CSR) throughout the book. 2  For such overviews, see: (White 2018; Van Eyghen et al. 2018)

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K. Szocik, H. Van Eyghen, Revising Cognitive and Evolutionary Science of Religion, New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63516-9_2

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2  The Cognitive Approach

Backgrounds of CSR CSR is an interdisciplinary field. Like cognitive science in general, CSR includes experimental elements provided by psychology and neuroscience. It also leaves room for theoretical considerations provided by philosophers and evolutionary biologists. CSR-theories try to explain the occurrence of religious components (beliefs, ritual behaviors, etc.) by the structure and operations of the human cognitive apparatus. Similarly to how cognitive scientists explain human social interaction by pointing to the operations of the human theory of mind (Gopnik and Wellman 1994) or the human capacity for simulation (Gallese and Goldman 1998), CSR-theorists look to the operations of human cognitive mechanisms or human cognitive capacities to explain religious phenomena. Like other fields of cognitive science, CSR studies aspects of human cognition. Cognition is roughly the acquisition, processing and transmittance of beliefs or other doxastic states. CSR emerged as a discipline in the 1990s.3 It drew on new insights in cognitive science from the 1970s onwards that revolted against the old behaviorist paradigm. Behaviorists bracketed what occurs in human minds and focus on outward behavior instead. From the 1970s onwards, cognitive scientists again tried to probe the various mechanisms that guide human thought and cognition. Apart from cognitive science, CSR also draws heavily on evolutionary psychology (see: Barkow et  al. 1992). Adherents of evolutionary psychology argue that human cognition bears the marks of evolutionary history. Some argue that human cognitive mechanisms were inherited because they yielded an adaptive benefit (see examples below).

Cognitive mechanisms/biases We noted above that cognitive approaches offer explanations for religious components. They usually do so by pointing to the operations of one or more cognitive mechanisms or biases that would produce or contribute to religious components. A widely discussed, though controversial, example is the theory of the hyperactive agency detection device (HADD).4 According to the theory, belief in spirits, ghosts and gods has its origin in a cognitive mechanism called the agency detection device. By means of this mechanism, humans scan their environments for signs of agency. They do so by reading patterns caused by or traces of animals and humans in the

3  Early seminal works are E. Thomas Lawson & Robert McCauley’s Rethinking Religion (Lawson and McCauley 1990), Pascal Boyer’s religion explained (Boyer 2002) and Stewart Guthrie’s Faces in the Clouds (Guthrie 1993). 4  While the term hyperactive agency detection device was coined by Justin Barrett (Barrett 2004), the idea was first defended by Stewart Guthrie (Guthrie 1993).

Cognitive mechanisms/biases

13

environment. The mechanism is, however, overly active. Some cues, like rustling of leaves in the wind or vague patterns suffice to produce the feeling that some agent is around. While these feelings are usually discarded after closer inspection, they could give rise to the feeling that an invisible agent is around that causes the cues. This could foster the belief in spirits and eventually gods. Other theorists argue that other cognitive mechanisms like the Theory of Mind (ToM) (Bering 2002b), moral mechanisms (Gray and Wegner 2010) or attachment mechanisms (Kirkpatrick 2005) produce or contribute to religious components. Often, CSR-theorists don’t dwell on what exactly cognitive mechanisms are. Many CSR-theorists appear to subscribe to the idea that cognitive mechanisms are modular.5 In broad strokes the modularity of mind thesis states that the human mind consists of distinct mechanisms of functions that operate in relative independence.6 Some add that modular mechanisms had distinct evolutionary etiologies. Some have criticized CSR’s adherence to strong modularity. Leon Turner suggests replacing modular cognitive mechanisms with cognitive toolkits and/or cognitive devices (Turner 2014: p.12). Helen de Cruz and Johan de Smedt (De Cruz and De Smedt 2015) propose the term ‘intuitions’ as an alternative. Evolutionary bio-­ behavioral and cultural approaches also do not accept the idea of domain-specific cognitive modules. Cecilia Heyes maps both sides of the debate to the California School of dual inheritance theory (where cultural evolution is a source of adaptation) and the Paris school of cultural epidemiology (where culture exposes a form of attraction rather than a selective pressure). Since evolutionary accounts expose the power of selective pressures (both biological and cultural) that can affect brain and neural structures, there is no need for the concept of modular cognitive mechanisms. In any case, it is not clear whether cognitive mechanisms or biases merit an ontological status of existence. We only know for sure that brains and neurons actually exist. Modular cognitive mechanisms do not appear to exist outside of cognitive or psychological theories. Therefore, it is hard to see how they can be the objects or products of natural selection. In line with most cognitive science, most CSR-theorists claim that cognitive mechanisms are not mere transmitters of input but actively shape representations of input.7 The beliefs (or other representations) cognitive mechanisms produce are not determined by the input. Some CSR-theorists argue that input that appears goal-­ oriented easily leads to representations of agency (see above). Cognitive mechanisms thereby act as a top-down filter on perception and cognition. How cognitive mechanisms process input and how they produce representations usually remains inaccessible to introspection. CSR-theorists usually claim that the cognitive mechanisms that produce religious beliefs and behavior are the result of evolutionary processes (though they usually deny that religious beliefs and behavior serve an adaptive function them-

 For a discussion, see (Van Eyghen 2018a).  For an overview of various modularity of mind theses see (Robbins 2009). 7  For a discussion, see (White 2017, 2018). 5 6

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selves). They argue that evolutionary pressures, like the need for social interaction or the need to quickly detect imminent danger, favored the transmission of cognitive mechanisms. This claim links (modular) cognitive science to evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology informs the ultimate causes of why humans have a set of cognitive mechanisms and cognitive science describes how cognitive mechanisms produce a set of beliefs if triggered by the right sensory stimuli. On a modular approach, evolved cognitive mechanisms operate in relative independence from other cognitive mechanisms and have distinct evolutionary etiologies. According to evolutionary psychologists, the impact of natural selection on human cognition goes back a long time in history. Much of the human cognitive architecture was shaped by the time humans reached the Pleistocene (from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago). Because of this, human cognition provides benefits that first of all benefitted our nomad ancestors. Their operations might not provide such benefits anymore or can even be counterproductive. A good example is our craving for fatty food and sugar (See Leonard et  al. 2010). For our ancestors resources were sparse. As a result, a preference for food with a lot of calories (like fatty or sugary food) was beneficial. Nowadays, a preference for high-calorie food is rather counterproductive. Eating a lot of fatty or sugary food can easily lead to obesity, which lowers an individual’s chances of reproducing and survival. Other cognitive functions have retained their beneficial value today. Because they go back far in human history before migrations outside of Africa, humans across cultures share the same or similar cognitive mechanisms. As a result all people would interpret life and the world by using the same or similar supernatural/ religious concepts. A common argument in CSR is that religious belief is caused by cognitive mechanisms or cognitive biases. We noted earlier how Barrett and Guthrie claim that at least some religious beliefs are caused by the hyperactive agency detection device. Under normal conditions, the hyperactive agency detection device produces beliefs in invisible agents according to Barrett. According to Joshua Thurow, CSR-theories explain how religious beliefs arise in normal environmental and cognitive conditions (Thurow 2013). While cognitive mechanisms and biases make a causal contribution to religious beliefs, it is not clear whether they can be regarded as their efficient causes. One could claim that all beliefs, including philosophical, scientific, theological, social or economic are all caused by some cognitive mechanism. In this regard, cognitive mechanisms cause beliefs like muscles and legs cause fight, flee or freeze reactions. While the operations of muscles and legs make it possible to move from one place to another, they do not tell us anything about the external reasons or triggers for fighting, fleeing or freezing. To explain this, one has to take ecological pressures and sensory stimuli into account. Muscles and legs are merely carriers, not efficient or final causes of motion. The same applies to religious beliefs. While these are caused by cognitive mechanisms or biases in some sense, they are also caused by selective pressures, human biological and cognitive potential and sensory inputs. Pointing to the operations of cognitive mechanisms or biases is thus in an important sense limited to explain the origins of religious beliefs since they mainly provide the proximate causes. Below, we argue that adding evolutionary approaches can provide a fuller picture.

By-product

15

By-product Biologists have long agreed that not all traits are adaptations. Other ways in which traits can spread through a population are by means of genetic drift or as by-­ products. Genetic drift is the process whereby the frequency of traits in a population changes because of random sampling of organisms. According to Joanna Masel changes in frequency usually cancel each other out. An important exception is when a trait disappears because of genetic drift. Once a trait is lost, a new mutation is required to bring the trait back (Masel 2011). Unlike traits that become dominant because of genetic drift, by-products are not the effect of randomness. By-products or spandrels arise alongside adaptive traits but do not yield any adaptive benefit themselves. An example of a by-product is the human belly button. There is no evidence that the belly button served any adaptive purpose. The belly button merely arises alongside another adaptation, namely the umbilical cord that provides the food supply for a fetus (Buss et al. 1998). A majority of CSR-theorists claim that religious beliefs do not have adaptive value in themselves but are accidental by-products of other features of human cognition. For example, on Barrett’s account of hypersensitive or hyperactive agency detection, religious beliefs are a by-product of that hyperactive agency detection. While hyperactivity in agency detection is itself evolutionary beneficial (humans are on guard for predators), the beliefs in invisible agents they sometimes produce are not (see below). While CSR treats religious beliefs as normal and natural phenomena (see below), it rejects their evolutionary functionality. Functional explanations assume that a phenomenon was inherited because of its function. In the past, explanations of religious belief looked at different functions religious belief could have, like psychological, moral, social, economic, spiritual or even philosophical functions. Even critics of religious beliefs attributed its success to beneficial psychotherapeutical and/or social functions. Contrary to CSR-theorists, they took it for granted that a functional explanation can explain the occurrence of religious belief. CSR does not take this route and treats the function of religious components as secondary or accidental. Its rejection of functionality is the result of some assumptions. One is that religious components would be too costly in an evolutionary sense (Atran 2012). CSR-theorists tend to assume that less complex and more natural traits sufficed to tackle the evolutionary functions that were traditionally assigned to religious components. An alternative, functional explanation explains the universality of religious components in terms of their common biological function. Not all evolutionary explanations are functional. Some point to traits that were present in shared ancestors. In the animal world, an adaptation is the combined result of ancestry and function. Organisms living in the same environmental conditions sometimes have different traits because they had different ancestors. One example is the tail fin and swimming style of whales, tuna fish and sharks. Whales share a common ancestor with terrestrial mammals. For this reason, its spine is similar to that of horses and deer.

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This spine determines how whales swim (Bell 2015, p. 15). A similar story is not available for religious components because there is no religious common ancestor. CSR-theorists reject both a functional explanation and an explanation in terms of shared ancestors. Instead, they argue that religious components are the result of the operations of the human mind, as it had evolved by the Pleistocene. Religious beliefs are by-product of that caveman mind that evolved for non-religious purposes and is still with us. The Pleistocene would be the appropriate period for cognitive explanations because the next epoch, the Holocene, is too short-lived to make new biological adaptations possible. Therefore, the human mind must be the inherited from the Pleistocene. However, the Holocene is not too short-lived to allow for sexual selection. If sexual selection is an important selective force, no one can exclude the possibility of the adaptive cognitive changes in Holocene. Although it is possible (and even plausible) that natural selection did not affect human cognition in the Holocene, sexual selection could very well have driven human evolution in new directions by selective retention and stabilizing selection. Thus, sexual selection gives the opportunity to treat religious beliefs as more recent adaptations. We already noted how cognitive explanations that regard religious beliefs as a by-product are in an important way limited because they don’t take the functions of religious beliefs into account. In doing so, CSR-theorists avoid the trap of ‘Darwinian fundamentalism’, where every trait that is common in the natural world must be favored by natural selection. Although, this is laudable, one can wonder if CSR-­ theorists are too quick to regard religion as a non-adaptive by-product. Not only are they often too quick to judge that they are so, their adherence to the by-product view is often under argued. A number of authors also provide evidence for the contrary view, namely that religious beliefs, rituals or other religious components do have adaptive value. We will discuss a number of adaptationist theories in the next chapter. Some authors also give general reasons why religion can be regarded as an adaptation. According to Leon Turner,8 CSR provides the correct explanation of origin of religious beliefs in normal environmental and cognitive conditions. The evolutionary account explains the success of particular religious traditions (Turner 2014, p. 8). Turner thus argues that both approaches are compatible, and each of them is focused on other particular aspect of origin and function of religious components. CSR-theorists ‘solve’ the question of the biological status of religion by explaining them in terms of by-products of other adaptations. This ‘solution’ implies conclusions about the utility or functionality of religion, namely denying that they have any. If religious components are by-products, religious humans seem irrational beings who have a highly advanced, though dated imagination but cannot control it. Ecological pressures may alter the by-products but are not determining them. If religion were an adaptation in its own right, ecological challenges are determining factors for religion. Some adaptations are highly advanced, abstract and symbolic, and despite their apparently odd, irrational, and useless nature, they maximize fit-

 Turner draws on ideas by Joshua Thurow (2013).

8

The Naturalness of Religion

17

ness. In an adaptationist view, humans are responding to their environment whereas on a cognitive view, they are passive receivers of the outputs of their cognitive mechanisms. The synthesis of the cognitive and the evolutionary perspectives is unavoidable. James Jones argues that CSR does not explain the origin of religious beliefs but only describes functioning of the collateral cognitive mechanisms. Explanation of the origin of the cognitive mechanisms and religious beliefs requires an evolutionary approach (Jones 2016, p. 120). If the cognitive account assumes that there are stable cognitive mechanisms, processes and biases which are involved in production of the religious beliefs, the cognitive account should assume, as a consequence, an ­interaction between cognitive mechanisms and natural selection. Natural selection has been at work not only when cognition has been shaped but also when religious beliefs have evolved. Religious beliefs are indirect products of natural selection because they are produced by cognitive adaptations. If adaptation produces trait which remains stable over time, is inherited from generation to generation and provides function/functions, this trait can be considered as an adaptation or as a trait which has adaptive value. Feierman (2009) points out that some religious components are adaptations while other ones including type II behavior, moods and feelings are not adaptations but they possess adaptive value.

The Naturalness of Religion A main idea in CSR is that religion is natural. The term ‘natural’ can take on many meanings. Justin Barrett and Aku Visala distinguish a number of different meanings of the term (Barrett and Visala 2018). One meaning opposes natural to supernatural. What ‘supernatural’ means is also open for debate. Often the supernatural realm is regarded as beyond the physical world or beyond the space-time continuum.9 If religion is natural in this regard, there is little room for supernatural beings and many religious beliefs should be regarded as false. Barrett and Visala oppose this view and argue that the fact that some proximate natural factors cause religious beliefs in the same manner like other non-religious beliefs does not exclude existence of other causes which may exist. In any case this is not how the term ‘natural’ is used by most CSR-theorists. Another meaning of ‘natural’ is more or less synonymous to ‘ordinary’. If religion is natural in this regard, it means that religious beliefs are not very different than other non-religious beliefs. Regarding religion as natural in this regard is problematic because there is an obvious difference between most religious beliefs with non-religious beliefs. The distinctive character of religious beliefs lies in their reference to a different world beyond this world, which is understood as more important, superior, eternal and unchanging.

 See (Van Eyghen 2018b).

9

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2  The Cognitive Approach

Another meaning of the term naturalness is intuitiveness. Many CSR-theories claim that religious beliefs are formed spontaneously and effortlessly. Intuitive beliefs stand opposed to reflective beliefs. One influential author who argues that religious beliefs are natural in this regard is Robert McCauley.10 He claims that human minds are such that basic religious beliefs are formed intuitively whereas scientific beliefs (and theological beliefs) are much harder to form and maintain. McCauley also makes a distinction between maturationally natural and practiced natural beliefs (McCauley 2011). We return to this distinction later. Authors who defend that basic religious beliefs are intuitive tend to argue that atheism is not. Contrary to religious beliefs, atheist beliefs would require special cognitive effort including reading appropriate texts, intellectual training and critical reflection. Atheist must overcome cognitive tendencies and intuitions, which lead to religiosity. A final meaning of ‘natural’ is ‘evolved by natural selection’. CSR-theories usually don’t consider religion as natural in this regard because they adhere to the by-­ product view (see above). When CSR-theorists claim that religion is natural, they usually mean that religious belief is formed easily and intuitively. One main argument why religious beliefs would stem from common features of human cognition (as CSR-theorists argue), is that religious beliefs are cross-­ culturally ubiquitous and similar. According to most CSR-theorists, religious beliefs like belief in supernatural agents (S. E. Guthrie 1993), teleology (Kelemen 1999a), dualism (Bloom 2007), appear cross culturally. The reason they do is because humans share evolved cognitive mechanisms and biases. Being common features of human cognition is not the only possible explanation for cross-cultural similarities. Similarities could also be explained by common selection pressures. A non-naturalistic explanation can explain the similarities as the effect of the will of God. If there were a God, he would want people to believe he exists. For this reason, he could have people form similar religious beliefs cross-culturally. Aku Visala points out that this non-naturalistic explanation is compatible with naturalistic explanations as offered by CSR. Natural and supernatural causes for religious belief work at different levels that do not overlap. Therefore, CSR-theories and its implications are open for both a theistic and a naturalistic reading (Visala 2014).11 It is also worth noting that regarding religious belief as part of the natural, normal cognitive make-up stands in contrast to older views of religious belief. Philosophers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries often regarded religious belief as an abnormality or psychological pathology. Sigmund Freud identified religious belief with individual neurosis. He argues that healthy human brains and psyches should not be religious (Freud 1961). Karl Marx claimed something similar. In his view, religious belief is the product of alienation and exploitation by privileged classes (Marx 1970).

 While McCauley argues that many religious beliefs are natural in this regard, he adds that some more complex, theological beliefs are not. 11  See also (Hans Van Eyghen, 2020: Chap. 4). 10

Examples CSR-Theories

19

Examples CSR-Theories Having discussed some general features of CSR, we will now discuss some CSR-­ theories in more detail. We do not aim at providing an exhaustive overview.

HADD hypothesis We discussed how many CSR-theorists explain religious beliefs by the operations of cognitive mechanisms or biases. One proposed cognitive mechanism is the Hypersensitive/Hyperactive Agency Detection Device (HADD). According to defenders (Barrett 2004; Guthrie 1993), HADD evolved in the Pleistocene to be on guard against potentially dangerous agents. Fast detection of agents, like predators, allows humans to avoid attacks. To be safe, it is beneficial that agency detection is somewhat hyperactive, meaning that it gives the sense that some agent is around when in fact there is none. While this leads to false positives and some loss of time and energy, it lowers the odds of missing one dangerous agent. Because of its hyperactivity, HADD sometimes creates the sense that an agent is around when no visible agent is to be found. When humans fail to see an agent after their HADD’s were triggered, they still look for an explanation. At this point, they might infer the presence of invisible agents. In this sense, HADD appears not to produce religious or supernatural beliefs itself but merely motivates an individual to look for an explanation. In a next step, HADD may activate the human imagination and produce supernatural representations. This would mainly happen in situations where detection of agents is not easy, like in situations of darkness or reduced sight. In recent years, HADD has been severely criticized. Some have pointed out that only humans with pre-existing supernatural beliefs would easily form the belief that some invisible agent is around (Andersen 2017; Van Leeuwen and Van Elk 2018). If our Pleistocene ancestors did not have these preexisting beliefs, it is hard to see how they could attribute events to supernatural invisible agents since they lack the special intellectual abilities and specific imagination to do so.

MCI Hypothesis A second widely influential CSR-theory does not so much explain religious beliefs by pointing to a mechanism as a cause, but claims that religious beliefs are easily remembered and transmitted by virtue of their content. Boyer (2002) argues that religious beliefs are easily remembered and transmitted because they are minimally counterintuitive. Boyer argues that humans have a set of intuitive ontological categories like ‘Human’, ‘Plant’ or ‘Animal’. By classifying something in one of these categories, humans can make predictions and inferences about what the thing will

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do. For example, by classifying something as a plant, humans can infer that the thing will very likely not be able to move and will grow under the right conditions. Intuitive concepts, like a standard tree, do not violate any predictions that come with their ontological category. Some things, however, do violate some. Contrary to most plants, a Venus fly trap is able to move to some extent. A Venus fly trap does meet most other characteristics of plants since they require water to survive and grow under the right conditions. Because it violates some predictions, a Venus fly trap can be called ‘minimally counter intuitive’. Some things are also ‘maximally counterintuitive’. These violate a great deal of predictions of their respective ontological category. Boyer argues that minimally counterintuitive concepts (MCI’s) are best remembered and transmitted. Intuitive concepts are too plain to be memorable. Maximally counterintuitive concepts require too much cognitive effort. Therefore, MCI’s have an edge over other concepts. Religious concepts are such MCI’s according to Boyer. Most religious concepts can be fitted into one category (usually ‘Person’ or ‘Human’) but they violate some predictions. For example, a ghost checks most of the boxes that come with ‘Human’, but differs as it is able to move through walls.

Theory of Mind The human theory of mind (ToM) is another cognitive mechanism that often features in CSR-theories. By using their ToM, humans can form beliefs about other humans’ mental states. Most theorists argue that the ToM takes outward behavior as input and infers mental states to explain observed phenomena. For example, upon seeing another human laughing, the ToM will usually produce the belief that that human is happy. The belief can be updated if new evidence points in another direction. It is commonly assumed that the evolution of this ability had a strategical adaptive value for the human ancestors who always have been closely dependent on strong collaboration with others. By having an idea of what other humans are thinking or feeling, humans can collaborate better and be better at choosing trustworthy collaboration partners. It seems likely that one of the ecological conditions for this ability to evolve is a mother-infant relation, and the intensive selective pressure on reliable and effective system of communication between mother and infant. The mother-child relation is sometimes treated as the source of other moral reactions and behavioral patterns including empathy, altruism or pro-cooperative tendencies. ToM was useful beyond the narrow scope of the parental care. An ability to build alliances, the recognition of allies and enemies or the prediction of the future possible decisions and actions of group peers at least partially have been based on the capacity to read and to interpret mimicry, gesture, thoughts, and intents of others. Because of this all, it is likely that ToM is an adaptation. While many CSR-theorists claim that ToM also allows humans to form beliefs about putative mental states of gods or other supernatural being (e.g. Bering 2002b),

Examples CSR-Theories

21

they also note differences with how ToM is applied to humans. Supernatural beings do not talk and appear in a sensually detectable way. Interaction with putative supernatural beings often requires imagination or the use of props or images (Van Leeuwen 2017; Luhrmann 2012). Jesse Bering argues that ToM takes a special kind of input when it forms beliefs about supernatural beings. He argues that humans infer to God when they experience meaningful events like beauty in nature or an important life event. These events are experienced as meaningful. Because meaning is intuitively connected to intention, humans believe that someone must have put the meaning in these events. Since ordinary humans lack the power to bring about these events, they infer to an ultimate meaning-giver or God (Bering 2002b).

Promiscuous teleology Apart from studying how people form beliefs about supernatural beings, some CSR scholars study the genesis of other religious beliefs like belief in dualism (Bloom 2004) or belief in afterlife (Bering 2002a). One highly studied belief is belief in purpose in nature or teleology. Some argue that humans have a bias to easily form beliefs that things existed for a purpose or goal. Deborah Kelemen and her team conducted most of the studies that are conducted on this bias. She observed that young children have a tendency to reason about natural things in terms of purposes and children suppose that natural things are intentionally created (Kelemen 2004). In one experiment, American 4- and 5 year olds answered the question ‘what is this for’ in teleological terms. They answered that lions are here for visiting in the zoo and clouds for making it rain (Kelemen 1999b). The bias is still present in 7–8 year olds. When American 7- and 8 year olds were asked questions like ‘why is a rock pointy?’ they gave answers like ‘so that animals wouldn’t sit on them and smash them’ or ‘so that animals could scratch on them when they got itchy’ (Kelemen 1999b). Kelemen found that the bias begins to lose its strength around the age of 9 (Kelemen 2003). Unlike children, adults prefer causal mechanistic explanations to teleological ones. Kelemen theorizes that the teleological bias recedes when children learn about causal explanations; however it does not disappear completely. A study with undergraduate students, who had learned causal explanations for natural phenomena, showed that teleological explanations were explicitly judged as correct significantly more when the subjects were under time pressure. A second study found that subjects who endorsed natural selection were slightly less likely to give teleological answers. Subjects believing in the existence of souls were marginally more likely to do this. A belief in God did not correlate to giving more or less teleological answers. Teleological explanations were thus not linked closely to intentional creation by a supernatural being as was the case with young children. Kelemen suggest that an underlying (implicit) belief about the earth as a living, vital organism (Gaia theory) could explain why teleological explanations pop up. Other possibilities she suggests

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are that some teleological ideas are independently acquired false beliefs or that teleological explanations require less cognitive effort (Kelemen and Rosset 2009). The role of learning (scientific) causal explanations in suppressing the teleological bias was confirmed by a study on Romani adults. The study followed a similar methodology as the studies mentioned above. Romani adults with little or no scientific training were more likely to give teleological explanations than adults with scientific training. Krista Casler and Kelemen suggest from this that the teleological bias is not a childhood phenomenon that inevitably gets revised and replaced through maturation but a cognitive default that may exist throughout life (Casler and Kelemen 2008). The teleological bias thus makes people prone to see teleology or design in the world. While the bias is more prevalent in young children, the research cited above makes it plausible that it remains operative in adulthood under certain conditions.

Criticisms of CSR Despite its growing influence, a number of important criticisms have been raised against the core tenets of CSR.12 The main points of criticism are CSR’s alleged negligence of cultural and social influences on religion and the fact that some religious beliefs do not fit with the picture CSR sketches.

Social Influence on CSR Because they attribute religious belief and behavior to the operations of cognitive mechanisms or the architecture of the mind, CSR-theorists usually do not assign much weight to the impact of social context and learning on religion by social peers. Human children are obviously inclined to take over religious beliefs and behavior from parental caregivers and immediate social peers. The influence of parents on variables connected to religiosity, like church attendance, prayer, religious commitment and apostasy is well attested.13 A 2007 study concluded that, moreover, peer religiosity (measured as the percentage of friends that attended church) predicted strength of American emerging adults’ religiosity from ages 17 to 22 more than maternal religiosity (Gunnoe and Moore 2002). It is clear that people share some set over other sets of beliefs. Some beliefs disappeared despite the fact that they have been widely shared in the past. Socialization-theory shows that parents shape the

 Criticisms were also raised against individual CSR-theories. A popular target was and is HADD, see for example: (Andersen 2017; Maij et al. 2017; van Elk et al. 2016). In the remainder of this book, we will be less concerned with these and focus on more general criticisms of CSR. 13  For an overview, see (Francis 1993; McNamara Barry et al. 2010). 12

Criticisms of CSR

23

worldview of their offspring including system of religious beliefs (Lanman and Buhrmester 2016: pp. 3–4). Cognitive approaches do leave some room for social context because the evolution of cognition has been affected by social pressures to some extent. In particular pressure on the individual to be able to give convincing reasons for her own ideas in front of the leader of community and the entire community. Furthermore, the function of social cohesion has been strategically important for individuals in the past. Today as well there are good reasons to regard the social context of the human life as an important selective force, so-called social selection. Social influence of this kind lies, however, far in the past and does not take immediate social pressures into account. Some empirical data supports the claim that religious beliefs are affected by the availability of resources. Collateral factors favoring evolution of religious forms include poor environment and ecological duress (Botero et al. 2014). Pazhoohi et al. also point out that harsher ecological conditions are correlated with stricter rules on religious veiling in Islamic countries (Pazhoohi et al. 2016). The growth of secular ideas in the Western Europe also shows that the environmental changes and the new ecological pressures affect changes in religiosity. This is most apparent Western Europe. In the new secularized environment, religious beliefs lost their strength, and new non-religious beliefs have appeared and spread. The secular culture introduces ecological space for new ideological and behavioral scenarios. One can ask whether religious beliefs continue to affect individuals in secular societies. Religious ideas can continue to have an effect on human activity even when they do not explicitly affirm religious beliefs or engage in religious practices. This scenario states that there is no causal correlation between religious affiliation and moral life. In this particular case, secularization does not modify behavioral patterns because religious affiliation never affected individual behaviors of believers. Consequently, people always behave in the same way.

Cultural Influence According to CSR and the evolutionary psychology, human cognitive biases have been producing the same (or similar) outputs from Pleistocene until today. These cognitive biases limit the contents of supernatural/religious beliefs. The origin of religious contents is determined by purposes and contexts of cognition. If cognition is aimed at detecting agent/agents, reading human minds, or predicting human intents and decisions, supernatural entities should be equipped in appropriate psychological features. CSR assumes that the cognitive modules used in the ancestral environment to cope with survival challenges, later continued to produce religious contents. This fact would explain why there are only a small number of recurrent supernatural beliefs. Some propose alternative explanations of religion where religious beliefs are almost entirely the result of social learning. Sterelny (2017) argues that humans

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may have a general need for confabulation. On his theory, a supernatural interpretation of the world is one of expressions of this human bias to confabulate. Sterelny thus argues that this is doubtful that religious beliefs have evolved under the impact of new cognitive and mental facilities, or by social learning. He rejects the dominant role played by cognitive traits. As he argues, various cultures invest more energy in transmission of religious traits than in transmission of any other cultural traits. Sterelny considers this to be an argument for the fact that religious components are not rooted – or they are not rooted enough – in cognitive propensities. If they require social ­transmission, they are to be considered as a domain of society and cultural context, not as a domain of cognition. CSR negligence of cultural context and cultural learning is also problematic for another reason. The distinction between the causal impact of the human cognitive architecture (nature) and social context or learning (nurture) is often not easy to draw. Boyd and Richerson argue that the human capacity for culture is a biological function itself (Boyd and Richerson 1985; Boyd and Richerson 2009). It is clear that a lot of religious beliefs and behaviors are a mix of nature and nurture. For example, Pehr Granqvist and Frances Nkare use the term ‘sculpturing’ to draw attention to how nurture impacts the operations of cognitive mechanisms like attachment. Attachment evolved in the natural environment but is successfully applied to the religious framework when believer looks for an attachment figure in difficult life situations. Granqvist and Nkara (Granqvist and Nkara 2017) reject the core idea of CSR that cognition works as the background which is organized and fulfilled by cultural contents. Instead, Granqvist and Nkara favor the idea of the common nature/ nurture feedback in the cognitive and cultural evolution. They enumerate four cultural tools in the human development. One of them is the relational-affective culture expressed by the relation between caregivers and children. Caregiver shapes the child’s worldview, her self-esteem and attitude to others. Relational-affective culture creates the image of God until an adulthood. Other cultural systems include social and cultural learning, and the system of security guaranteed by beliefs and values. Culture – a domain of nurture – is here a proximate cause which “sculpts” genetically rooted biases and abilities. The dissemination of secular ideas presents a challenge for the cognitive approach. The expansion of secularization in the Western Europe shows that shared cognitive mechanisms do not suffice to become religious. The case of atheism shows that context biases (see below) are at least as important as content biases. The impact of culture and education is an obvious factor in acquisition of cultural contents. However, the cognitive account emphasizes the impact of cognition, mostly the power of the domain-specific modules affecting cultural contents. Cognitive explanations also don’t fit with strong intuitions and evidence that many people are religious merely for social conformist reasons. If people come to hold religious beliefs because many people from their community or some authoritative members have them, they do not merely (or primarily) do so because of the operations of cognitive mechanisms.

References

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Some have also argued against evolutionary explanations by claiming that some religious phenomena reflect a surplus of time and energy rather than a solution to an evolutionary challenge. For example, Pascal Boyer and Nicolas Baumard argue that the rise of moralizing religion was made possible because of excess in resources. Other phenomena, like doing philosophy, can also be explained in this way. Doing philosophy has its roots in surprise, amazement, wonderment of the world and an attempt to explain reality. These do not obviously solve an evolutionary challenge (Baumard et al. 2015). If the emergence of some religious phenomena can be attributed to an excess in resources, they cannot be attributed to the operations of ­cognitive mechanisms. If cognitive mechanisms are part of the human cognitive architecture, their operations do not alter when more or less resources are available. Some have pointed out the incapability of CSR-theories to account for cultural differences by pointing to the so-called the Mickey Mouse and the Zeus problem. The Mickey Mouse problem illustrates the case of such beliefs like the belief in Santa Claus or Mickey Mouse. People do not treat these beliefs in terms of factual beliefs, at least not in adult life, although they can be rightly construed as minimally counterintuitive ideas (Barrett 2009). The same is true about a number of older religious/supernatural beliefs like Ancient Greek polytheistic beliefs. These cases show that other non-cognitive factors are at work like, among others, conformist and prestige biases, just to name a few (Gervais and Henrich 2010). Because of conformist and prestige biases, some beliefs become more popular than others despite the fact that always the same cognitive mechanisms assumed by CSR are at work (Pyysiäinen 2004: p. 29). The Mickey Mouse and the Zeus problems show some of the explanatory limits of CSR. Despite having the same cognitive mechanisms and biases some religious beliefs still work, whilst other ones disappeared.

Non-intuitive Religious Beliefs Some religious beliefs do not fit well with the core idea of CSR that religious beliefs arise naturally by the operations of cognitive mechanisms. Aku Visala notes that cognitive explanations have difficulties in explaining why people believe in the Trinitarian God. While theories like HADD and MCI might explain why people find themselves with a general tendency to believe in supernatural beings, these theories do not explain why people come to accept complex religious doctrines like the Trinity (Visala 2014). Trinitarian belief even seems to contradict MCI-theory because the Trinity is a maximally counterintuitive rather than a minimally counterintuitive concept. A number of CSR-theories acknowledge that religious beliefs are not always intuitive. We noted that Justin Barrett acknowledges that some religious beliefs are the result of cultural scaffolding and not (just) of the operations of cognitive mechanisms (Barrett 2012). Robert McCauley argues that complex theological beliefs are hard to grasp and entertain by human minds and are therefore not natural or intuitive

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(McCauley 2011). The occurrence and maintenance of non-natural religious beliefs is usually attributed to cultural processes. By allowing for non-natural religious ideas, cognitive approaches create a dichotomy between religious beliefs that can be explained by cognitive mechanisms and those that cannot.

References Andersen, M. (2017). Predictive coding in agency detection. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 1–20. Atran, S. (2012). God and the ivory tower. Retrieved from http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/08/06/ god-­and-­the-­ivory-­tower/. Barkow, J., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1992). The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Barrett, J. L. (2004). Why would anyone believe in god? Lanham, MI: Altamira Press. Barrett, J. L. (2009). Coding and quantifying counterintuitiveness in religious concepts: Theoretical and methodological reflections. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 20, 308–338. Barrett, J.  L. (2012). Towards a cognitive science of Christianity. In J.  B. Stump, A.  G. Alan, & G.  Padgett (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to science and Christianity. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Barrett, J.  L., & Visala, A. (2018). In what sense might religion be natural? In P.  Copan & C.  Taliaferro (Eds.), The naturalness of belief: New essays on theism’s reasonability (pp. 67–84). Lanham: Lexington Press. Baumard, N., Hyafil, A., Morris, I., & Boyer, P. (2015). Increased affluence explains the emergence of ascetic wisdoms and moralizing religions. Current Biology, 25, 10–15. Bell, G. (2015). The Evolution of Life. Oxford University Press. Bering, J. (2002a). Intuitive conceptions of dead agents’ minds: The natural foundations of afterlife beliefs as phenomenological boundary. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2, 263–308. Bering, J. (2002b). The existential theory of mind. Review of General Psychology, 6, 3–24. Bloom, P. (2004). Descartes’ baby: How the science of child development explains what makes us human. New York: Basic Books. Bloom, P. (2007). Religion is natural. Developmental Science, 10, 147–151. Botero, C. A., Gardner, B., Kirby, K. R., Bulbulia, J., Gavin, M. C., and Gray, R.D. (2014). The ecology of religious beliefs. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 111(47): 16784–16789. Boyd, R., & Richerson, P.  J. (1985). Culture and the evolutionary process. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (2009). Culture and the evolution of human cooperation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1533), 3281–3288. Boyer, P. (2002). Religion explained: The human instincts that fashion gods, spirits and ancestors. New York: Vintage. Buss, D.  M., Haselton, M.  G., Shackelford, T.  K., Bleske, A.  L., & Wakefield, J.  C. (1998). Adaptations, exaptations, and spandrels. The American Psychologist, 53, 533–548. Casler, K., & Kelemen, D. (2008). Developmental continuity in teleo-functional explanation: Reasoning about nature among Romanian Romani adults. Journal of Cognition and Development, 9, 340–362. De Cruz, H., & De Smedt, J. (2015). A natural history of natural theology. The cognitive science of theology and philosophy of religion. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Feierman, J. R. (2009). How some major components of religion could have evolved by natural selection? In E. Voland & W. Schiefenhövel (Eds.), The biological evolution of religious mind and behavior (pp. 51–66). Berlin: Springer.

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Francis, L. J. (1993). Parental influence and adolescent religiosity: A study of church attendance and attitude toward Christianity among adolescents 11 to 12 and 15 to 16 years old. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 3(4), 241–253. Freud, S. S. (1961). The future of an illusion; civilization and its discontents and other works (Vol. 21). London: Hogarth Press. Gallese, V., & Goldman, A. (1998). Mirror neurons and the simulation theory of mind-reading. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2, 493–501. Gervais, W., & Henrich, J. (2010). The Zeus problem: Why representational content biases cannot explain faith in gods. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 10, 383–389. Gopnik, A., & Wellman, H. M. (1994). The theory theory. In L. A. Hirschfeld & S. A. Gelman (Eds.), Mapping the mind: Domain specificity in cognition and culture (pp.  257–293). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Granqvist, P., & Nkara, F. (2017). Nature meets nurture in religious and spiritual development. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 35(1), 142–155. Gray, K., & Wegner, D. M. (2010). Blaming god for our pain: Human suffering and the divine mind. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 7–16. Gunnoe, M. L., & Moore, K. A. (2002). Predictors of religiosity among youth aged 17–22: A longitudinal study of the National Survey of Children. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 41(4), 613–622. Guthrie, S. E. (1993). Faces in the clouds: A new theory of religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jones, J. W. (2016). Can science explain religion? The cognitive science debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kelemen, D. (1999a). The scope of teleological thinking in preschool children. Cognition, 70, 241–272. Kelemen, D. (1999b). Why are rocks pointy? Children’s preference for teleological explanations of the natural world. Developmental Psychology, 35, 1440. Kelemen, D. (2003). British and American children’s preferences for teleo-functional explanations of the natural world. Cognition, 88, 201–221. Kelemen, D. (2004). Are children “Intuitive Theists”?: Reasoning about purpose and design in nature. Psychological Science, 15, 295–301. Kelemen, D., & Rosset, E. (2009). The human function compunction: Teleological explanation in adults. Cognition, 111, 138–143. Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2005). Attachment, evolution, and the psychology of religion. London: Guilford Press. Lanman, J. A., & Buhrmester, M. D. (2016). Religious actions speak louder than words: Exposure to credibility-enhancing displays predicts theism. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 7, 1–14. Lawson, E. T., & McCauley, R. N. (1990). Rethinking religion: Connecting cognition and culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leonard, W.  R., Snodgrass, J.  J., & Robertson, M.  L. (2010). Evolutionary perspectives on fat ingestion and metabolism in humans. In Fat detection: Taste, texture, and post ingestive effects (pp. 3–18). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Luhrmann, T. M. (2012). When god talks back: Understanding the American Evangelical relationship with god. New York: Vintage. Maij, D. L., van Harreveld, F., Gervais, W., Schrag, Y., Mohr, C., & van Elk, M. (2017). Mentalizing skills do not differentiate believers from non-believers, but credibility enhancing displays do. PLoS One, 12, e0182764. Marx, K. (1970). Critique of Hegel’s “Philosophy of right”. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Masel, J. (2011). Genetic drift. Current Biology, 21(20), R837–R838. McCauley, R. N. (2011). Why religion is natural and science is not. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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McNamara Barry, C., Nelson, L., Davarya, S., & Urry, S. (2010). Religiosity and spirituality during the transition to adulthood. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 34(4), 311–324. Pazhoohi, F., Lang, M., Xygalatas, D., & Grammer, K. (2016). Religious veiling as a mate-guarding strategy: Effects of environmental pressures on cultural practices. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 1–7. Pyysiäinen, I. (2004). Intuitive and explicit in religious thought. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 4(1), 123–150. Robbins, P. (2009). Modularity of mind. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition). Stanford, CA: Stanford University. Sterelny, K. (2017). Religion well explained? A response to commentaries on “Religion Re-explained”. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 8, 452–460. Thurow, J. C. (2013). Does cognitive science show belief in god to be irrational? The epistemic consequences of the cognitive science of religion. International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, 74, 77–98. Turner, L. (2014). Introduction: Pluralism and complexity in the evolutionary cognitive science of religion. In F. Watts & L. Turner (Eds.), Evolution, religion and cognitive science: Critical and constructive essays (pp. 1–20). Oxford: Oxford University Press. van Elk, M., Rutjens, B. T., van der Pligt, J., & van Harreveld, F. (2016). Priming of supernatural agent concepts and agency detection. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 6, 4–33. https://doi.org/10. 1080/2153599X.2014.933444. Van Eyghen, H. (2018a). Arguing from cognitive science of religion: Cognitive science of religion and its epistemic implications. Van Eyghen, H. (2018b). The retreat argument. The Heythrop Journal, 59(3), 497–508. https://doi. org/10.1111/heyj.12932. Van Eyghen, H., Peels, R., & van den Brink, G. (2018). New developments in cognitive science of religion. London: Springer. Van Eyghen, H. (2020). Arguing from cognitive science of religion. Is religious belief debunked? London: Bloomsbury Academic. Van Leeuwen, N. (2017). Two paradigms for religious representation: The physicist and the playground (a reply to Levy). Cognition, 164, 206–211. Van Leeuwen, N., & Van Elk, M. (2018). Seeking the supernatural: The interactive religious experience model. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 9(3), 221–251. Visala, A. (2014). The evolution of divine and human minds: Evolutionary psychology, the cognitive study of religion and theism. In Evolution, religion and cognitive science: Critical and constructive essays (pp. 56–73). Oxford: Oxford University Press. White, C. (2017). What the cognitive science of religion is (and is not). In A. W. Hughes (Ed.), Theory in a time of excess—The case of the academic study of religion. Sheffield: Equinox Publishing. White, C. (2018). What does the cognitive science of religion explain? In H. van Eyghen, R. Peels, & G. van den Brink (Eds.), New developments in cognitive science of religion—The rationality of religious belief. Cham: Springer.

Chapter 3

Religion as Adaptive 1: Background

Abstract  This chapter presents the basic concepts of evolutionary biology that are applied in adaptationist theories of religion. We discuss concepts like the unit of selection, or individual selection versus group selection. This chapter also discusses the puzzling explanatory challenge of the evolution of cooperation. Keywords  Adaptation · Unit of selection · New adaptation · Old adaptation · Evolution of cooperation

Introduction In the previous chapter, we discussed a number of cognitive explanations of religious phenomena. Before we discuss adaptationist explanations, we discuss some of their backgrounds. Most of what we discuss in this chapter applies to theories that regard religion as a biological adaptation. We discuss religion as a cultural adaptation in Chapter 5.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K. Szocik, H. Van Eyghen, Revising Cognitive and Evolutionary Science of Religion, New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63516-9_3

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The Unit of Selection1 For our purposes, we defined ‘adaptation’ as a phenotypic trait that yields increased odds of survival or procreation. Biologists differ as for whom adaptations can yield such a benefit. Traditionally, most biologists before the 1940s argued that adaptations yield a benefit for individual organisms. In their view, having an adaptive trait, increased the odds of survival for one individual organism compared to another individual organism. A famous example is the color of peppered moths in nineteenth century England. Naturalists found that the population of dark peppered moths increased in industrial cities while that of white moths decreased. They argued that black moths got a benefit because of increased industrialization. Increased use of coal produced black smoke that made trees dark and bare. Because of this, dark moths could hide themselves more easily from predators than white moths. Individual dark moths thus gained the upper hand over white moths in English industrial cities. After the so-called ‘modern synthesis’,2 many biologists began to see the gene as the unit of selection.3 In their view, adaptive traits benefit an organism’s genes rather than the organism itself. Although individual organisms with adaptive traits have a benefit over others, natural selection mainly selects for adaptive traits because carriers are able to transmit their genetic material more or longer than non-carriers. On this view, individual organisms, and their adaptive traits, are a (mere) vehicle for genetic material. Some biologists argue that adaptive traits can also yield a benefit for groups (Wilson 1975). Notable defenders of group selection are Elliott Sober and David Wilson (Wilson and Sober 1994) and Edward Wilson, Martin Nowak and Tarnita Corina (Nowak et al. 2010). Their main idea is that there are traits that operate only (or primarily) at the level of groups which make some groups more successful in surviving and reproducing than others. Examples are the behaviors of meerkats that sometimes sacrifice themselves to protect the group. The existence of sterile worker bees is also an evolutionary trait beneficial for a group of bees rather than individual bees. Radek Kundt notes that especially David Wilson’s ideas had an influence on CSR-theories (Kundt 2015). David Wilson himself argues at length how having particular religious beliefs or religious behavior benefitted groups over others. For example, for centuries religions like Judaism and Calvinism fostered close in-group cooperation. Both traditions promoted honesty and sincerity. Calvinism forbids false oaths and false testimony because these are regarded as sinful and were rigorously disavowed. This lead to lower levels of alcoholism, homicide, accidental death rates. In-group cooperation does not benefit individuals (or genomes) over others. Often cooperation implies that individuals lower their own fitness for the  This section previously appeared in Van Eyghen (2018).  The term was coined by Huxley (1942). The modern synthesis combines insights from Darwinian evolution with Mendellian genetics. 3  See: Dawkins (1976) for a defense. 1 2

Varieties of Religious Adaptations

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good of the community. In some cases, like Judaism, religious practice did, however, benefit one group over another. Wilson also notes that a number of religious rules regulate sexual behavior in Judaism in such a ways that they more or less guarantee the genetic isolation of Jews (Wilson 2002). Jay Feierman draws on this idea when he emphasizes the role of religion as an in-group marker which inhibits gene flow (Feierman 2009). Another adaptive Christian trait was helping others. Wilson argues, following Stark, that Christians were adapted better to the difficult environmental conditions because they were prone to help others in an environment where mutual aid worked as a survival value. Possibly for this reason, Christians outlived their pagan neighbors (Wilson 2002). Group selection is not without its critics.4 The critics argue that group selection cannot account for the specific role of genes in the selection process. Standard Neo-­ Darwinian theory states that genes play a major role in the selection process since they carry the information and mutations in the genome that lead to new traits.5 Groups have no comparable unit on which natural selection can work. They also argue that the group-level adds little to the explanation of how natural selection works. According to George Williams, the concept of group adaptation is nothing more than a metaphor which expresses the collective effect of individual actions (Williams 1966). Because natural selection acts on individuals, not on groups, the term group adaptation may be misleading and confusing. Applied to religion, it is not always clear if religion can be regarded as a group level adaptation when religion is merely sum of its impact on the fitness of believers. Ambiguity of adaptivity of religious components increases when the same religious components are used in various ways, like is sometimes the case for religious rituals. Various ways of the application of the religious components may maximize fitness, including also their instrumental using for one’s own selfish purposes (cf. Wilson 2002, pp. 183–184).

Varieties of Religious Adaptations Gregory Dawes and James McLaurin distinguish 4 approaches to the evolution of religion. The first regards religion as a non-adaptive by-product of other adaptive traits (cf. CSR). We discussed this approach at length in earlier chapters. A second regards religion as adaptive for individual organisms. An example is Dominic Johnson’s Broad Supernatural Punishment theory. A third argues that religion is beneficial for groups. A fourth fits in Dawkins’ view of memetics (see below) (Dawes and Maclaurin 2012). Dawes and Maclaurin argue that although different religious components might have different evolutionary etiology (be it cultural or

 See for example: Dawkins (1994), Dennett (1994), Pinker (2012).  See also Kundt (2015).

4 5

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biological), one component either has a biological, cultural or by-product etiology (Dawes and Maclaurin 2012). Some authors do allow a hybrid between cultural evolution and a by-product approach. Some defenders of the big gods theory argue that religious beliefs arose as non-adaptive by-products but became beneficial around the Neolithic age. Sometimes, defenders distinguish between ‘origin explanations’ and ‘distribution explanations’ (cf. Godfrey-Smith 2009), with by-product theories providing the former and adaptationist explanations providing the latter. Taylor Davis argues that defenders of the big gods theory have not made clear how by-products can come to serve an adaptive function. He claims that defenders do not make sufficiently clear that religious components should be regarded as by-products that yield no adaptive benefit individually but were jointly selected for by cultural evolution. In this view, ‘adaptation’ means something significantly different than what defenders of most other adaptationist theories mean, i.e. biological adaptation (Davis 2017).6 There is yet another option to which Dawes and Maclaurin do not refer. Religion (or some religious component) could be selectively neutral. Religious components could arise due to genetic drift or some equivalent and not yield a benefit or disadvantage. Geoffrey Miller describes yet another possibility that combines some features of by-product and adaptationist explanations. He calls this approach ‘proteanism’ and it connects both the high unpredictability of features and behaviors with their ­adaptivity. Proteanism assumes that traits usually explained as by-products of the human brain and/or cognition, are adaptations which work in the specific environments. Miller writes: “To appreciate why psychology is hard, we have to stop thinking of brains as physical systems full of quantum noise and chaos, or as computational systems full of informational noise and software bugs. We have to start thinking of brains as biological systems that evolved to generate certain kinds of adaptive unpredictability under certain conditions of competition and courtship “(Miller 2001, p. 400). Miller’s approach can be applied to religion. Religious beliefs could arise as by-products that are adaptive or non-adaptive depending on the environment they operate in. In the right ecological niche, they could prove adaptive. Miller’s approach allows a more flexible answer to the question of the adaptivity of human cognition. A final possibility is that religion is a mere cultural adaptation. In this view, there was no religion or anything that merits that label before it was produced and transmitted by cultural evolution. A number of authors argue that institutional religions are adaptations of this kind (e.g. Boyer 2018).

 Davis draws on ideas by Sosis (2009).

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The Challenge of Cooperation

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Old Adaptation or New Adaptation? Another distinction in the literature on adaptations is between old and new adaptations. Old adaptations yielded a survival or reproduction benefit long in the past. Often theorists argue that some traits yielded a benefit for our caveman ancestors. For modern twenty-first century humans, the trait is no longer obviously beneficial or even downright maladaptive. The differences between the current ecological challenges and Pleistocene’s environment deactivated some adaptations. A wellknown example is the human craving for sugary or fatty food. For our caveman ancestors, when food was rather scarce, it was beneficial to draw as much calories from food as possible. Because sugary and fatty food contain lots of calories, it made sense to eat as much as possible. Today cravings for sugar or fatty usually make people less healthy. Consuming lots of sugar and/or fat easily leads to diabetes or obesity. Both are associated with shorter lifespans and worse health. Other adaptations are still beneficial for modern humans. Humans still reap the benefits from adaptations like opposable thumbs and bipedalism. These traits also provided benefits for our cavemen ancestors. The question arises whether there could be adaptations that were absent in the Pleistocene and developed later in human history. Most evolutionary psychologists reject this because human history is too short to produce genetic imprinting of traits. A second reason to deny that religion evolved later is that there are strong reasons to assume that there were no strong selective pressures for the evolution of religious components. Ecological challenges that religion could help with could easily have been met by non-religious adaptations. While most CSR-theorists deny that religion has any adaptive value (both in the past or today), they differ over the status of the adaptation of which religion is (allegedly) a by-product. Having a hyperactive agency detection device (see chap. 2) was mostly adaptive for our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Predators and human enemies posed a far greater threat to them than they do for modern day humans. The tendency to detect too many agents would thus have been selected for their prehistoric use and maintained until now. On Bering’s view, religion is a by-product of a new adaptations. Having a well-developed Theory of Mind is still beneficial for us today. Humans still depend on having an accurate idea of other people’s beliefs and intentions for their survival and reproductive success.

The Challenge of Cooperation Many adaptationist explanations of religion see religion (mostly religious beliefs or rituals) as a solution to the challenge of cooperation. Biologists have long noted that humans depend on cooperation to a far greater extent than almost all other animal species. Only a very small number of humans live solitarily and their longevity is usually (much) lower than average. The vast majority lives in communities. Living

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in community increases human odds of survival. Communal living allows for collective action to boost defenses, improve agriculture, increase production, etc. Communal living, or rather a propensity for social behavior that enables communal living, is thus very likely adaptive. Cooperation is especially important for group fitness. While individual humans can also increase their individual fitness by cooperating, human groups need to cooperate in order to ensure their continued existence. As David Sloan Wilson argues, altruism is the welfare of other as the purpose in itself. According to him, altruism is rooted in “group level functional organization” (Wilson 2015, pp. 3, 16). The human need for sociality also makes humans vulnerable. Collective action requires a division of labor. Some humans take on the task of building defenses, others do the farming and still others take care of children. Being successful in collective action requires that most individual humans do their share. Any individual human can, however, improve her own fitness by reaping the rewards of other people’s efforts while not contributing anything herself. Such a person is called a ‘free-­ rider’. Natural selection favors selfishness due to the fact that it works at the individual level. Selfish behaviors guarantee individual survival but they inhibit the evolution of cooperation (cf. Boyd and Richerson 2009). Selfish behavior has detrimental effects on the fitness of others. Non-free-riders have to do more work to compensate for the free-riders’ shirking. In this way, free-riding can undermine an individual’s fitness. A high prevalence of free-riders can also undermine the trust that is needed for smooth cooperation. In this way, free-riding can undermine group-fitness. We pause here to note that cooperating does not always mean ‘being nice’. Ryan McKay and Harvey Whitehouse note that a lot of discussion on the evolution of religious beliefs suffers from this misconception (Mckay and Whitehouse 2014). Ara Norenzayan notes that groups often cooperate to compete (Norenzayan 2013). Acts of warfare or looting require a great deal of cooperation. Cooperation can thus easily lead to tribalism and morally abhorrent acts. Biologists proposed a number of solutions to the problem of cooperation. Two well-known examples are kin selection and reciprocal altruism. William Hamilton argues that altruism stems from concern for genes. When individuals act altruistically, they would do so because this might help genetically related individuals (Hamilton 1964). Robert Trivers argues that altruistic behavior stems from an expectation of altruistic acts in return (Trivers 1971). Some defenders of adaptationist explanations of religion argue that kin selection and reciprocal altruism do not help enough. They argue that other mechanisms are needed to enable smooth cooperation, especially in larger societies. Martin Nowak argues that reciprocal altruism and kin selection work at the level of small groups. Their efficiency is narrowly limited to small groups or/and requires recurrent relations (Nowak 2006: pp. 1561–1562). Ara Norenzayan argues that groups larger than 300 members need special cultural tools to manage social relations (Norenzayan 2013, pp.  125–127). Kin selection and reciprocal altruism also have a hard time

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explaining why humans cooperate with non-related humans or newcomers. Kin selection predicts that humans will be more prone to cooperate with related others. Reciprocal altruism predicts that humans will be reluctant to cooperate with a newcomer who has not reciprocated anything yet. A specific set of religious beliefs would help human societies to cooperate.

References Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (2009). Culture and the evolution of human cooperation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1533), 3281–3288. Boyer, P. (2018). Minds make societies. How cognition explains the word humans create. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Davis, T. (2017). The Goldberg Exaptation Model: Integrating adaptation and by-product theories of religion. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 8(3), 687–708. Dawes, G., & Maclaurin, J. (2012). What is religion? In G. Dawes & J. Maclaurin (Eds.), A new science of religion (pp. 11–25). London: Routledge. Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dawkins, R. (1994). Burying the vehicle. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 17, 616–617. Dennett, D. C. (1994). E Pluribus Unum? Commentary on Wilson & Sober: “Reintroducing Group Selection to the Human Behavioural Sciences”. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 17, 585. Feierman, J. R. (2009). How some major components of religion could have evolved by natural selection? In E. Voland & W. Schiefenhövel (Eds.), The biological evolution of religious mind and behavior (pp. 51–66). Berlin: Springer. Godfrey-Smith, P. (2009). Darwinian populations and natural selection. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hamilton, W.  D. (1964). The Genetic Evolution of Social Behaviour II. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7, 17–52. Huxley, J. (1942). Evolution. The modern synthesis. London: George Allen & Unwin. Kundt, R. (2015). Contemporary evolutionary theories of culture and the study of religion (1 ed., Vol. 1–1 online resource). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Mckay, R., & Whitehouse, H. (2014). Religion and Morality. Psychological Bulletin, 141, 447–473. Miller, G. F. (2001). The mating mind. How sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature. New York: Anchor Books. Norenzayan, A. (2013). Big gods: How religion transformed cooperation and conflict. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Nowak, M. A. (2006). Five rules for the evolution of cooperation. In M. A. Nowak & S. Coakley (Eds.), Evolution, games, and God. The principle of cooperation (Vol. 314, pp. 1560–1563). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nowak, M. A., Tarnita, C. E., & Wilson, E. O. (2010). The evolution of eusociality. Nature, 466, 1057–1062. Pinker, S. (2012, December 19). The False Allure of Group Selection. Sosis, R. (2009). The adaptationist—by-product debate on the evolution of religion: Five misunderstandings of the adaptationist program. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 9, 315–332. Trivers, R. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 35–57. Van Eyghen, H. (2018). Arguing from cognitive science of religion: Cognitive science of religion and its epistemic implications. Williams, G. C. (1966). Adaptation and natural selection: A critique of some current evolutionary thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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Wilson, D. S. (2002). Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, religion, and the nature of society. Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press. Wilson, D. S. (2015). Does Altruism exist? New Haven, London: Yale University Press, Templeton Press. Wilson, D. S., & Sober, E. (1994). Reintroducing group selection to the human behavioral sciences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 17, 585–608. Wilson, E. O. (1975). Sociobiology: The new synthesis. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Chapter 4

Religion as Adaptive 2: Adaptationist Approaches

Abstract  This chapter discusses adaptationist theories of religion which consider religious components such as beliefs and/or behaviors as adaptations. Such adaptationist theories of religion include Broad Supernatural Punishment Theory, Big God Theory, costly signaling theories of religion, the concept of religious coping and its positive impact on human health, and the idea that religious rituals foster cohesion. Such theories draw on two important distinctions: group versus individual selection of religion, and the concept of religion as old versus new adaptation. Keywords  Broad Supernatural Punishment Theory · Big God Theory · Costly signaling theory · Religious coping · Identity fusion · Group selection · Individual selection

Introduction We noted in the previous that many CSR-theories claim that religion is not an adaptation in its own right, but a by-product of an adaptation. Visala (2014, p. 58) argues that neither the adaptationist (where religion does have adaptive value in its own right) neither the by-product account can be proven. Others like Justin Barrett outright reject adaptationist explanations. Barrett points out that there likely was no selective pressure for religious contents. He notes that another belief, the fear of snakes, likely evolved because it was affected by the real contact with (dangerous) snakes. This is not the case for religious beliefs because our human ancestors did not have direct contact with gods/God and, consequently, there was no selective pressure for the evolution of religious beliefs.1 Another defender of the by-product hypothesis is Wentzel Van Huyssteen. He argues that there is no cognitive system

1  One of the authors argues that religious beliefs could very well have been selected for because there was indirect causal influence of God or gods (Van Eyghen and Bennett forthcoming.

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that could produce intuitive beliefs and could be specially designed by natural selection for religious content. In his view, mechanisms and functions activated by religious beliefs are cooptations, not adaptations (Van Huyssteen 2014: p.  148). However, not all adaptations are specifically designed in the way in which Barret and Van Huyssteen argue. To the untrained eye, it appears puzzling that a trait so common and ubiquitous like religious belief is merely the by-product of some cognitive mechanism and can be explained without attributing an evolutionary function. In this chapter, we discuss a number of explanations that do regard religion (beliefs or behavior) as an adaptation in its own right.

Adaptationist Theory 1: Broad Supernatural Punishment2 Two prominent theories of supernatural belief claim that religious beliefs were (or are)3 evolutionary advantageous because they helped human cooperation. Both stress the moralizing and punishing nature of supernatural beings people believe in. The first one posits the rise of these religious beliefs in biological evolution and the second one in cultural evolution. The first is known as the Broad Supernatural Punishment Theory (BSPT).4 The next section will be devoted to the second, known as the Big Gods Theory (BGT). Defenders of BSPT claim that religious beliefs are a biological adaptation. More precisely, they claim that three beliefs are adaptive. They are the following: –– Supernatural beings have a moral concern for human behavior. –– Supernatural beings have privileged epistemic access to human beliefs. –– Supernatural beings punish people who transgress moral norms and reward those who obey them. We will discuss each of these beliefs in more detail.

 The overview of adaptationist theories is drawn from (Van Eyghen 2018, 2020).  Defenders of BSPT seem to argue that supernatural beliefs were both evolutionary beneficial in the past and still are today. BGT (see next section) puts the evolutionary advantage solely in the past, i.e. around the time of the emergence of large societies. 4  The theory also goes by different names. Dominic Johnson and Jesse Bering call it Supernatural Punishment (Johnson and Bering 2009). Like Watts et al. (see Watts et al. 2015), we use the term Broad Supernatural Punishment because it allows a better distinction between Broad Supernatural Punishment and the Big Gods Theory (see below) that also puts a lot of emphasis on supernatural punishment. 2 3

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 upernatural Beings Have a Moral Concern for Prosocial S Human Behavior Defenders of BSPT claim that people generally believe that supernatural beings have a firm interest in human moral behavior and more specifically in human prosocial behavior. Prosocial behavior is behavior where humans cooperate with others. People believe that supernatural beings care about how people behave towards each other. Dominic Johnson and Jesse Bering claim that rules about how one ought to behave and what one should do are often believed to stem directly from the expectations or wishes of the gods. The questions why the gods have these expectations is rarely asked by religious practitioners. Bering and Johnson compare the moral relationship with the gods to an intuitive moral contract, comparable to reciprocal altruism. If humans live according to the gods’ expectations and wishes they can expect reward. If not, they can expect punishment (see also below) (Bering and Johnson 2005). Johnson and Bering add that the alleged expectations and wishes of gods often foster prosocial behavior. Clear examples are norms about fidelity. Infidelity is frowned upon by the gods. Being faithful to one’s spouse was (and is) very important for maintaining trust relations in a community. Being faithful in fulfilling one’s obligations is important for cooperation. A faithful person will be less likely to reap the benefits of other people’s work without contributing anything herself (i.e. be less likely to free-ride). Therefore a divine expectation of fidelity, if obeyed, leads to prosocial behavior.5 According to Johnson and Bering the primary locus of supernatural moral concern is the intention of people. An action is deemed bad by gods or other supernatural beings if the person’s intentions are bad or good (Bering and Johnson 2005). This brings us to the second adaptive belief.

 upernatural Beings Have Privileged Epistemic Access S to Human Intentions Johnson and Bering are confident enough to claim that: “[A] central component of religious systems are concepts of supernatural agents that have privileged epistemic access to the self’s mental states” (Bering and Johnson 2005: p. 120). Having privileged access of this kind matters because it implies that people cannot hide their intentions (to cooperate or cheat) from supernatural beings. Hence having an intention to free ride is enough to deserve punishment. Not all intentions are equally important. Johnson and Bering claim that the belief that supernatural beings have access to strategic information is most important. Strategic information is informa-

 Bering and Johnson (2005: pp. 128–30).

5

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tion about people’s goals and intentions, among which are desires (not) to cooperate and goals (not) to cheat (Bering and Johnson 2005).6

 upernatural Beings Punish People Who Transgress Moral S Norms and Reward Those Who Obey Them Johnson and Bering argue that supernatural beings are believed to not only care about moral behavior but are also believed to punish or reward people according to their behavior. They cite some examples as evidence for the claim that belief in punishing gods is widespread. The Ndyuka of Suriname are said to attribute all sorts of misfortunes to sin, ranging from illness and death because of scarcity of food to withholding of divine favors. The Chuuk from Oceania almost always attribute illness to a supernatural cause, as do the Asian Lao Hmong. The Bemba of Zimbabwe believe that relatives who die with a sense of injustice can return and cause harm. Finally they note that diseases are often associated with violation of taboo by traditional people. Often the punishment is believed to befall on biological offspring (Bering and Johnson 2005: pp. 126–127). Johnson and Bering add that people sometimes go to great efforts to reassert these views (that misfortune is a result of merited supernatural punishment) when confronted with counterevidence. If, for example, they hear about an innocent victim of a crime they tend to see the victim as instigator of the crime. There also seems to be a general expectation of punishment in the form of negative life events for violations people committed themselves (Bering and Johnson 2005: p.  130). An ‘intuitive karma belief’ thus seems to be present in people. Bering and Johnson claim that supernatural beings are believed to both punish and reward. They add that punishment is more effective (Bering and Johnson 2005). Azim Shariff and Ara Norenzayan provide extra evidence for this last point. They conclude from studies that viewing gods as more punishing and less loving is reliably associated with lower levels of cheating whereas belief in gods overall is not (Shariff and Norenzayan 2011). Bering and Johnson appear to argue that all three beliefs are individually adaptive. Merely having the belief that supernatural beings care about morality would 6  One might argue that different cultures appear to value different desires and goals. Johnson and Bering acknowledge that what amounts to important information can vary from culture to culture but cite evidence that children are already able to differentiate moral imperatives from social conventions. Breaching social conventions seems to be associated with more tolerance than the breaching of moral imperatives. They thereby claim that while the content of strategic information can vary, the idea that there is a distinct set of information of this sort exists cross-culturally. We lack the background to assess the evidence cited by Johnson and Bering. They cite one book about moral development (Turiel 2002), one review article about research on shame (Gilbert 1998) and one about self-conscious emotions (Tangney 2001). They do not direct their readers in greater detail towards evidence for the claim that children are able to differentiate moral imperatives from social conventions.

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take humans some way towards more cooperation. Adding the belief that those being can access every thoughts works as a social monitor and would work even better. The third belief adds a stick and a carrot. A combination of all three beliefs works best. Because of these three beliefs, supernatural belief is claimed to be adaptive. Because of the beliefs, people will be more inclined to obey moral norms and since these norms are often social this will result in more and better cooperation. It can be doubted whether BSPT needs all three supernatural beliefs. It is not clear why privileged epistemic access to intentions is necessary for the mechanism to work. Cooperation is an action. It seems that belief in gods who have a moral concern and who will punish or reward people in accordance with their actions can be equally adaptive. Here people will still have a strong incentive to do the right actions (i.e. cooperate). They might have the wrong intention for doing so but having a wrong intention will not result in less cooperation and thus in lower evolutionary fitness. Johnson and Bering would likely respond that supernatural beliefs will ‘work better’ if intention is taken on board. For example, because behavior will be more convincing or more determined with the right intention. Johnson and Bering also argue that intention is necessary to differentiate between pro-social and anti-­ social behavior. They give the example of a man holding a door open for a woman. The man might have the intention of reducing uncertainty of who proceeds first or he might have the intention of reinforcing gender stereotypes. In both cases the action is the same, yet in the first his action is considered pro-social and in the second anti-social. The only way to differentiate both is by looking at the man’s intentions (Bering and Johnson: pp.  131–133). We do not see how this provides compelling evidence for the claim that intentions matter from an evolutionary point of view. In both cases the behavior will be the same and thus equally (mal)adaptive.

Criticism Broad Supernatural Punishment Theory seems plausible but nonetheless it has been criticized. Luther Martin and Donald Wiebe doubt whether supernatural beings actually are believed to have a moral concern for prosocial behavior. They draw support from the Hebrew Bible to show that supernatural beliefs often led to anti-­ social behavior like tribal conflicts and wars.7 When supernatural beliefs did support prosociality, it was for historically contingent reasons according to Martin and Wiebe (2014). Amber DeBono, Azim Shariff, Sarah Poole and Mark Raven pro7  One could object that God-concepts like those in the Hebrew Bible arrive on the scene much later and are (heavily) affected by cultural evolution and not biological evolution. There is, however, also evidence for god-concepts that foster tribalism in earlier times. For example, in Homer’s Iliad (usually dated in the eighth century B.C.) Greek gods take sides in the Trojan War and encourage the struggle between both sides. While we know little about ancient Greek religion, the Iliad signals that ancient Greeks did believe that some supernatural beings sometimes favored tribalism.

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vided evidence against the belief in a prosocial moral concern of supernatural beings by showing that priming subjects with ‘forgiving god’-concepts made them more prone to steal.8 They thereby provide evidence that at least some supernatural beliefs foster anti-social behavior. Others assumed the prosocial moral concern of supernatural beings but casted doubt on the efficacy of supernatural beliefs for prosocial behavior. Ryan McKay and Harvey Whitehouse argue that there is no straightforward connection between supernatural belief and more prosocial behavior. They claim that the close connection stems largely from a prejudice among scientists and that unclear notions of ‘religion’ and ‘morality’ have blurred research into it. One of these prejudices is that the western conception of ‘religion’ is more in line with Abrahamic religions than other (eastern) religions. They add that the concept of ‘religion’ is often not precise enough. The concept of ‘morality’ is regularly taken to be a ‘family friendly’ conception of morality (and prosociality), according to McKay and Whitehouse. The question whether religion (or supernatural beliefs) is related to prosociality is thus sometimes cashed out as the question whether belief in gods makes people ‘nice’. McKay and Whitehouse argue that prosociality cannot be equated to ‘being nice’ straightforwardly.9 They conclude: “Ultimately, we see and foresee no pithily characterizable relationship between religion and morality.”10 Luke Galen claimed something similar.11 Azim Shariff nuances the effect of supernatural beliefs when he writes: “Does religion increase moral behavior? Yes. Even though the effect is parochial, bounded, transient, situationally constrained, and often overstated, it is real.”12 Some have responded and claimed that the criticisms are exaggerated.13

Adaptationist Theory 2: Big Gods The second adaptationist theory is known as the Big Gods Theory (BGT). The theory is similar to the previous one but differs because it puts the adaptive use of supernatural beliefs in cultural evolution (see Chap. 5). Azim Shariff, Ara Norenzayan and Joseph Henrich write: “[O]mniscient, moralizing supernatural agents derived from a suite of religious beliefs that were culturally selected for their ability to galvanize cooperation in larger groups, promote in-group cohesion, and foster competition with other social groups” (Shariff et al. 2009: p. 119 emphasis added). The quote reminds us of two of the supernatural beliefs discussed by defenders of the BSPT, namely privileged epistemic access and moral concern for proso-

 DeBono et al. (2012).  Mckay and Whitehouse (2014). 10  Mckay and Whitehouse (2014: p. 19). 11  Galen (2017). 12  Shariff (2015: p. 113) 13  See for example Saroglou (2012). 8 9

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cial behavior. It also highlights the main difference with BSPT: belief in moralizing supernatural beings with access to people’s beliefs was selected for on the cultural level out of a range of (pre-existing) supernatural beliefs. Groups with this belief outcompeted groups with other supernatural beliefs. This claim implies that some people held (or still hold) beliefs in supernatural beings that are not moralizing, punishing, and/or all seeing. Defenders of BGT take ‘moralizing’ to encompass both a moral concern for prosocial behavior and a punishment or reward in accordance with moral rules. Therefore, BGT’s portrayal of supernatural beliefs that are adaptive is similar to that of BSPT’s. Defenders of BGT will often write about gods being omniscient rather than epistemically privileged (see for example the quote above) but this makes little difference for the theory. Defenders of BGT do not stress the importance of human intention, and supernatural access to it, as much as Johnson and Bering did. For example, Shariff et al. write: “Some gods can even read people’s thoughts.”14 We noted above that this need not affect the theory much since BSPT probably can do without this belief as well. Contrary to defenders of BSPT, defenders of BGT do not claim that the three adaptive supernatural beliefs (privileged epistemic access, moral concern and willingness to reward or punish) appear cross-culturally. Supernatural beliefs of this kind only rose to prominence when people started living in large groups. For a large part of their history people had no real need for supernatural monitoring to have them obeying prosocial norms. Human groups were sufficiently small to have monitoring by kin or other closely related individuals. Reciprocal altruism and kin selection allowed for enough cohesion. None of both, however, permits large-scale cooperation. Belief in supernatural beings with a moral concern for prosocial behavior, that punish or reward people according to moral rules and have access to people’s beliefs, does permit this (Shariff et al. 2009).15 Shariff et al. give three reasons why their theory is preferable to BSPT. The first is that BSPT cannot explain large-scale cooperation. Secondly, they claim that there are less costly routes how natural selection can address the problem of cooperation. Lastly, they claim that the historical and archeological evidence favors BGT over BSPT (Shariff et al. 2009). The first reason seems to demand too much of BSPT since it never set out to explain large-scale cooperation. The second reason is hard to verify. Therefore, we focus on the third reason, namely that the archeological and empirical evidence favors BGT. The evidence for disagreeing with BSPT is historical and archeological. Shariff et al. claim that many gods are whimsical when it comes to morality. In most small-­ scale societies they are not always believed to be omniscient too. Gods of smaller societies often cannot observe people outside of village boundaries. Shariff et al. also refer to a study by Frans Roes and Michel Raymond. Their survey of societies  (Shariff et al. 2009: p. 124 emphasis added) We noted when discussing BSPT that Shariff was critical of an unambiguous connection between supernatural beliefs and morality. Yet he also defends BGT. 15  Shariff et al. (2009). 14

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showed that large-scale societies are more often characterized by belief in moralizing gods (Shariff et al. 2009). Whereas defenders of BSPT seem to assume that belief in moralizing gods will lead to more prosocial behavior, one defender of BGT, Ara Norenzayan, explicitly cites psychology and economics to argue that people behave better under social surveillance (Norenzayan 2013: pp.  20–23). An experiment conducted by Chen Zhong, Vanessa Bohns and Fransesco Gino showed that people were willing to donate less money in a dictator game when the person conducting the experiment wore dark sunglasses compared to when that person was wearing light sunglasses. Another experiment by Zhong and his colleagues revealed the same effect of a dim room compared to a well-lit room (Zhong et al. 2010). Norenzayan attributes this effect to the (non)-visibility of eyes; people who see eyes have an increased feeling of being watched and hence are more generous (Norenzayan 2013). An experiment by Kevin Haley and Dan Fessler also provided support by showing that participants exposed to human eyes disguised as a screensaver were more generous in a dictator game (Haley and Fessler 2005). Mary Rigdom and her colleagues tested whether exposing participants to a three-dot configuration vaguely resembling human eyes had the same effect and the results were positive (Rigdon et  al. 2009). The final study discussed by Norenzayan showed that people put more money in an ‘honesty box’ when the box was below a poster with human eyes (Bateson et al. 2006). According to Norenzayan, supernatural beliefs function in the same way as belief that one is being watched by other people. Norenzayan supports the comparison between social surveillance and supernatural surveillance with experiments he conducted together with Will Gervais and refers to similar experiments conducted by others. A first experiment suggested that being primed with God concepts had similar effects as being primed with concepts involving social surveillance by people, since both led to an increase in self-awareness. Jared Piazza, Jesse Bering and Gordon Ingram found a similar effect. They instructed one group of children not to look in a box and then left the room. A second group of children was told the same thing with the remark that an invisible supernatural agent called princes Alice was in the room. The second group showed less cheating than the first (Bering et  al. 2011). A second experiment suggested that implicit God primes (participants had ten sets of five words that contained God concept words) have the same effect. Two more experiments with a comparable setup also reported that implicitly priming god concepts reduced cheating (Mazar et al. 2008; Randolph-Seng and Nielsen 2007). In the last experiment, participants tended to give more socially desirable responses, both when primed by God concepts and by social surveillance concepts (Gervais and Norenzayan 2012). Norenzayan also draws support from reports of the so-called ‘Sunday effect’. According to Norenzayan, these reports have the benefit of not being set in an artificial environment like the experiments cited above, and therefore provide real-life evidence for his theory (Norenzayan 2013). Deepak Malhotta conducted a field study on how willing people are to respond to online appeals for charity. On Sundays, appeals to Christians were three times more effective than on other days (Malhotra 2008). Benjamin Edelman’s comparison of Internet porn consumer rates

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in highly religious communities to consumer rates in less religious communities showed that the average rates did not differ but within highly religious communities the rates went down on Sundays (Edelman 2009). According to Norenzayan, the ‘Sunday effect’ is due to higher exposure to religious primes on Sundays (Norenzayan 2013). Norenzayan makes the caveat that all the evidence is correlational and does not allow strong claims about causation (Norenzayan 2013). Making claims about causation requires manipulation; in our case making claims about when supernatural beliefs have a causal effect requires a manipulation of supernatural beliefs. Manipulating religiosity indeed seems very difficult, if not impossible, so establishing a causal relation will be too.

Criticism Much of the criticism on BSPT also applies to BGT. Apart from these, some have also criticized BGT on other grounds. Pascal Boyer and Nicholas Baumard argue that a lot of large scale societies did not believe in big gods. They write: “In (…) [some] traditions the gods were generally construed as unencumbered with moral conscience and uninterested in human morality. That is the case for the gods of classical antiquity, Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman (…) who did not care whether people followed moral codes as long as they provided sacrifices or showed obedience.”16 Boyer and Baumard thus argue that historical data does not match the picture BGT sketches. Defenses of BSPT can also be considered as criticisms of BGT. If belief in morally concerned, punishing gods with privileged epistemic access is indeed a biological adaptation (as defenders of BSPT argue) they did not outcompete other supernatural beliefs with the rise of large scale societies (as defenders of BGT argue). Klaus Schmidt argues that religion did not cause the emergence of large-scale societies as defenders of the big gods theory argue. According to Schmidt, some communities in the Middle East organized worship in a common, fixed place. Communities might have done so because they believed the place was a site for revelations or a dwelling place of supernatural beings. After they did, they looked for food resources and/or cultivated the new ones in its vicinity (Schmidt 2000). The emergence of large-scale societies would thus not be the result of belief in moralizing gods, but rather the effect of a new social structure that arose because of localized worship. Religion only motivate agriculture because it stopped the migratory life of hunter-gatherer groups. Harvey Whitehouse et al. argue that large-scale societies arose before belief in big gods. Therefore, belief in big gods could not have been the catalyst that drove better cooperation and subsequently large-scale cooperation (Whitehouse et  al.

16

 Baumard and Boyer (2013: p. 272)

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2019). Defenders of the big gods theory respond that Whitehouse et al.’s claim is based on a flawed analysis and does not do justice to the complexity of belief in big gods (Beheim et al. 2019).

Adaptationist Theory 3: Costly Signaling A third influential evolutionary explanation is the Costly Signaling Theory (CST). The idea of costly signaling has been debated among evolutionary biologists for some time and was applied to religion by Laurence lannaccone (1992). The most elaborate defenses has been offered by Richard Sosis17 and others have defended similar views.18 Like the previous two theories, CST states that religion provides benefits for cooperation. CST, however, does not always invoke the belief in a supernatural being who is watching every human move and thought. The theory draws on an older proposed mechanism in evolutionary biology, namely signaling behavior in animals. Costly signaling can be defined as: “using expensive and often seemingly arbitrary or ‘wasteful’ behavioral or morphological traits which are designed to convey honest information benefiting both signalers and observers” (Smith and Bliege Bird 2004: p. 116). The textbook examples of costly signaling in the animal kingdom are the stotting behavior by springboks and the peacock‘s tail. When confronted with predators, springboks will sometimes jump into the air with all four feet off the ground simultaneously. This act does not aid in escaping from predators and even slows the springbok down or tires it out, making it vulnerable to attacks. One prominent explanation of stotting behavior is that springboks signal how fit and strong they are and thereby let predators know that they are not worth pursuing. Since most springboks that engage in stotting are male, it is also possible that stotting behavior signals are aimed at showing off strength to female springboks. While at first glance maladaptive (stotting behavior makes springboks vulnerable and thus reduces their odds of surviving and reproducing), the signals sent by engaging in stotting behavior can be adaptive in the long run by scaring off predators and attracting more females. A similar explanation is offered for the peacock’s tail, which makes it very visible for predators while it also displays an excess of resources. Like the previous two theories, CST holds that religion is the key to solving the problem of free riders and it aids cooperation in general. How supernatural beliefs do this is rather different on this theory. Bulbulia and Sosis claim that the benefits of cooperation are not threatened when only a few members of the group cheat (Bulbulia and Sosis 2011). Free riding also does not always affect the whole group. Often individual group members send out signals or cues showing that they are not likely to cheat. One important way of doing so is honest signaling by personal

17 18

 Sosis and Bressler (2003), Sosis (2005), Bulbulia and Sosis (2011), Sosis and Kiper (2014).  (e.g. Atran 2002; Atran and Henrich 2010; Irons 2001).

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displays; by engaging in behavior that takes up a lot of effort, a member can show she is reliable. According to Sosis, in order for honest signaling to work, the displays must be costly and hard to fake (Sosis 2005). To this can be added that personal displays must somehow be connected to moral behavior.19 Sosis claims that religious rituals meet these criteria. Religious rituals are often costly: people spend a lot of time in services or worship, make efforts to perform religious acts and/or spend a lot of resources to build places of worship. Religious rituals are also hard to fake: many rituals are highly emotional so fakers will stand out and fakers are unlikely to persevere in performing rituals after some time. Finally, religious rituals are connected to moral behavior because they are performed in service of one or more moralizing gods. By engaging in rituals people show that they believe in one or more ­supernatural beings and they show their allegiance to the norms the supernatural beings dictate. Like in BSPT and BGT, CST only works if the supernatural being is morally concerned. CST does not need the belief that the supernatural being has full access to all human beliefs and desires. It also does not need the belief that supernatural beings punish or reward people in accordance with their obedience to pro-social norms. It suffices that supernatural beings are believed to issue certain moral norms and that they are believed to care about them. With these beliefs in place, an individual can signal her commitment to these norms and show her own pro-sociality. Richard Sosis also provided empirical data that backs up his theory. From CST, Sosis derived the hypothesis that religious communities have better cooperation and thus a longer longevity. His analysis of nineteenth century collectivist communities showed that religious communities were four times more likely to outlast secular counterparts. Furthermore, the most successful communities posed the strictest religious entrance demands and thus required more costly displays (Sosis 2000). Other evidence comes from studies showing that people are more likely to donate to fellow ritual participants than to others. A study by Sosis and Ruffle among Israelis in religious and secular settings found that ritual participation among religious Israelis strongly predicted giving to fellow religious Israelis when compared to the giving of secular Israelis (Ruffle and Sosis 2005). A team led by Dimitri Xygalates concludes from experiments that extreme rituals have a deeper effect on prosociality. They examined two Hindu rituals in Mauritius that involved body piercing with multiple needles, carrying heavy structures and dragging carts attached by hooks to the skin. Both participants and observers were asked to engage in a donation task. The results were then compared to a similar donation task with participants in and observers from a less intense ritual, namely collective prayer. The researchers reported that donations were significantly higher in the case of extreme rituals (Xygalatas et al. 2013).

 Sosis does not discuss this as a separate criterion, but it is clear from his writings that according to him honest signals must meet this demand.

19

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Criticism CST is criticized by Michael J. Murray and Lyn Moore. They argue that CST cannot account for a number of insights from evolutionary biology because CST does not cohere with current views about when a trait is evolutionary stable. They claim that rituals as honest signaling are unstable as an evolutionary trait because signaling will be beneficial whether the signaler is honest or not. They write: “There is (…) reason to expect that, in cases where organisms acquire a selective advantage from signaling, signals will quickly become dishonest, and will soon cease to confer any adaptive advantage. The logic of signaling seems, from an evolutionary standpoint, self-undermining” (Murray and Moore 2009: p.  226). Bulbulia and Sosis respond that this criticism misses the point because rituals are ‘hard to fake,’ meaning that one cannot easily produce the signal without an underlying commitment to a supernatural being and its norms (Bulbulia and Sosis 2011). Murray and Moore react that in the majority of religious rituals, the costs are fairly minor compared to the ­advantages gained. Engaging in practices like refraining from eating pork or praying daily is not at all hard to fake compared to the benefits gained (Murray and Moore 2009). Defenders of CST can respond that extreme rituals are hard to fake and that these rituals result in higher evolutionary benefits than low-cost rituals. This was suggested by Xygalates’ studies during extreme Hindu rituals (Xygalatas et al. 2013). Extreme rituals of this sort are, however, rather rare and cannot explain the wide prevalence of people with supernatural beliefs who do not engage in extreme rituals. Murray and Moore provide an additional reason to be skeptical of the claim that extreme rituals are evolutionary stable. With extreme rituals the costs are very high and the individual drastically reduces her fitness. The evolutionary benefits are rather low by comparison and it is even unclear what the benefits will be or whether they will manifest at all. Engaging in extreme rituals does not make it plausible that a person will be regarded as honest and therefore does not guarantee greater odds of survival and reproducing. Therefore performing extreme rituals is not an evolutionary stable strategy either, according to Murray and Moore (2009). Another problem is that engaging in rituals, however costly they may be, does not always signal a commitment to pro-social norms dictated by a supernatural being. A Hindu who engages in worship or a Buddhist who engages in meditation signals a commitment to the goals of self-fulfillment rather than to some social norm. Furthermore, Eastern and some Western religious practices often have the effect of people renouncing social norms. In the East, religious practices often result in an ascetic lifestyle, with little interest in society or normal everyday life. In the West, there are also ample examples of religious practices where people withdraw from society, for example in ascetic monasteries. Rituals of this sort disrupt cooperation rather than helping it. A world-renouncing, ascetic way of life could even promote free riding because social norms, especially norms about collaborating, are considered less important. A final problem is that costly signaling does not explain all, or even most, ritual behavior. Participation in weekly mass is not very costly for most Christians. Christians invest time when they participate in Sunday services. They may lose

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some amount of money when they donate during religious practices. It is, however, hard to treat this kind of costliness as a threat for his survival and reproduction. Participation in such low cost rituals could also directly increase an individual’s fitness because participating in weekly mass can provide psychological or emotional support.

Adaptationist Theory 4: Religion and Health A fourth evolutionary explanation is less popular among academics offering evolutionary explanations of religious belief, but more straightforward. The main idea here is that supernatural beliefs were selected for because having them improves or improved their health. Better health leads to longer longevity and better odds of survival and procreation. To our knowledge, there are no recent elaborate detailed defenses of this view. Some authors make smaller claims along these lines.20 Joseph Bulbulia made a slightly more elaborated claim (Bulbulia 2006).21 In contrast, the literature on the relation between religion and health is vast but rarely makes a connection to evolution. Regarding religion as beneficial to health is fairly new. Until recently, religion was more often regarded as a pathology or a disease. Religious beliefs were often regarded as symptoms or cause of psychological disorders. The development of forensic psychiatry was even inspired by religion. In 1800, William Hadfield attempted to kill King George III. He claims to have been motivated by God’s command (Sims 2012). From then till the middle of the twentieth century, religion was usually regarded as a negative influence on psychic health. Sigmund Freud’s work is a paradigm example. The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) included examples of disorders connected to religiosity. Some more recent approaches connect religiosity to pathology as well. For example, Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran and Michael Persinger explain religious experiences as the result of epileptic seizures in the temporal lobes (Persinger 1983). The first question is whether supernatural belief is indeed correlated with better health. The number of studies on the relationship between religion and health is enormous,22 and therefore a thorough discussion would require another book. For now, we will limit the discussion to the recent Handbook of Religion and Health (Koenig et al. 2012) and one often cited review article by Christopher Ellison and Jeffrey Levin (Ellison and Levin 1998). According to Ellison and Levin, the positive effects of religious beliefs on health are the following: –– They provide a protective factor against morbidity. –– They are sometimes associated with desirable mental health outcomes.

 See for example: Dow (2008), Greeff and Loubser (2008), Noor (2008), Rossano (2010).  Bulbulia (2006). 22  According to Wikipedia, over 3000 empirical studies have examined relationships between religion and health (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_and_health access: 28/07/2015). 20 21

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–– People who attend religious services regularly report receiving a great deal of guidance from religion in their daily lives, enjoy less psychological distress and have a lower risk of depressive disorders (Ellison and Levin 1998). Ellison and Levin warn against drawing big conclusions when they write: “(…) [O]n average, high levels of religious involvement are moderately associated with better health status.” (Ellison and Levin 1998: p. 107 emphasis added) Koenig and Cohen’s survey of empirical studies on the subject also concludes that religion is, on average, associated with better health. They report that a small number of studies (4%) suggest worse mental health for religious believers and a slightly larger but still small number (8.5%) reports poorer physical health. The majority of studies find significant positive relations between religiosity and mental and/or physical health. Over two-thirds of these studies report that religious believers experience more positive emotions, more social connections and live healthier lives. Although the majority of studies were self-report studies and Koenig and Cohen rightly warn that people are often not consistent in living out the beliefs they report. Nonetheless the evidence for a positive correlation between religion and health is convincing according to them (Koenig et al. 2012). Christian Zwingmann, Constantin Klein and Arndt Büssing list a number of ways how religious belief can contribute to better health. They can help the subject to experience positive emotions like hope, optimism and solace (Zwingmann et al. 2011: pp.  346–347). They can also offer opportunities to find meaning in life (Zwingmann et al. 2011). Thirdly, a close relationship with God can be a source of comfort and self-esteem23 and supernatural belief can also provide a frame of reference and hence provide cognitive stability.24 Lastly, they can lead to different value orientations, such as humility, abstinence and social engagement.25 Being healthy is obviously evolutionary beneficial. People with better health live longer and have better odds at reproducing. If having religious beliefs increases health, they are surely adaptive as well. Therefore, in order to defend an explanation of religious cognition on these grounds, one will have to make it likely that having supernatural beliefs indeed has positive effects on one’s health. Not just any positive effects will do, however. Since correlation is not causation, a proper theory needs to explain how supernatural belief leads to better health. Bulbulia suggests one way how supernatural belief can make people healthier. He argues that supernatural belief evolved to foster what he calls ‘placebo health’. Bulbulia refers to “a fair amount of anecdotal evidence that religious healing is part of our ancestral way of living” (Bulbulia 2006: p.  90). One example is the healing dance of the Khoisa in South Africa. During the dance the whole community gathers in song and dance and shamans enter into trance states. The Khoisa believe that the trance allows shamans to release healing energy from the gods. Participants in this ritual sometimes claim to be healed by the shamans. We also have reports of healing practices from ancient

 Park (2005) cited by Zwingmann et al. (2011: pp. 346–347).  Park (2005) cited by Zwingmann et al. (2011: pp. 346–347). 25  Dörr (2001) cited by Zwingmann et al. (2011: pp. 346–347). 23 24

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Mesopotamia and China that included many supernatural elements. Bulbulia entertains the possibility that religious healing practices included genuinely healing technologies, like beneficial herbs and cleansing rituals, but he claims this cannot account for all religious healing. Some religious healing practices are downright toxic. For example, it was not uncommon to subject sick children to dehydration in the medieval period. Bulbulia therefore favors the hypothesis that religious healing serves as a placebo. Religious healing practices can relieve stress because people believe they work. Since reduction of stress leads to better health, these practices make people healthier (Bulbulia 2006).

Criticism A criticism of the theory is that religious beliefs do not in themselves lead to better health. Luke Galen argues that the positive effects of religion are not due to having religious beliefs but to the fact that religious people have more social contact (Galen 2015). Christopher Ellison and David Larson also argue that the beneficial effects of supernatural beliefs on health are to a large degree mediated by social support, meaning that having supernatural beliefs is only beneficial because it brings people together with fellow believers (George et  al. 2002). John M.  Salsman, Tamara L.  Brown, Emily H.  Brechting and Charles R.  Carlson similarly conclude to an important mediator role for social support (Salsman et al. 2005). Femke Janssen, Sarah Bänziger, Jessie Dezutter and Dirk Hutsebaut argue that the positive correlation between supernatural beliefs and mental health is mainly due to having a symbolic attitude towards religion than to the content of the beliefs (Janssen et al. 2005). They thus imply that having supernatural beliefs is in itself not important but the attitude towards those beliefs is. Lynda Powell, Leila Shahabi and Carl Thoresen claim that church attendance rather than religious belief correlates with longer lifespans (Powell et al. 2003). Another point of criticism is that not all religious beliefs have a positive impact on health. In some modern societies, being openly religious opens one up to strong and hostile criticism.26 Political, social or economic beliefs are usually not criticized in the same hostile way. A clearer example is the connection between some forms of religiosity and neurosis. Eberhard Schaetzing introduced the term ‘ecclesiogenic neurosis’ in 1955 (Kroger 1969). This kind of neurosis is caused by the church dogmatism (Molenda 2013: p.  177). According to Molenda, dogmatism can lead to neurotic psychological states like being convinced of one’s own perfection, obedience, feelings of guilt and failure. As a result religious people may have reduced activity and creativity (Molenda 2013, pp. 178, 180–183). Religious believers can also be prone to consider whether their own expectations and moral standards measure up to their views on what God wants. Psychological and physical harm can be interpreted in terms of God’s punishment and sin. In this way, religion can increase  A few years ago, a group of thinkers known as ‘the new atheists’ prided themselves on criticizing religion in a harsh and almost offensive way.

26

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anxiety and worsen psychic health (Cornah 2006: p. 20). Deborah Cornah argues that the negative impact of religion on mental health depends on the way individuals experience religiosity. She claims negative impact is often the result of an overly intensive religious education. Other scholars find correlations between mania, schizophrenia, epilepsy of the temporal lobe, and an excessive religiosity (Harris et al. 2009).

Adaptationist Theory 5: Cohesion Through Rituals A number of authors argue that religious rituals foster cohesion.27 Some argue that this function was selected for by natural selection. The theory, which is sometimes called ‘identity fusion’ attempts to explain why people are willing to sacrifice themselves for the community. Such acts are explained by fusion between an individual sense of self and identification with a community. Defenders distinguish two kinds of fusion. In instances of local fusion, identification with the group goes very deep. Locally fused individuals experience a visceral sense of oneness with their groups. For them, the boundary between personal and group identity is porous and essential features of group-identity are regarded as essential features of personal identity. As a result, attacks on (members of) the group are experienced in a similar way as personal attacks. Local fusion produces a strong sense that members of the group are like one’s kin. This sense elicits a willingness to pay high personal costs to support the group, especially when confronted with out-group threats. In extended fusion,28 a clearer distinction between individual and group remains (Whitehouse 2018). The mechanism that produces local fusion is different than the mechanism that produces extended fusion. One way in which local fusion can come about is through genetic relation. Another way is through shared dysphoric experiences. Dysphoric experiences tend to create vivid memories. Sometimes dysphoric experiences are unintended, like when bands of armed fighters fuse by shared suffering of distress (cf. Whitehouse et al. 2014). On other occasions, shared dysphoric experiences are orchestrated by highly arousing ritual behavior. Because highly arousing rituals are causally opaque, they can trigger extended reflection and meaning making. This meaning-making easily produces rich representations that form part of the core narrative self. Because individuals imagine that group members share the same process of reflection and meaning-making, they imagine that group members share the same representations. According to defenders of the theory, extended fusion is brought about by the nature of low arousal, more frequent rituals, like Sunday mass or Friday prayer. Because these rituals are frequently repeated, they rely on fixed scripts that are shared across communities (Whitehouse 2004). By using scripts that describe the

 The theory was developed by William Swann, Harvey Whitehouse and others in a number of publications (Swann Jr et al. 2012, 2014; Swann et al. 2009; Whitehouse 1995; Whitehouse et al. 2013). This section is mainly based on the recent paper ‘Dying for the group: Towards a general theory of extreme self-sacrifice’ (Whitehouse 2018). 28  Some defenders call this kind ‘social identification’. 27

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ritual acts and words, rituals become detached from their particular instances. As a result different enactments of rituals are regarded as the same ‘type’ of behavior. Like highly arousing rituals, low arousal rituals are causally opaque to most participants and prompt similar episodes of reflection and interpretation. Because low arousal rituals are usually shared across larger communities, participation can make individuals imagine more people share the same process (Whitehouse 2018). Whitehouse et al. entertain the possibility that fusion might just be a by-product of the way autobiographical memory evolved in humans. They also suggest that fusion mechanisms could have evolved to aid human cooperation. Fusion could have evolved as an offshoot of kin selection. Self-sacrifice would make evolutionary sense if sacrifice would benefit fellow group members who that are genetically very similar. While this might have been the case for early human ancestors, it no longer is. This suggests that more recent social institutions hijack the fusion mechanism to facilitate cooperation in larger communities. In this way, fusion mechanisms could be culturally evolved gadgets for generating identity fusion in all sorts of groups. In this way, cultural evolution exploits biological mechanisms (Whitehouse 2018). Martin Lang suggests that fusion mechanisms could have been in place by the middle Pleistocene (Lang 2019).

Criticism As Whitehouse points out (Whitehouse 2018), the theory differs to broad supernatural punishment and the big gods theory by arguing that ritual behaviors rather than religious beliefs lead to better cooperation and trust. High arousal rituals lead to local fusion and low arousal to extended fusion regardless of what participants believe. Secular rituals can have the same effect as religious rituals. Whitehouse points to initiation rituals in fraternities and the military (Whitehouse 2018). Others pointed to fusion among football fans (Newson et al. 2016). Fusion therefore does not explain religiosity or why people engage in religious rituals.29

Religion: Group or Individual Selection? We discussed some adaptationist explanations of religion above. In this section, we discuss if these fit best in an individual selectionist approach or a group selectionist approach. We noted above that defenders of group selection argue that in some cases traits are selected for that give one group of species a benefit over another. Such traits could be selected for regardless of whether they yield a benefit for individual members of the group.

 Other by-product explanations of ritual behavior, e.g. (Boyer and Liénard 2006), also do not distinguish between religious and non-religious rituals.

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One main defenders of Broad Supernatural Punishment, Dominic Johnson argues that belief in moralizing gods benefits individual organisms. He notes that although belief in moralizing gods benefits groups, they do not benefit groups exclusively. Individuals who believe in moralizing gods benefit from better cooperation themselves. If they would not, selfish individuals would gain an edge (Johnson 2015: pp. 142–143). Johnson does claim that his theory would work within a group selectionist framework as well, but it works equally well in an individualist framework (Johnson 2015). The big gods theory not only puts the evolutionary benefit of religious belief in cultural evolution, it also disagrees with BSP over who reaps the benefit. Defenders of BG argue that belief in moralizing gods allowed for the development of large-­scale cooperation in groups. As Shariff notes, it is societies that grow vulnerable to being undermined by individual defection (Shariff 2011). One could respond that individuals benefit from smooth large-scale cooperation as well. Because of increased specialization larger societies could increase their food supply and hence the longevity of its members. However, since large-scale cooperation only manifests at the level of groups, the big gods theory fits better in a group selection framework. Costly signaling again operates at the individual level. By engaging in costly rituals, an individual can improve its chances at cooperation and thereby its fitness. It is also the case that groups with a lot of hard to fake rituals will have smoother cooperation if the costly signaling theory is true. As a result, they will be more successful than other groups without such rituals. The benefit for the group, however, piggybacks on the benefit for individual organisms. The benefits therefore do not emerge only or mainly at the level of the group. The benefits of costly signaling to the group might therefore be merely apparent and reduced to the benefits of individual members. For this reason, costly signaling does not fit well in a group selectionist framework. Something similar holds for evolutionary explanations of religion in terms of health benefits. If the theory is true, religion was selected for because it increases individual’s health. Most studies on the relations between religion and health conclude that religiosity makes individuals more healthy than non-religious individuals in the same group. Fusion mechanisms appear to provide a benefit to groups or subgroups. Local fusion creates closely knit subgroup within a larger society. Assuming that fusion mechanisms were selected to improve cooperation, these subgroups have a benefit over other subgroups and other individuals. Extended fusion can also improve the cooperation within a group compared to another.

Religion: Old or New Adaptation? Some argue that religion does not have an evolutionary function in modern societies anymore. This does not necessarily harm variants that regard religion as an old adaptation.

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Ara Norenzayan explicitly argues that belief in Big Gods only provided a benefit in the past. In the past, belief in big gods reduced the prevalence of free-riders and enabled trust. In modern societies, this role has been taken over by the welfare state. In most western societies governmental institutions like courts and the police make sure that cooperation runs smoothly. As a result, belief in big gods loses its adaptive function. Norenzayan suggests that stronger welfare states will lead to reduced belief in big gods (Norenzayan 2013). The effects of religious belief on health or bonding could also persist or be things of the past. It is possible that modern societies find better ways of reducing stress or to cope with difficult situations. Different ways to ensure bonding could also become dominant. However, this does not necessarily mean that religious belief will disappear in modern societies. Possibly, religion was selected for because it yielded an adaptive benefit in the past. If religion no longer yields a benefit, it likely becomes neutral. In this case, there is no strong evolutionary push to have religion disappear. The push becomes greater if religion grows to be maladaptive. It is not unlikely that in many cases religion will be retained as a relic of the past. On most theories of identity fusion, the effects of ritual behavior on cooperation persist today. Joint rituals can still lead to closely knit small and large groups. Modern societies might have better means to ensure cooperation but they appear to be more effective on larger groups. Therefore, local fusion might be more adaptive in modern societies than extended fusion.

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Chapter 5

Religion as Adaptive 3: Cultural Evolution

Abstract  This chapter discusses evolution of religion in terms of cultural evolution. We argue that there are good reasons to study religion in terms of cultural evolution. Basic concepts and theories within cultural evolution studies are discussed such as memetics, sociobiology or dual inheritance theory. This chapter also discusses the concept of religion as cultural niche, and the distinction between content biases and context biases. Keywords  Cultural adaptation · Memetics · Sociobiology · Dual inheritance theory · Cultural niche · Content biases · Context biases

Introduction While cognitive explanations assign some role to culture for particular, culturally specific beliefs (see also Chap. 9), they argue that basic religious representations and behavior are the result of the human cognitive architecture. As a result, basic religious representations and behavior are not dependent on cultural dissemination. It is clear that humans, despite of sharing the same cognitive architecture, differ substantially in rates of religiosity and personal attitude towards particular beliefs. We also noted how several adaptationist explanations of religious belief point to its role in promoting cooperation and trust. Defenders argue that belief in moralizing gods reduces the number of free riders and promotes cooperation. We also noted how this explanation comes in two varieties; a first puts the evolutionary benefit in biological (genetic) evolution and a second in cultural evolution. While other adap-

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K. Szocik, H. Van Eyghen, Revising Cognitive and Evolutionary Science of Religion, New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63516-9_5

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tationist theories are not always explicit as to where the benefit of religion lies (biological or cultural), all fall in one of both paradigms. In this chapter, we look closer at cultural evolution and various cultural mechanisms by means of which religion could have spread.

What is Cultural Evolution? Religion, like many human traits, is (at least to some extent) a cultural phenomenon. Religion is shaped by instruction, imitation and other forms of social transmission. Cultural processes, like instruction, teaching or imitation, are sometimes contrasted to evolutionary processes. Richard Dawkins famously argued that by means of culture, humans could rebel against their genes (Dawkins 1976). A large number of biologists try to bridge the gap between cultural and evolutionary processes and argue that the way culture evolves bear resemblance to and is shaped by Darwinian evolutionary processes. A first approach to cultural evolution is memetics. Defenders of memetics (e.g. Blackmore 2000; Dawkins 1976) argue that cultural ideas (‘memes’) behave like genes. Like genes, some memes yield an adaptive advantage to their carriers. Successful memes are retained while unsuccessful memes gradually disappear. A second approach is sociobiology (Wilson 1975). Defenders argue that selective evolutionary pressures favor the advantage of some social behavior over others. Original defenses of sociobiology argued that social behavior is to a large extent determined by genetic factors and ecological pressures. For example, Edward Wilson argues that aggression correlates with genotypic variation (Wilson 1975). A third approach is dual inheritance theory. Similar to other approaches to cultural evolution, defenders of dual inheritance theory argue that culture evolves partly through a Darwinian selection process. The theory is different because defenders claim that genes and culture continually interact in a feedback loop. Genetic propensities influence what individuals learn. Culturally transmitted information, in turn, modifies selection. As examples of such interactions, defenders refer to human niche construction (those processes by means of which organisms construct there own environment). An example is agriculture. Increased use of agriculture affected the evolution of the gene for lactose absorption (Laland 2008). Different approaches differ over the independence of culture over natural selection. Some approaches treat culture as a rather independent or new aspect of human life. Here culture can introduce new behavioral patterns that are foreign to behavioral patterns stemming from natural selection. Some versions of dual inheritance theory move in this direction.1 Other approaches regard culture as little more than

1  Some theological readings of CSR draw on dual inheritance theories to argue for the independence of theological thought over the operations of cognitive mechanisms (e.g. Vainio 2016).

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an epiphenomenon. Cultural behavioral patterns might augment certain adaptive traits, but they do not introduce much new. Defenders of these approaches tend to argue that apparently novel innovations of culture can be explained by human biology and flexibility. Some stronger versions of sociobiology move in this direction. As we will see below, most adaptationist explanations of religion appear to argue that culture introduces some new solutions but does not create new functions for religion. Religion (beliefs or rituals) would have evolved to aid humans in cooperation or increase their chances of procreation and stability according to defenders. The functions are similar to other evolved traits. How religion helps to tackle adaptive challenges is fairly new. Cultural selection allows for more traits selected for by group selection. Whereas biological group selection is rare and hard to maintain, traits that are disseminated through cultural means and are beneficial to groups are more common. Among the conditions required for biological group selection are small groups of mutually dependent individuals, intensive selective pressures and/or very limited inter-group migrations. These conditions are rare in the Holocene. Even very isolated populations rarely have pressures strong enough to lead to new adaptations. There are examples of human populations that were isolated for thousands of years yet did not develop any new adaptations.

The Challenge of Cooperation Once More We noted above (see Chap. 3) that cooperation presents an evolutionary challenge because of the threat of free-riders. According to some, cooperation in large groups requires cultural tools. One author who stresses the need for cultural tools is Scott Atran. He argues that the rational route where cooperation stems from an expectation of returned benefits (reciprocal altruism) is wanting and insufficient. Instead he argues that religious affiliation can establish loyalty within groups (Atran 2012). Defenders of the big gods theory (see Chap. 4) also argue that cooperation and trust are facilitated by an ‘a-rational’ process where individuals do not weigh the costs of cooperation against the benefits of returned favors or benefits for close kin. Forms of fusion by joint participation in rituals also provide an a-rational means of promoting cooperation. Because the pragmatic, social value of religious components appears to be rooted in their a-rationality, Atran introduces the concepts of a ‘devoted actor’ rather than a ‘rational actor’ (Atran 2012). A devoted actor is highly devoted to his or her religion and acts accordingly. Actions and decision of devoted actors go well beyond rational and empirical consideration. The devoted actor acts out of ‘sacred values’, values that motivate action and are non-negotiable for the actor. In theory, devoted actors have a better chance of survival and durability than rational actors. Unlike rational actors, devoted actors are not in danger of changing or losing their religious affiliation when alternatives pop up.

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The claim that religion as a means of promoting cooperation is an a-rational process has its limits. Religion (belief in moralizing gods or joint participation in rituals) is a-rational insofar as it activates automatic, unreflected behavior in individuals. However, grasping the concept of supernatural punishment and reward required some level of rational calculation and emotions like hope and fear that signal at least some level of rationality. Joint participation in rituals also requires weighing of reasons to participate in rituals like regard for reputation. These rational considerations for religious behavior can co-exist with the social (unknown) reasons for cooperation. Whether rational or not, religion broadens cooperation according to many adaptationist theories yet does not make cooperation universal. We noted how Jewish ethics lead to isolated Jewish communities according to David Wilson (Wilson 2002). Christians are more altruistic towards other Christians than towards non-­Christians. This is likely due to tribal psychology and related primitive instincts (cf. Boyer 2018). Something similar happens in costly signaling. While signaling mechanisms could very well by the result of biological natural selection, the mechanisms are used for a new purpose by religious institutions. Fusion by rituals taps into mechanisms regulating allegiance and trust towards close kin. Harvey Whitehouse notes how religious and secular institutions often employ vocabulary related to family ties, like ‘the motherland’ or ‘father’ for clergy (Whitehouse 2018). These and other biologically evolved instincts are ‘hijacked’ by cultural institutions. While biologically evolved traits do some work, their operations are altered by cultural processes to a significant extent. On cultural evolutionist accounts, cultural tools mainly serve to augment or broaden the scope of cooperation. Some accounts also suggest that cultural tools limit cooperation to the in-group.

Cultural Niches? Adaptations are features and/or traits that lead to a higher degree of fitness when compared to alternative features. Whether traits lead to higher fitness or not is to some extent determined by the ecological context. Culture often shapes the ecological context. After the industrial revolution, traits like entrepreneurship grow to be more adaptive. In the twentieth century, traits like intelligence and adaptability grew to be more important while other traits, like physical strength and stamina lost some of their importance. Cultural processes can produce traits that are adaptive in one environment but neutral or maladaptive in others. Leron Shults argues that atheism might have been maladaptive in the past but is adaptive in modern societies (Shults 2015). Another example is the influence of religion on cooperation and peace (see above Chap. 3). Wilson and Green argue that religion is an adaptation to both peace and war (Wilson and Green 2007). Others argue as well that religion is a good candidate for promot-

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ing trust and cooperation. However, some have argues that this is not the case in all cultural cases (Mitkidis et al. 2017; Mitkidis et al. 2014; Oviedo 2016; Szocik 2016).

Context vs. Content Biases On both a by-product view and a biological adaptationist view, natural selection selects for religious beliefs by means of selecting for cognitive mechanisms. On a by-product view, natural selection selects for cognitive mechanisms that produce evolutionarily beneficial beliefs and religious beliefs as a by-product. On a biological adaptationist view, like the broad supernatural punishment theory, natural selection must also rely on cognitive mechanisms. Since most of the biological evolution of the human brain occurred by the Pleistocene, biological evolution did not have other means for producing beliefs available than cognitive mechanisms. Cultural evolution can rely on other cultural means for the dispersion of religious beliefs. In this section, we discuss one kind of cultural means, context biases. Earlier, we discussed some examples of content biases. One prime example is Pascal Boyer’s theory. He argues that something about the content of religious beliefs (namely them being minimally counterintuitive) makes them more salient and memorable. Other scholars argue that there is something about the context in which beliefs are transmitted that makes them more memorable or more attractive. One well documented example of context bias is the prestige bias. Prestige bias is a form of social learning. Social learning is adaptive because it saves individual subjects the trouble of learning everything themselves. Joseph Henrich and Fransisco Gil-White argue that once cultural transmission capacities exist, cultural selection favored social learners who copy the most successful group members. All human societies had and have social asymmetries where some members enjoy a higher status than others. Members with a higher status have more access to desirable goods. In human societies, higher status often stems from non-­ agonistic forces. Where animals usually gain their superior status through combat, humans can do so by showing excellence in valued domains of activity. Humans who display skill in hunting or sports often gain a higher social status. Because individuals with higher status are more successful in obtaining goods, it makes sense to copy their beliefs and behavior. Their beliefs and behavior at least partially explain how they obtained goods. Copying individuals with a higher standing thus increases an individual’s chances of obtaining more goods (Henrich and Gil-­ White 2001). Joseph Henrich also points to another example of a context bias, credibility enhancing displays or CRED’s.2 CRED’s are outward behavior that implies a cost to the actor and which makes her expressed belief more credible. For example, 2  Some authors also pointed out that behavior can undermine the credibility of testimony (Turpin et  al. 2018). Such ‘CRUD’s’ can explain why ideas disappear from a society or become less prevalent.

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someone who claims that giving to charity is good and makes donations to charity herself is much more credible than someone who merely claims that giving to charity is good. Someone is less likely to do the costly act if she does not have the accompanying belief. Therefore beliefs accompanied by a CRED are more credible. For this reason cultural selection would have selected for a tendency to be attentive to CRED’s (Henrich 2009). According to Maij et al. (2017), CRED’s are the key factor responsible for the dissemination of the religious beliefs and rituals. Cognitive mechanisms, like ToM have a far more limited role (Maij et al. 2017). They thereby conclude to a strong impact of culturally evolved context biases on religiosity. Farias et al. also argue that supernatural beliefs are better explained by cultural factors than by cognitive mechanisms like HADD (Farias et al. 2017).

Culturally Adaptationist Explanations of Religion The main difference between biological adaptationist and cultural adaptationist theories of religion is how religion is disseminated and when religion grew to be adaptive. We noted above that defenders of the big gods theory differ with defenders of the broad supernatural punishment theory over when belief in moralizing gods provided an evolutionary benefit. Below we discuss if other adaptationist explanations fit better in a biological or cultural framework. Does costly signaling fit better in a biological or cultural evolutionary paradigm? According to some archeologists, Neanderthals already showed signs of burial rituals (Solecki 1975). This claim is, however, disputed (Sommer 1999). There is also evidence for other ritualistic behavior in Neanderthals (Narr 2008). Some have also argued that chimpanzees display rudimentary forms of ritual behavior (Harrod 2014). It is not clear whether Neanderthals had cultural tools available for the dissemination of ritual behavior. While some claim that Neanderthals had a capacity for language (Kay et al. 1998), others argue that they likely did not (DeGusta et al. 1999). Some context biases could work without language. For example, prestige bias could have made early hominids imitate (ritual) behavior of individuals with higher prestige. A similar form of imitation could be at work in chimpanzees. While early humans might have been capable of ritual behavior, it is hard to see how they could have signaled allegiance to prosocial norms without cultural tools. In order to know that an individual is more reliable because she engages in hard to fake rituals, one needs to know that the rituals are connected to norms. It is hard to see how this could be encoded in the genome or develop without resorting to cultural processes. Religious components do not appear to need cultural tools to provide a health benefit. A subjective rudimentary awareness of God could have sufficed to alleviate stress or to cope with difficult situations. Whitehouse argues that fusion mechanisms depend on reflection about shared meaning or shared interpretation of traumatic events. While this requires capabili-

References

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ties for abstract thought, it does not require cultural transmission. The weaker, group identification forms of fusion do appear to require cultural tools to spread through larger populations.

Imagination Another cultural mechanism for the dissemination of religious ideas, beliefs and behavior that is usually not taken on board in cognitive or biological explanations is imagination. Jensen argues that imagination plays a crucial role in the origins of religious beliefs (Jensen 2014). He regards imagination as the faculty that mediates between cultural influences and sensory stimuli. In this way imagination creates or invents new ideas. Creativity and novelty in ideas and concepts would not be ­possible without imagination. He claims that imagination is a necessary condition for the development of religious contents and theological concepts. A reason why imagination might be understudied in CSR and other approaches to religion is that imagination and its outcomes are hard to measure and therefore beyond the scope of scientific inquiry. Nonetheless, imagination clearly plays an important role in the origin and transmission of religious beliefs. Imagination seems especially important to explain individual variation in religious beliefs. It likely plays a role in both the phylogenesis of religious beliefs, the historical development of religious beliefs in the human history, and in its ontogenesis, how religious ideas take shape in an individual.

References Atran, S. (2012). God and the ivory tower. Retrieved from http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/08/06/ god-­and-­the-­ivory-­tower/. Blackmore, S. (2000). The meme machine (Vol. 25). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Boyer, P. (2018). Minds make societies. How cognition explains the word humans create. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DeGusta, D., Gilbert, W. H., & Turner, S. P. (1999). Hypoglossal canal size and hominid speech. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 96(4), 1800–1804. Farias, M., van Mulukom, V., Kahane, G., Kreplin, U., Joyce, A., Soares, P., Oviedo, L., Hernu, M., Rokita, K., Savulescu, J., et al. (2017). Supernatural belief is not modulated by intuitive thinking style or cognitive inhibition. Scientific Reports, 7(1), 1–8. Harrod, J. B. (2014). The case for chimpanzee religion. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature & Culture, 8(1), 8–45. Henrich, J. (2009). The evolution of costly displays, cooperation and religion: Credibility enhancing displays and their implications for cultural evolution. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30, 244–260. Henrich, J., & Gil-White, F.  J. (2001). The evolution of prestige: Freely conferred deference as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission. Evolution and Human Behavior, 22(3), 165–196.

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Jensen, J. (2014). What is religion? New York: Routledge. Kay, R. F., Cartmill, M., & Balow, M. (1998). The hypoglossal canal and the origin of human vocal behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 95(9), 5417–5419. Laland, K.  N. (2008). Exploring gene–culture interactions: Insights from handedness, sexual selection and niche-construction case studies. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 363(1509), 3577–3589. Maij, D. L., van Harreveld, F., Gervais, W., Schrag, Y., Mohr, C., & van Elk, M. (2017). Mentalizing skills do not differentiate believers from non-believers, but credibility enhancing displays do. PLoS One, 12, e0182764. Mitkidis, P., Ayal, S., Shalvi, S., Heimann, K., Levy, G., Kyselo, M., Wallot, S., Ariely, D., & Roepstorff, A. (2017). The effects of extreme rituals on moral behavior: The performers-­ observers gap hypothesis. Journal of Economic Psychology, 59, 1–7. Mitkidis, P., Lienard, P., Nielbo, K. L., & Sørensen, J. (2014). Does goal-demotion enhance cooperation? Journal of Cognition and Culture, 14(3–4), 263–272. Narr, K. J. (2008). Prehistoric religion. Britannica online encyclopedia. Oviedo, L. (2016). Religious attitudes and prosocial behavior: A systematic review of publishes research. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 6, 169–184. Shults, F. L. (2015). How to survive the anthropocene: Adaptive atheism and the evolution of homo deiparensis. Religions, 6, 724–741. Solecki, R. S. (1975). Shanidar IV, a Neanderthal flower burial in northern Iraq. Science, 190(4217), 880–881. Sommer, J.  D. (1999). The Shanidar IV ‘flower burial’: A re-evaluation of Neanderthal burial ritual. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 9(1), 127–129. Szocik, K. (2016). Reliability and adaptability of religious beliefs in the light of cognitive science of religion. Studia Humana, 5(4), 64–73. Turpin, H., Andersen, M., & Lanman, J. (2018). CREDs, CRUDs, and Catholic scandals: Experimentally examining the effects of religious paragon behavior on co-religionist belief. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 9, 143–155. Vainio, O.-P. (2016). What does theology have to do with religion? Dual-process theory, cognitive science of religion and a curious blind spot in contemporary theorizing. Open Theology, 2, 106–112. Whitehouse, H. (2018). Dying for the group: Towards a general theory of extreme self-sacrifice. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 41, 1–64. Wilson, D. S. (2002). Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, religion, and the nature of society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Wilson, D. S., & Green, W. S. (2007). Evolutionary religious studies (ERS): A beginner’s guide. Wilson, E. O. (1975). Sociobiology: The new synthesis. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Chapter 6

Religion as Adaptive 4: Sexual Selection of Religion

Abstract  After having discussed biological adaptationist and cultural adaptationist approaches, we lastly discuss sexual selection theory of religion. This chapter introduces the main concepts and theories in sexual selection. Then, possible applications to the evolution of religion are offered. While there are good reasons to explain at least some of religious components in terms of mating strategies, not all religious features evolved under direct sexual selection pressure. Keywords  Sexual selection · Mating strategies · Good genes · Fitness indicator · Sexual signaling

Introduction Sexual selection is a special kind of natural selection in which members of one biological sex choose mates of the other sex to mate with (intersexual selection), and compete with members of the same sex for access to members of the opposite sex (intrasexual selection). Defenders of sexual selection theory argue that some traits and behaviors increase the odds that an individual will be able to pass along his or her genetic material. Jason Slone and James van Slyke summarize sexual selection theory as follows: Sexual selection theory argues that a number of traits and behaviors we see in sexually reproducing species evolved because they help to facilitate not survival per se but rather

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K. Szocik, H. Van Eyghen, Revising Cognitive and Evolutionary Science of Religion, New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63516-9_6

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6  Religion as Adaptive 4: Sexual Selection of Religion reproductive success by either making the individual attractive to the opposite sex or by deterring same-sex rivals.1

Some traits and behaviors signal information that has an attractive force. Examples of such information are being strong or being wealthy. A well-known example of a theory that refers to sexual selection is Patrick J.  Weatherhead and Raleigh J.  Robertson’s ‘sexy son theory’. They state that a female’s ideal choice of male mate is one whose genes are most likely to produce male offspring with a high chance of reproductive success (i.e. a sexy son). Other beneficial traits a potential male mate has to offer, like his intelligence, qualities as caregiver and wealth, are deemed less important. Weatherhead and Robertson draw support for their theory from research on the European pied catcher (Weatherhead and Robertson 1979). Other phenomena in the animal kingdom have also been explained by sexual selection. We already discussed the example of male springboks that sometimes jump with all four legs in the air. This behavior is known as ‘stotting’. The behavior slows springboks down and drains their energy. Although it appears maladaptive in this sense, it also shows to female springboks that a male is strong and has excessive energy. The peacock’s tail is another example. The excessive tail requires investing a lot of energy and hampers the peacock’s mobility. Despite the downsides, the tail can help males in attracting females. The two examples show that benefits in intersexual and intrasexual competition can overrule downsides in other domains (here biological fitness). Apparently, the benefits gained by stotting behavior and excessive peacock-tails balance up against the downsides these traits cause. Sexual selection assumes that sexual selection is an autonomous selective force, independent from natural selection. Some authors consider both as similar or as working in tandem although there are many examples of conflicting pressures from both, for example sexual selection and natural selection have different pressures towards the tendency to avoid predators (Futuyma 2006). Sexually motivated behavior leads to irrational behavior that might seem counterproductive to survival. For this reason both should be regarded as distinct pressures. Sexual selection theory leans on various theories and concepts. One is the concept of the human mind as a fitness indicator. The concepts draws on Amotz Zahavi’s handicap principle and on the concept of the honest indicator. The Handicap principle explains why some signals can be regarded as honest even though individuals could be expected to signal false information. Because the signals are costly, signaling false information is not worthwhile. These costs in fact ‘handicap’ an individual’s behavior and can therefore be regarded as trustworthy. Both principles indicate the need for an advanced and complex social brain. Miller (2001, pp.  104–107) points out that humans do not need such complex brain and mind to survive. A complex brain is thus not needed for natural selection but does provide an advantage in sexual selection.  (Slone and Slyke 2015: 2)

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Sexual selection theory is controversial to some extent. Miller (2001) points out that some of ideas and concepts used within the sexual selection theory may be regarded as politically incorrect. One of those is the claim that there are profound differences between men and women that are rooted in human biology. These differences would be the result of different reproductive strategies and purposes that are more appropriate for particular sexes. While such differences are not controversial as biological facts, controversy arises when one claims that biological differences imply substantial differences in cultural and behavioral patterns. An example of a controversial claim within sexual selection theory is the higher rate of variation in sexual partners among males than among females. The variation is explained as the result of the male tendency to indicate their fitness. Females do not share the tendency because females are more sensitive than males and are biologically more inclined to care for offspring due to the costs of pregnancy and mothering (Miller 2001, p. 257). Van Slyke argues that there are good reasons to assume that adaptations that evolved for sexual purposes, could play some role in the origin and evolution of religious components. He notes that mating strategies could affect human religiosity and human interest in religious matters (Van Slyke 2015, pp.  13, 15). Religious affiliation could be helpful to enhance the long-term mating strategies, and to ­support people interested in the long-term mating. Van Slyke (2015, p. 19) refers to this as ‘the reproductive religiosity model’, which means that mating and reproductive strategy affects personal interest in a particular religious affiliation. Then, such preferred religious denomination or just religious strategy is used to provide and to support a particular sexual strategy. In consequence, human morals on sexual matters including a preference for short-term or long-term strategies are considered as better predictors of religiosity than human morals on cooperative behaviors and other ethical issues. Religious activity and religious faith is correlated with an increasing interest in the long-term mating, and decreasing rate of short-term orientation. Religion may be a tool that is used to offer survival and reproduction benefits associated with stabilizing monogamy, motivating to reproduction, or guaranteeing fidelity. Religions use proximate mechanisms, and one of them is the idea of a sanctification of marriage (van Slyke 2015, pp. 22, 26). Michael Blume gives another example of the application of sexual selection theory to the study of religion. He notes that patterns of sexuality, reproduction and religion overlap and they confirm the idea of matrilineal human evolution. In his model, females play a crucial role in the evolution of religion. As a consequence, religion is not necessarily the product of male-male competition (Blume 2015: pp. 69–70). This point of view is opposite to the approach presented by, among others, Miller. According to Miller (2001), male-male competition affected by female choice is the main force in the evolution of culture. Sergey Gavrilets points out that the evolution of human bonding and the transition from promiscuity to monogamy is correlated with an increase in male provisioning and female faithfulness. The higher the rate of male provisioning, the higher the rate of female faithfulness. However, female faithfulness balances between the need for male provisioning and searching for good genes (Gavrilets 2012: p. 9925).

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Some religious doctrines propagate faithfulness and demand males to care for their wife and offspring. As such, they tie in well with evolutionary demands. According to sexual selection theory, sexual dimorphism is deeply rooted in human genetics and sexual differences are associated with strong biases, tendencies, abilities and behavioral patterns appropriate for females or males. This does not imply that males cannot get involved in behavior that is traditionally regarded as female behavior or vice verse. Such kinds of shifts are possible when the operational sex ratio (the ratio of fertilizable females to sexually active males) is dominated by males or females. The key idea of sexual dimorphism is that reproductive strategies, the cost to benefit ratio of particular behaviors, and, consequently, behavioral routes to fitness maximization are usually different for males and females. The dimorphic approach states that a particular sex does not engage in some of social and cultural activities because they are not compatible with his/her genetic interests and therefore not with his/her reproductive strategy. An example of dimorphism is the recurring feature that some food resources are acquired more easily by particular sexes. Males usually engage in activities that provide resources for women because availability of resources is necessary for female fecundity. For this reason, males work to provide food for women, and to replace women in many works and tasks. The male work – even if costly for males – offers benefits for female fertility. Human mating strategies are special among animals because it is based on long-­ term mating. This is a rather rare phenomenon in the natural world and occurs mostly among primates (Conroy-Beam et al. 2015: pp. 13–15). Religious institutions usually enhance and defend a conservative model of marriage and the traditional division of labor. The pattern fits with the dimorphism we discussed above. Another basic rule in sexual selection states that males compete for a quantity of females and females compete for a quality of males. As a result, females choose and tend to make their choice carefully. Males who aim for a high number of sexual relations are obligated to court and not to choose; therefore male investment is usually lower than female investment. For this reason, the higher number of sexual partners the male has, the higher his reproductive success is. Female reproductive success does not depend on the number of male partners. This biological inequality explains the great disproportion between both sexes concerning courtship and parenting. Males usually make a lot more efforts in courting and make a lot less efforts in parental investment. For females the reverse holds. Minimal female investment in parenting is roughly nine months, while minimal male investment can be limited to a couple of minutes. Miller points out that differences between male and female mating strategies have affected the evolution of cultural traits. Culture can work as a tool of sexual selection and shape courtship and mating. According to Miller, women usually did not contribute to the cultural diversity due to the relatively large biological obligatory parental investment. Female specific reproductive biology excludes an opportunity to increase their reproductive success by means of cultural diversity. Cultural diversity leads to the accumulation of resources. Male reproductive success increases when males increase their material resources. Males invent new cultural traits because they are used to collect material resources which are usually necessary to

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attract females (Miller 1998). Contrary to females, males look for new strategies that make them capable of getting new resources attractive for women. Sexual selection theory of culture states that human cultural diversity including politics, economy, religion or art evolved under sexual selection pressure. Consequently, males produced more art and literary works than women did and males dominated in politics and many other fields of social and cultural activity. According to Miller, male dominance is thus the result of the male need for many female sexual partners and the pressure to make themselves more and more attractive to females. Cultural and political activity is one of the ways of male courtship and catching female attention. This approach may be applied to the policy of the Roman Catholic Church in which women cannot become priests. Social prestige and access to resources associated with the fact of being a priest is important for males but not necessary for females – at least not for their reproductive success. Female reproductive success depends on long-term pregnancy and lactation, not on many short-term sexual relations as is the case of males. This difference in the minimal biological obligatory parental investment may explain the fact that for centuries women cultural activity were limited. Women cannot increase their reproductive success by a growing number of sexual partners. Some argue that sexual selection, and especially parental relations, lie at the root of altruism. Craig T. Palmer and Ryan O. Begley propose the Descendant-Leaving hypothesis which draws on theories of kin selection. According to this theory, evolution of altruism was affected by the dynamics of parents-offspring conflicts. The essence of this theory is the assumption that there is a permanent conflict of interests between parents and offspring. Parents tend to manipulate their offspring and they teach them altruistic behaviors. Having less selfish offspring is better for siblings and parents. At the same time, offspring has a tendency towards selfish behavior. This would have produced altruistic rules like the golden rule. Palmer and Begley note that the first version of the moral patterns was “love your co-descendant as you love yourself.” The extended version of that pattern is “love your neighbor,” and it appeared later, about 7500  years ago (Palmer and Begley 2015, pp.  95–96, 102–105, 109). Sexual selection theory can also explain violence and aggressive behavior, mostly among males. Humans have a natural tendency for violence. Different cultural patterns and phenomena often are used to limit and to control human aggression. According to Sela et al. (2015) cultural tools arose to canalize and justify male aggression. These cultural tools sometimes justify male violence towards females, for example in following female infidelity and cuckoldry. Woman who engages in extramarital affairs, threatens male reproductive interest. Sela and colleagues mention some examples in Bible and Quran which approve male violence including lethal aggression towards women. The authors note that – from the biological point of view  – sexually motivated violence is rooted in human (and not only human) evolutionary reproductive strategies, and is affected mostly by a male attempt to protect their reproductive benefits. Female infidelity and male-male competition for access to females poses a risk for male parental investment (Sela et  al. 2015, pp. 112–118, 131).

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Sexual Selection and Religion Apart from the examples we mentioned in the previous section, sexual selection theory provides a lot of resources to explain various religious components. In a way, sexual selection theory could be more suited than biological natural selection because it is easier to find adaptive functions for religion in this way. Most religious components are apparently useless from a natural selection point of view and therefore hard to explain. Adaptationist theories that draw on supernatural punishment (see Chap. 3) explain why natural selection selected for belief in moralizing gods but does not explain other components like belief in non-moralizing gods, ritual behavior and religious institutions. The same holds for theories that explain why cultural evolution selected for belief in big gods. The costly signaling theory only explains a limited number of costly ritual acts. Theories that draw on religion’s beneficial effects on health do not account for religious beliefs and behavior that are detrimental to human health. Fusion theories, finally, only explain why humans ­partake in joint ritual behavior and do not explain beliefs and why such behavior is deemed religious at all. Another reason why sexual selection theory (SST) is highly suitable is that it can better account for high flexibility and context dependence. Religious beliefs and religious behavior are flexible. What people believe changes over time and depends to a large extent on the environment in which people live. SST can also better account for evolutionary costly or neutral religious traits. Sexual selection theory of religion states that the mating choice affects evolution of some traits to the point where they become selectively neutral  – useless in terms of natural selection, or maladaptive and counterproductive to survival. While those traits are counterproductive in terms of natural selection, they may be adaptive in terms of sexual selection. Miller (2001, p. 262) criticizes functionalist, social explanation of various aspects of culture, including religion. He argues that religious affiliation as far as it expresses fitness of believers has a good chances to be a trait evolved by sexual selection. He also argues that evolution of some human moral traits such as generosity could be affected by sexual selection’s motives. Being a morally good person plays an important role in male courtship behaviors. Miller points to the example of John Rockefeller who got high male mate value because of his high generosity and charity. Miller writes: “He was thought much of by these spiritual minded young women because of his goodness, his religious fervor, his earnestness and willingness in the church, and his apparent sincerity and honesty of purpose.” In this case, religious affiliation supports generous charity, and both of them work jointly as a good indicator of high mate value. Someone who invests a lot in unrelated people without expecting returns, is expected to possess extra resources which would be exploited by future female mate and their offspring. Sexual selection theory may be applied to the study of religion at least in two different ways. In one way, the impact of religious components on human sexual behavior can be studied. This approach is relatively well known. For example,

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Lawrence Foster studied the impact of shaker, Mormon and Oneida beliefs and sexuality (Foster 1981). In another approach, religion itself is studied as a product of sexual evolution. Both approaches may overlap. If one shows that male and female reproductive strategies have affected the way how religious components work, one could argue that these components affect sexual behaviors, mating and reproductive strategies of believers. Despite the fact that the both approaches to the study of sex and religion may overlap, there is a substantial causal difference between them. There are strong reasons to argue that religious impact on sexual behavioral strategies cannot be possible without preceding impact of sexual selection on religious components. Religious components shape human sexuality because sexuality shaped religious components. Sexual selection theory is able to explain a range of phenomena that do not possess any direct survival value, like music, art, advanced language, creative abilities or religion. We noted that adaptationist theories do not account for a lot of religious components. Some of those can be explained by sexual selection theory. Some religious traits can work as an indicator of fitness. Being a religious person can indicate that one has abilities that require a highly advanced brain and mind in some contexts. In other contexts, atheism can indicate the very same thing. Religious practice that is costly for believers can be explained in terms of the handicap principle. Here religious behavior is explained in a similar way as the costly signaling theory did. Here signaling is applied to sexual matters while the original costly signaling theory concerns prosociality. The same religious behavior that is deemed to indicate trustworthiness can indicate that a believer possesses better material and psychological resources and thereby increase his or her mate value. The believer shows that he or she has a sufficient amount of resources to be able to participate in religious life. Religious belief or behavior can fulfill this role if it meets two criteria: it is costly and useless for the believer. In his explanation of culture, Miller (2001) refers to the adaptationist theory of art proposed by Ellen Dissanayake. Art is in many ways similar to religion as it is apparently (evolutionary) useless. The parallel is, however, not perfect, because religious components possess pragmatic moral, psychological or social functions and art merely offers decorative and aesthetic functions. Dissanayake argues that human art can be explained as a biological adaptation because it fits three criteria. First, art is ubiquitous. Second, art gives pleasure. Pleasure is regarded as criterion because adaptive behavior is connected to pleasant feelings. Third, art is costly. If behavior is costly, subjects have good reasons to partake in them which suggests that the behavior serves some function according to Dissanayake (2001). The same three criteria can be applied to religion. Some religious components are shared cross-­ culturally. Religion can provide pleasure because of its psychotherapeutic functions and social effects on groups and can be costly in some cases. Apart from signaling access to wealth and resources, some religious behavior can be explained as an indicator of fitness or honesty. Religious performance can indicate fitness by signaling features like intellectual and moral qualities. On another sexual selectionist explanation, religious performance indicates individual fitness, mostly by indicating features like intellectual and moral qualities. In the past, priest

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enjoyed a high social prestige. Their prestige was connected to their education but also with high social expectations towards their morality. By engaging in religious life, non-clergy can indicate fitness as well. People who engage in religious life are often regarded as more moral. Religious believers are expected to share at least a minimum of moral qualities, without them no believer can be part of a religious community. Religious affiliation can serve as a ‘brand’ to signal and to potential mates that search for honest and moral mates of the opposite sex. Being costly is not necessary for this purpose. Being moral can come natural to the religious signaler and therefore not be very costly and fitness reducing. In this sense, religious communities and religious rituals are a platform to advertise and promote personal qualities. When religious life is explained in terms of honesty/fitness indication, it informs all potential mates of the opposite sex that an individual possesses advanced mental and moral qualities. Religious behavior can also serve as a ‘dishonest’ signal. David Bell suggests that religious practice and religious rituals could signal good male social abilities. He argues that males usually need a good reputation to be attractive for women who are looking for long-term mates. For this reason, religious rituals could be used to build a male reputation independently of real male intents and attempts which include an evolutionary bias to follow many short-term sexual strategies. In this way, Bell sees religious rituals as a kind of male sexual ornaments. His claim is plausible because women prefer men who possess advanced social skills and hereby show that they are ready to take care for the future offspring (Bell 2015, pp. 184–185). Sexual signaling is similar to costly signaling (see Chap. 3) but differs in some key aspects. Both have different goals; sexual signaling signals fitness, honesty and intellectual capacities while costly signaling mainly signals trustworthiness. Costly signaling requires costliness whereas sexual signaling does not always do so. For this reason, sexual signaling can better account for non-costly religious behavior like weekly church attendance. Sexual selection theory can explain both costly and non-costly traits. Costly signaling and sexual signaling are compatible as explanation for religious components. The same trait which is useful in terms of natural selection can also be useful in terms of sexual selection. Defenders of sexual selectionist explanations of religion have less constraint than defenders of adaptationist theories. A defender of a non-sexual adaptationist account may explain a particular religious component that does meet the criteria of adaptation, in terms of an adaptation, a selectively neutral trait, a cultural equivalent of genetic drift or mutation, or as a cooptation. Defenders of sexual selectionist explanations can state that virtually all religious components are adaptive because mate choice – mostly female choice – may favor virtually a whole range of traits. Sexual selection theory shows that religious traits do not need to have direct survival value. Some of them may be adaptive in terms of Zahavi’s handicap principle or the concept of honest, fitness indicator. Others are selectively neutral or even counterproductive to survival.

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Sexual Selection Theory 1: Sexual Signaling Applied Theories that explain religion in terms of sexual selection are fewer in number than theories that explain religion in terms of biological or cultural evolution. One theory argues that religion signals information on fidelity and/or social standing. We noted that sexual selection theory argues that some traits and behaviors increase the odds that an individual organism will be able to pass along his or her genetic material. In other words, some traits and behaviors signal information that has an attractive force. Slone and Van Slyke argue that the most effective signals are costly and evolutionary useless because these are harder to fake and are therefore more reliable indicators (Slone and Slyke 2015). Theories that explain religion in terms of sexual selection are similar to the costly signaling theory (see Chap. 4). Whereas religious rituals signal honesty or trustworthiness on the costly signaling theory, rituals or other religious behavior signals fidelity or social standing. Joseph Bulbulia et al. note that infidelity often leads to loss of resources for both men and women. They argue that the loss is usually greater for men. Female infidelity can lead to men investing resources in offspring that is not their own. Women do not have this problem because they give birth to their own offspring. According to Bulbulia et al., religious prayer can signal fidelity. To argue for their point, Bulbulia et al. draw on the big gods theory (see Chap. 4). According to defenders of the big gods theory, belief in God is associated with pro-normative behavior and restraint from acting out of self interest. Bulbulia et al. also rely on a study, which found that belief in God is associated with greater self-inhibition and self-regulation (Bulbulia et al. 2015). Another piece of sexually significant information that can be signaled by religious behavior is a person’s ability to draw resources from other (unrelated) exchange partners. Doing so is important because bringing up human children requires help from others. People with more social prestige are usually more successful in getting help. Bulbulia et al. argue that social standing can be signaled by church attendance (Bulbulia et al. 2015). John Shaver noted that church attendance was associated with greater social standing and reputation in Fiji (Shaver 2015). In another study, Shaver and Richard Sosis found that the social rank ascribed to men significantly predicted their frequency of church attendance on Fiji (Shaver and Sosis 2014). From a study they conducted themselves, Bulbulia et  al. note that church attendance in New Zealand occurs among group with mainly unrelated individuals (Bulbulia et al. 2015). They consider this evidence for the claim that church attendance broadens one’s social network. Matthew Martinez and Pierre Lienard argue that especially rites of initiation might benefit social standing and hence increase reproductive fitness (Martinez and Lienard 2015). Bulbulia et al.’s analysis of data from New Zealand shows that women pray more often than men do. They conclude that women have more to gain by signaling fidelity than men do. They also found that church attendance is strongly associated with higher prestige. They also found that religious people generally have a higher fertility rate than nonreligious people (Bulbulia et al. 2015).

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Criticism Craig Palmer and Ryan Begley criticize Slone and Van Slyke’s theory for not being able to explain many religious rituals. The theory would also be contradicted by some people’s behavior. They note that many forms of religious behavior cannot plausibly lead to reproductive success. Examples are lifelong ascetism and lifelong celibacy. A response is that such religious behavior is rather exceptional. Palmer and Begley, however, respond that ascetics and celibate monks are usually seen as exemplars and inspire many followers. The theory also has predictions that are not met according to Palmer and Begley. One such prediction is that selfish behavior should increase when individuals are near the end of their reproductive years. This prediction is not met (Palmer and Begley 2015). However, individuals that continue to invest in costly religious behavior after their reproductive years will overall have greater inter- and intrasexual success. It is thus not clear if Palmer and Begley’s final criticism is valid.

Religions as Breeding Grounds Jay Feierman argues that some religious components (in this case religious moods, beliefs and behavior) could have been selected for because they facilitate in-group breeding. Feierman argues that only religious behavior that is universal, like petitionary prayer, could have been selected by natural selection. He claims that most human populations share the belief that God (or gods) is worthy of deference and can actively intervene in the world. This shared belief motivates petitionary prayer. Universal religious behavior, like petitionary prayer, gives rise to culturally specific religious rituals, like Sunday Mass or Friday prayer. Both culturally specific rituals and universal religious behavior are definable by their functions but the former is not species-universal in form (Feierman 2009). Universally shared religious moods and vague beliefs, like ‘God (or gods) is worthy of deference’, would also give rise to culturally specific beliefs according to Feierman (2009). Feierman does not dwell on how the transition to culturally specific beliefs goes. In a Durkheimian approach, cultural differences could reflect changes in lifestyle and core values among societies. Changes could also arise due to random sampling. If universally shared religious beliefs or behavior serve some adaptive function, culturally specific religious beliefs or rituals can tap into them (Feierman 2009). We noted above how Harvey Whitehouse suggests that cultural institutions ‘hijack’ fusion mechanisms (see Chap. 4). Similarly, Feierman suggests that religious institutions make use of the evolutionary function of universally shared religious components (Feierman 2009). Feierman’s account fits in with sexual selection theory because he argues that religious communities serve as ‘breeding populations’ that facilitate and promote

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in-group marriage and breeding. Culturally specific beliefs and practices, which are the product of universally shared religious impulses, foster a sense of community and oneness. They do so by having shared narratives and values. They can also promote close affiliation by promoting that members wear outward symbols have a distinct skin tone, facial features, and permanent, society-wide bodily mutilations, such as scars, piercing, and circumcision. Feierman adds that culturally specific rituals can serve as costly signals to signal group affiliation (Feierman 2009). On Feierman’s account, religion could be an old or new adaptation. Some evidence from modern societies appears to show that religion only increased fertility in the past. Contemporary Poland is still a very religious country. The Catholic Church still has a large impact on Polish social life. While ongoing secularization reduces the real impact of the church, the church teaching is surprisingly influential in regard to the sexual life and the marital matters (cf. Szocik and Szyja 2015). Despite this relatively strong impact of the church moral teaching and the church presence in the public sphere, the public schools and its impact on the public law, the fertility rate of Polish women is one of the lowest in all the world. The total fertility rate in Poland is 1.35 children born per woman; making it the 215th country in the ranking of 224 countries (Central Intelligence Agency 2017). France which in contrast to Poland is a secular country, has a fertility rate 2.07 which gives it 109th place in the ranking. The examples show that whether religion serves as a breeding-ground is to a large extent context-dependent.

References Bell, D. (2015). Fathering, rituals, and mating: exploring paternal stability and sexual strategies in early religious practices. In D. Jason Slone, & J. A. Van Slyke (Eds.), The attraction of religion. A new evolutionary psychology of religion, 93–110. Bloomsbury Academic. Blume, M. (2015). How is’t with thy religion, pray? Selection of religiosity among individuals and groups. In D. J. Slone & J. A. V. Slyke (Eds.), The attraction of religion: A new evolutionary psychology of religion (1st ed., pp. 63–72). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Bulbulia, J., Shaver, J. H., Greaves, L. M., Sosis, R., & Sibley, C. G. (2015). Religion and parental cooperation: An empirical test of Slone & Van Slyke’s sexual signaling model. In D. J. Slone & J. A. V. Slyke (Eds.), The attraction of religion: A new evolutionary psychology of religion (1st ed., pp. 29–62). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Central Intelligence Agency. (2017). The world factbook. Total fertility rate. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-­world-­factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html. Conroy-Beam, D., Buss, D. M., Pham, M. N., & Shackelford, T. K. (2015). How sexually dimorphic are human mate preferences? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(8), 1082–1093. Dissanayake, E. (2001). Homo aestheticus: Where art comes from and why. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Feierman, J. R. (2009). How some major components of religion could have evolved by natural selection? In E. Voland & W. Schiefenhövel (Eds.), The biological evolution of religious mind and behavior (pp. 51–66). Berlin: Springer. Foster, L. (1981). Religion and sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida community. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Futuyma, D. (2006). Evolution. New York: Sinauer.

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Gavrilets, S. (2012). Human origins and the transition from promiscuity to pair-bonding. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 109(25), 9923–9928. Martinez, M., & Lienard, P. (2015). The dividends of discounting pain: Self-inflicted pain as a reputational commodity. In D. J. Slone & J. A. V. Slyke (Eds.), The attraction of religion: A new evolutionary psychology of religion (1st ed., pp. 133–158). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Miller, G. F. (1998). How mate choice shaped human nature: A review of sexual selection and human evolution. In C. Crawford & D. Krebs (Eds.), Handbook of evolutionary psychology: Ideas, issues, and applications (pp. 87–130). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Miller, G. F. (2001). The mating mind. How sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature. New York: Anchor Books. Palmer, C. T., & Begley, R. O. (2015). Costly signaling theory, sexual selection, and the influence of ancestors on religious behavior. In D. J. Slone & J. A. V. Slyke (Eds.), The attraction of religion: A new evolutionary psychology of religion (1st ed., pp. 93–110). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Sela, Y., Shackelford, T.  K., & Liddle, J.  R. (2015). When religion makes it worse: religiously motivated violence as a sexual selection weapon. In D.  J. Slone & J.  A. Van Slyke (Eds.), The attraction of religion. A new evolutionary psychology of religion (pp. 111–131). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Shaver, J., & Sosis, R. (2014). How does male ritual behavior vary across the lifespan? An examination of Fijian kava ceremonies. Human Nature, 25, 136–160. Shaver, J. H. (2015). The evolution of stratification in Fijian ritual participation. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 5(2), 101–117. Slone, J., & Slyke, J.  A. V. (2015). Introduction: Connecting religion, sex, and evolution. In J. Slone & J. A. V. Slyke (Eds.), The attraction of religion: A new evolutionary psychology of religion (1st ed., pp. 1–10). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Szocik, K., & Szyja, A. (2015). Poland: A dark side of church cultural policy. Studia Humana, 4(4), 13–22. van Slyke, J. A. (2015). Why don’t abstinence education programs work? (And other puzzles): Exploring causal variables in sexual selectionist theories of religion. In D. J. Slone & J. A. Van Slyke (Eds.), The attraction of religion. A new evolutionary psychology of religion. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Weatherhead, P. J., & Robertson, R. J. (1979). Offspring quality and the polygyny threshold: “the sexy son hypothesis”. The American Naturalist, 113(2), 201–208.

Chapter 7

Arguments for Adaptationism

Abstract  This chapter offers arguments for adaptationist explanation of religion. We argue that cognitive explanations are mainly proximate explanations that do not explain the long-term evolutionary context of religious components. Only adaptationist theories offer an ultimate explanation of evolution of religion. Keywords  Adaptationism · Ultimate explanation · Proximate explanation

Introduction In the previous chapters we discussed adaptationist explanations of religion and how they fit in with biological, cultural and sexual evolution. In this chapter we argue why adaptationist explanations are preferable to by-product explanations.

 eligion as a Biological Adaptation: Why Cognitive R Explanations Do Not Work By-product explanations of religion, as they are commonly argued for in CSR, argue that religious beliefs and behavior are fast automatic outputs of cognitive mechanisms. Often religious outputs are portrayed as false positives (Guthrie 2007) or misattributions (Galen 2017). When they produce religious beliefs, cognitive mechanisms would be misinterpreting input or operate outside their normal way of functioning. For example, on Guthrie’s account of hypersensitive agency detection, subjects erroneously attribute patterns or noises to invisible agents while they stem from non-supernatural phenomena. Authors who attribute religious belief or behav-

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K. Szocik, H. Van Eyghen, Revising Cognitive and Evolutionary Science of Religion, New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63516-9_7

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ior to operation of the ToM sometimes suggest that religious outputs are formed when the ToM is applied in non-normal domains (Bering 2002). Explaining why the majority of humans shares religious beliefs in terms of ‘errors’ or misattributions does not square well with observations of religiosity. Religious believers appear to modify and reinterpret their beliefs often. Believers also attach a sense of truthfulness and meaning to their religious beliefs. Construing religious beliefs as automatic outputs of cognitive mechanisms also does not fit well with how believers respond to foreign religious beliefs. Believers go through great lengths to defend their beliefs in face of opposition. Historically, religious believers were prepared to put great efforts in fighting alleged heretics. Very often, foreign religious beliefs are mocked or not treated seriously. Although religious believers attach great importance to differences between various religious beliefs, the differences are largely unimportant in a by-product approach. Will Gervais and Joseph Henrich also argue that many CSR-theories cannot account for the wide cultural variety in religious beliefs. They note that many religious beliefs that are marginal or unimportant in modern societies fit well with CSR-models. For example, belief in Zeus or Odin could very well be produced as a by-product of ToM or HADD.  Nonetheless very few people in modern societies believe in Zeus’ existence or share a deep commitment to that belief (Gervais and Henrich 2010). An adaptationist account where religious beliefs are important for human survival and where differences between religious beliefs matter can better account for how humans treat religious beliefs. If religious beliefs are (very) important for human survival or procreation, it makes sense to attach great significance to them and to defend them when they are challenged. Some adaptationist theories can also better account for the fierce opposition against foreign religious beliefs. For example, if Harvey Whitehouse’s theory is true (see Chap. 4), humans bond because of shared religious beliefs and practices. Confrontation with humans who do not share these beliefs could easily prompt a defensive reaction.

Proximate vs. Ultimate Explanations Another reason to believe adaptationist explanations are preferable to by-product explanations is that the former give better ultimate explanations. Where by-product explanations forego giving ultimate explanations or emphasize proximate explanations, adaptationist explanations do not. Ernst Mayr first made the distinction between proximate and ultimate explanations in biology (Mayr 1993). Proximate explanations explain a phenomenon by pointing to immediate factors that brought it about. Ultimate explanations explain by pointing to evolutionary pressures like natural selection, genetic drift or span-

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drels.1 We saw earlier that by-product explanations of religion often point to the operations of cognitive mechanisms to explain religious components like belief or ritual behavior. For defenders of by-product explanations, proximate factors like these have the main explanatory role. Some by-product explanations do explain why religion was transmitted evolutionary, these ultimate explanations usually remain underdevelopped. For example, on Guthrie’s theory (Guthrie 1993), a propensity for religious belief was transmitted because hypersensitive agency detection made our ancestors more vigilant towards enemies and predators and therefore prone to (erroneously) detect invisible agents. While Guthrie’s theory gives a potentially good ultimate explanation of why natural selection selected for hypersensitive agency detection, it does not do the same for religion. It remains unclear why natural selection would retain a (costly) by-product like religion. It also remains unclear why an unimportant by-product would matter as much to humans and shape human lives to a large extent. The same holds for theories that regard religion as a by-product of Theory of Mind (e.g. Bering 2002). Defenders claim that since social cognition was very important for humans, evolution invested a lot in these capacities. As a result, ToM is applied to other domains than human interactions and humans assign mentality or meaning to inanimate objects. Again, the theory gives a good proximate explanation of how ToM can give rise to religion and a good ultimate explanation for why natural selection could select for ToM-capacities in general. It does a less good job at explaining why ToM gives rise to this particular evolutionarily costly by-product and why this by-product takes center stage in many people’s lives. On these and other by-product theories, the emergence of religion (as a by-­ product) is largely due to chance and randomness. Hypersensitivity to agents and ToM could have given rise to other non-religious phenomena as a by-product. If both theories are true, it is in fact surprising that not more people hold animistic beliefs or beliefs that forest are crowded by spirits and demons.2 Adaptationist theories instead show the connection between religious beliefs, external stimuli and the environment. In doing so, they do not attribute the emergence and spread of religion to chance and randomness.3 A reason why defenders of by-product theories do not do justice to ultimate explanations of religion might be the setting they work in. In modern societies (and even more so in academic circles), religion is far less important to people. Here, religion does not take center stage in most people’s lives and is not prominently visible. For this reason, it might seem that religion is merely an add-on to other human capacities and does not bring much new to the table. A broader look, however,  Cf. Laland et al. (2011).  Most cultures that do hold animistic and spirit-beliefs in fact belief that encounters with spirits are not all that frequent. 3  In some sense, the emergence of religion is due to chance on adaptationist theories because adaptive (and non-adaptive) traits randomly arise due to mutation or genetic drift. Adaptive traits, however, are retained and spread because they yield an adaptive benefit and not because of chance. 1 2

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shows that the marginal status of religion in modern societies and academia is the exception rather than the rule.4 Adaptationist explanations can better account for why religion emerged cross-­ culturally and played an important role in most people’s lives. Religion may very well be the result of convergent evolution that favors a belief system attractive for survival. Ubiquity is one of the indicators of being an adaptation. Adaptationist theories give an ultimate explanation in terms of the effect of religion on survival or procreation. Defenders of adaptationist theories differ over what benefit religion yields and at what stage in human history it did. Different theories may be compatible in so far as the ultimate explanations do not contradict one another. For example, ritual behavior may have been selected for because it aids social bonding (see Chap. 4) and belief in moralizing gods may have been selected for because it allowed large-scale cooperation (see Chap. 4). Because they yield better ultimate explanations, adaptationist theories can better explain the joint consistency of various religious components. It has become fashionable in the CSR-community to regard religion as an amalgam of various human traits that are only loosely combined.5 Authors argue that various religious components had a different etiology and should be explained differently. On this view, teleological beliefs are explained by promiscuous teleology, belief in invisible agents by HADD and belief in an afterlife by intuitive afterlife beliefs. Although all these components are ranked under the label ‘religion’ colloquially, there is no biological or cognitive ground to consider them as related. An adaptationist account can explain why various religious components co-occur and are regarded as related. On some adaptationist theories, religion yields an adaptive benefit as a system. Some variants of the costly signaling theory point to the interrelatedness of belief in moralizing gods and ritual behavior. Theories that explain religion by its effect on reproduction do the same. Like the CSR-approach, the adaptationist approach can affirm that various religious components have different proximate explanations. The adaptationist approach, however, adds an overarching ultimate explanation.

Religious Beliefs are Good Candidates To Be Adaptations Despite its apparent costliness, religious components could very well be adaptations. The adaptationist theories we discussed above attest to this possibility. Most theories argue that natural selection could select for religious beliefs regardless of their truth. Natural selection above all selects for fitness and not primarily for truth. Sometimes truth and fitness are connected. John Wilkins and Paul Griffiths argue that natural selection selected for true common sense beliefs because having true common sense beliefs increases fitness. An organism with false common sense

 See also: Van Woudenberg and Van Eyghen (2017).  This approacdh is sometimes called the ‘fractionation of religion’. See for example Taves (2015).

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beliefs about its environment is not able to navigate its physical environment and therefore has lower chances of survival and reproduction. Wilkins and Griffiths add that to be able to successfully navigate its environment, an organism need not have 100% accurate beliefs. Modern physics taught us that much of human common sense beliefs do not match reality. For example, physics taught us that solid objects actually consist of moving particles. Nonetheless, human common sense beliefs resemble the actual state of affairs close enough. Because they resemble the actual state of affairs, common sense beliefs are adaptive according to Wilkins and Griffiths (2013). Psychologists and therapists have long noted that ostensibly false beliefs like delusions can help people cope with difficult situations and thereby help their survival. Most defenders of adaptationist theories do not claim that religious beliefs are adaptive because they resemble the actual state of affairs. Instead, they argue that having some set of religious beliefs has some effect on human behavior that occurs independently of the truth of religious beliefs. If the big gods theory is true, belief in moralizing gods will lead to better cooperation whether there actually are moralizing gods or not. It only matters that humans believe that they exist. The (relative) unimportance of truth for natural selection explains why religion can thrive in the face of strong opposition and criticism. In the end of the nineteenth century when the intellectual climate was dominated by scientific rationalism and positivism, religion was doing rather well. At the same time, religious belief was criticized as a relic of human infancy. While nineteenth century critiques of religion had some effect on the beliefs of the intellectual upper class, its effects on the masses were rather limited. It is not unlikely that religious belief retained (some of) its adaptive function during the late nineteenth century and that religion remained popular as a result. Considering that the success of religion is not primarily affected by claims to its truth also implies that secularization should be explained by other factors than decreased believability of religion. Instead, secularization is probably better explained by changes in the environment for religion and associated loss of its evolutionary function. We will return to this point in Chap. 10. What we argued just now does not imply that truth is completely unimportant for religious believers. The sense that their beliefs are true is still of vital importance. Because believers feel that their religious beliefs are true, they are well motivated to display the associated adaptive behavior. The sense that their beliefs are true also ensures that beliefs are not easily abandoned.

Criticism of Adaptationist Accounts While some authors present arguments for the by-product view itself, others defend a by-product view by criticizing the adaptationist view. In doing so, they regard the by-product view as the most viable alternative to the adaptationist view. Authors who argue in this way usually do not discuss other alternatives like genetic drift or neutral mutation. Explaining religious components by genetic drift is not popular.

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Margaret Boone Rappaport and Christopher Corbally argue that genetic drift probably had a much larger effect on neurocognitive traits than selective pressures before humans began to take charge of their own selection (by cultural means). They also note that genetic drift has a larger effect in small populations. They also note that the human genome has a lot of evolutionary neutral material.6 Explaining religious components as the result of genetic drift or as neutral mutation that is not a by-­ product, however, runs into some of the same problems we discussed above. It is unlikely that an apparently costly phenomenon like religion would have survived if it did not yield some (indirect) benefit. One author who criticizes adaptationist accounts is Paul Bloom. He argues that there is no link between the real world where adaptive pressures exert an influence on living organisms, and the content of religious beliefs (Bloom 2009: pp. 118–119). Putative supernatural beings do not exert the same influence on natural selection like physical entities do, therefore they are likely not the direct object of selection.7 Because of this, an adaptationist approach is not viable and therefore the only remaining explanation for why belief in supernatural agents is ubiquitous must be a by-product explanation. Surprisingly, Peter van Inwagen makes a similar argument. He argues that the content of religious beliefs does not affect fitness because not having religious beliefs does not appear to reduce an organism’s fitness (Van Inwagen 2009). Against this argument, we claim that Bloom puts too many constraints on adaptations. Some putative supernatural beings are indeed not things in the worlds that have a direct impact on survival. Christians, Muslims and Jews do not believe that God is part of the umwelt in which they conduct their daily affairs. Most of them believe that God is far removed from the world of daily affairs. This is, however, not the case for the gods of animistic religions and intermediate supernatural beings like angels, demons or spirits. Unlike the Trinitarian or Jewish God, these supernatural beings are believed to regularly exert a causal influence on humans. Also unlike the Trinitarian or Jewish God, their causal influence is not believed to be (primarily) postponed to the afterlife. Furthermore, natural selection can select for belief in supernatural beings even if putative supernatural beings do not exert the same causal influence on people’s daily affairs. The adaptationist theories we discussed in Chap. 4 provide plausible ways how belief in gods that are not part of the human umwelt can yield an evolutionary benefit. The impact of belief in gods is probably less far-reaching than that of common sense beliefs or other traits. Natural selection can, however, select for traits that have a smaller impact. Many biologists accept that natural selection can (or did) select for moral traits like altruism (Trivers 1971). Like religion, morality is not part of the human physical umwelt and likely was not selected because of its direct impact on human survival.

 Rappaport and Corbally (2019).  A similar argument is defended at length in Van Eyghen and Bennett (2020).

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Another criticism is rooted in human biology. Stephen Rothman writes: “each adaptation is ultimately an expression of physical and chemical law. It does not merely apply it; it is physical law actually being expressed” (Rothman 2015: p.153). Rothman thus argues that all Darwinian adaptations should have (1) a direct impact on fitness and (2) trace back to physical and/or chemical laws. Religious components fulfill neither (1) or (2). Religious functions like belief in gods, coping or providing meaning do not impact fitness directly and do not trace back directly to chemical or physical processes. Like Bloom, Rothman is putting too stringent constraints on adaptations. We noted above how stotting behavior in springboks and the peacock’s tail are often regarded as adaptations. Both do not have a direct impact on the animal’s fitness. These and other signaling behavior merely has an indirect impact but can still be regarded as adaptations. It is unclear what Rothman means with being an expression of physical and chemical law. In some sense, all traits trace back to physical and chemical laws. Therefore it is unclear that (2) precludes us from regarding religion as an adaptation in its own right. Some authors appear to argue that religious beliefs are not adaptive themselves because many other, non-religious beliefs are not adaptive either (e.g. Murray 2009). Although some biologists make the case that some aesthetic or moral beliefs could have proven adaptive in the past, most other beliefs like mathematical or aesthetic beliefs appear to have had no evolutionary function. Only beliefs that have an immediate connection with human environment (like common sense beliefs) or that have an immediate effect on human behavior (like altruistic beliefs) are often considered adaptations. Since religious beliefs are not among these, they are often considered spandrels or by-products. The argument resembles the previous argument. Reserving the label adaptations for traits that have a direct impact on fitness seems unwarranted. While it is the case that many cognitive functions are often regarded as by-products, some are regarded as adaptations. Many abstract and symbolic cultural traits do not possess clear and direct adaptive functions but they may be reliably explained in terms of sexual selection theories including, among others, the concept of good genes, runaway sexual selection or the concept of honest indicator. We noted earlier that there is debate over the status of human language. Furthermore, some argue that human aesthetic preferences lead to increased fitness in the Pleistocene (Dutton 2003). Some anti-adaptationist arguments refer to the moral functions of religion. We saw above that some adaptationist claim that religion promoted cooperation and human trust. Ikka Pyysiäinen and Marc Hauser argue that religious systems exploit prosocial mechanisms and tendencies and parasite on evolutionary biases like reputation-­monitoring, in-group reciprocity and/or ethnic signaling (Pyysiäinen and Hauser 2010: pp. 104–107). They suggest that religion emerged as a by-product of these moral adaptations. However, if one assumes that the biological mechanisms that support altruism like kin selection or reciprocity only work in small groups, other biological (adaptive) tools are required for large-scale cooperation. We noted how defenders of the big gods theory argue that religious belief is adaptive for this very reason. We also

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noted how defenders of other adaptationist theories argue that religion is (or was) adaptive for other reasons than enhancing pro-sociality. We noted how some argue that religion evolved because it improves human health.

References Bering, J. (2002). The existential theory of mind. Review of General Psychology, 6, 3–24. Bloom, P. (2009). Religious belief as an evolutionary accident. In M. Murray & J. Schloss (Eds.), The believing primate (pp. 118–127). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dutton, D. (2003). Aesthetics and evolutionary psychology. In The oxford handbook for aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Galen, L. (2017). Overlapping mental magisteria: Implications of experimental psychology for a theory of religious belief as misattribution. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 29, 221–267. Gervais, W., & Henrich, J. (2010). The Zeus problem: Why representational content biases cannot explain faith in gods. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 10, 383–389. Guthrie, S.  E. (2007). Anthropology and anthropomorphism in religion. In H.  Whitehouse & J.  Laidlaw (Eds.), Religion, anthropology, and cognitive science (pp.  37–62). Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. Guthrie, S. (1993). Faces in the clouds. A new theory of religion. New York: Oxford University Press. Laland, K. N., Sterelny, K., Odling-Smee, J., Hoppitt, W., & Uller, T. (2011). Cause and effect in biology revisited: Is Mayr’s proximate-ultimate dichotomy still useful? Science, 334(6062), 1512–1516. Mayr, E. (1993). Proximate and ultimate causations. Science, 134, 1501. Murray, M. J. (2009). Scientific explanations of religion and the justification of religious belief. In J. Schloss & M. J. Murray (Eds.), The believing primate (pp. 168–178). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pyysiäinen, I., & Hauser, M. (2010). The origins of religion: Evolved adaptation or by-product? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14, 104–109. Rappaport, M. B., & Corbally, C. (2019). The emergence of religion in human evolution. New York: Routledge. Rothman, S. (2015). The paradox of evolution. The strange relationship between natural selection and reproduction. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Taves, A. (2015). Reverse engineering complex cultural concepts: Identifying building blocks of “Religion”. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 15, 191–216. Trivers, R. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 35–57. Van Eyghen, H., & Bennett, C. T. (2020). Did Natural Selection Select for True Religious Beliefs? Religious Studies. Van Inwagen, P. (2009). Explaining belief in the supernatural. Some thoughts on Paul Bloom’s “Religious Belief as Evolutionary Accident”. In J. Schloss & M. J. Murray (Eds.), The believing primate: Scientific, philosophical, and theological reflections on the origin of religion (pp. 128–138). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Van Woudenberg, R., & Van Eyghen, H. (2017). Most peers don’t believe it, hence it is probably false. European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 9, 87–112. Wilkins, J. S., & Griffiths, P. E. (2013). Evolutionary debunking arguments in three domains: Fact, value, and religion. In G. Dawes & J. Maclaurin (Eds.), A new science of religion (pp. 133– 146). New York: Routledge.

Chapter 8

Religion as Cultural: Culture Shapes Cognitive Mechanisms

Abstract  This chapter shows how cultural processes can account for the emergence of religious components. We argue that cultural processes can shape the operations of cognitive mechanisms so that they easily and automatically produce religious components. Keywords  Cultural evolution · Cultural mind · Predictive processing

Introduction: Bringing Religion to Mind In the previous chapter, we argued that religion is better explained as an adaptation than a by-product for a variety of reasons. We also argued that many (though not all) religious components are more likely cultural than biological adaptations. We argue that one of the main benefits of an adaptationist approach is that it offers better ultimate explanations. Although important, this can obscure that adaptationist theories also need to give plausible proximate explanations for how various religious components are produced. In this chapter we will look closer at this question.1

Evolved Cognitive Mechanisms One way how adaptationist theories can offer proximate explanations for religious components is by merely coopting the explanations by-product approaches offer, namely explanation in terms of the operations of cognitive mechanisms. One author who argues for the compatibility of proximate explanations drawn from CSR-­ theories and ultimate explanations drawn from adaptationist theories is Robert  Some parts of this chapter are drawn from (Van Eyghen 2020).

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McCauley. While he himself defends a by-product explanation of ritual behavior (Lawson and McCauley 1990), he suggests that explanatory pluralism allows for a combination of by-product theories and adaptationist theories (McCauley 2020). Explanatory pluralism is roughly the thesis that science can (and indeed should) allow for evidence from many disciplines and many levels of explanation and seek to integrate them. The proximate and ultimate are different levels of explanation and analysis. Both kinds of explanation are also furnished by different disciplines (cognitive science/psychology and evolutionary biology respectively). Explanatory pluralists advocate a permissive stance towards various explanations. While explanatory pluralism is necessary and laudable as an approach to further understanding and research, it raises problems when various explanations of the same explanandum are to be integrated. While McCauley himself argues that ultimate evolutionary explanations of religion can in principle be joined to proximate explanations, he acknowledges that integration does not allow two or more contradictory explanations (McCauley 2020). Taken as a whole, by-product explanations are not compatible with adaptationist explanations because both have conflicting views over the adaptive role of religion. It is hard to see how religion can both have adaptive value and not at the same time. While it remains possible that some religious components are mere by-products and other are adaptive themselves, we noted above that some adaptationist theories argue that religion is adaptive as a complete system (see Chap. 4). If adaptationist theories are to be wedded to the proximate explanations drawn from by-product theories, the proximate explanations need to be detached from their ultimate explanations. The core claim of by-product explanations, i.e. religion is produced as a mere by-product without adaptive value by cognitive mechanisms thus needs to be rethought. It can be reformulated in 2 ways: –– (1) Religion is produced as an adaptive product of cognitive mechanisms –– (2) Religion was originally produced as a by-product without adaptive value of cognitive mechanisms but started to give an adaptive value at a later stage in human history. Some defenders of the big gods theory argue for (2). For example, Norenzayan et al. theorize that various religious elements arose as a non-adaptive evolutionary byproduct of ordinary cognitive functions. During the early Neolithic age, some religious beliefs, belief in moralizing high gods, proved adaptive because it allowed large-scale cooperation. For this reason, it was culturally selected from then on (Norenzayan et al. 2016). The example illustrates that (2) is more suitable for theories that explain religion through cultural selection. One problem for (2) reflects a critique of by-product explanations we discussed above. Some religious practices are evolutionary costly. If they provided no indirect benefit for a large part of human history, it is puzzling why they were continuously transmitted by biological evolution. A problem for (2) is that is does not explain enough. Defenders of most adaptationist theories that put the evolutionary use of religion in cultural evolution argue that not all religious beliefs and behavior is adaptive. For example, defenders of the big gods theory argue that groups who believed in moralizing gods had a selective

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advantage over groups with different religious beliefs. Defenders of the costly signaling theory and sexual selection theory also argue that a specific set of beliefs is required to signal honesty, fidelity or social status. In order to argue that religion was selected for by cultural evolution, defenders of these theories need to explain how the specific subset of religious beliefs or practices was disseminated through populations. We return to this point in the next section. Arguing for (1) need not be troubled with how religion could have survived as a costly by-product. If religion is adaptive, natural selection can select for cognitive mechanisms that produce religious components. To allow for (1) only small changes to existing cognitive explanations are required. For example, HADD could be restated so that the human tendency to detect invisible agents is itself the function of the agency detection device and itself selected for by natural selection. The evolution of theory of mind could also be itself shaped by the adaptive benefit of forming religious beliefs. One might argue that in order to argue for (1) one needs to claim that religion is a biological adaptation rather than the result of cultural evolution. We noted in Chap. 2 how CSR-scholars usually argue that cognitive mechanisms that give rise to religious beliefs or religious behavior are part of the architecture of the human mind. While most are reluctant to claim that religion is innate, they argue that the required cognitive mechanisms reliably arise in human development as the result of how the human mind is structured (cf. McCauley 2011). How the human mind is structured depends on what brains humans have.2 Most accounts of the evolution of the human brain and human intelligence state that the human brain did not evolve much since 500,000  years ago. This would imply that structural elements of the human mind were in place before culture took root. Below we present an account for how cultural processes can alter the operations of cognitive mechanisms. This account avoids the need for basic religious components that evolved through biological evolution.

Do Context Biases Suffice? We noted in the previous section that defenders of cultural adaptationist theories need an explanation for how cultural selection selects for a specific subset of religious beliefs. One such explanation draws on context biases (see Chap. 5). The proximate explanation for why people believe in moralizing gods or gods who care about fidelity could be that such beliefs are produced by prestige biases or CRED’s. On this explanation we get a twofold proximate explanations for why people are religious; vague religious beliefs are produced by cognitive mechanisms; and context biases give more specific content to religious beliefs.

 Note dualism.

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The twofold proximate explanation resembles an older philosophical account of religious belief. Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin both argue that humans are created with a sensus dei or sensus divinitatis. The sensus is a cognitive faculty that produces vague religious beliefs, like a sense that God exists or a sense for a spiritual dimension to life. These vague beliefs sufficed for Calvin to argue that there are no genuine atheists and therefore no escape from divine judgment. The outputs of the sensus divinitatis, however, need further direction from religious education and scripture according to Calvin. Without these, humans cannot gain the right sorts of beliefs needed for salvation (Calvin 1559).

Training the Mind Culturally3 Religion can be explained culturally without the twofold explanation we discussed above. In this section, we develop an account of how cultural processes can affect the operations of cognitive mechanisms. The explanation does not leave room for designated cognitive mechanisms, yet can explain cognitive biases. Our explanation draws on a recent approach in cognitive neuroscience called predictive processing. Before laying out our explanation, we first discuss this approach and its application to religion.

Predictive Processing Predictive processing (PP) is a fairly recent approach in cognitive neuroscience.4 The core claim behind predictive processing is that the human mind is a self-­ learning, Bayesian prediction machine. When it receives sensory input, the mind is making educated guesses about the cause of that input. It does so by relying on an internal model of the world that provides information about the statistical probability of what can be expected to be around. According to defenders of predictive processing (PP), experiences are constituted by two factors: (a) Sensory input. (b) An internal model of the world that bears information about the likely cause of that input. While other (older) models of cognition also claim that input is filtered by top-­ down processes, PP radicalizes the idea. It argues that all perception is heavily shaped by top-down processes, not just noisy or ambiguous perception. With each

 This section draws on one of the author’s earlier papers. See Van Eyghen (2020).  The main defender of predictive processing is Karl Friston (see: Friston 2010). This section draws heavily on (Wiese and Metzinger 2017). 3 4

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perception, the mind constantly checks its internal model of the world to make statistical estimates of what is likely out there in the world. For example, when out bird watching, a subject who sees a crow will have the visual experience because of two factors: (a) The incoming rays of light, reflected by the bird in her retina. (b) Her internal model that bears the information that the probability of finding crows in the forest is high. Although both factors are important, the second factor makes the largest contribution to the experience. The subject that is out bird watching is expecting to see birds. She is also in a place where people reported seeing birds and she is paying close attention to phenomena that could be birds. All this information makes her mind conclude that a moving black dot in the sky is very probably a bird. This is so because a bird is much more probable to be out there than other black flying objects, given the information the subject has. The subject’s knowledge makes her conclude that the dot is probably a crow. An important question is why a subject can be expected to have a reasonably precise or reliable internal model of the world that contributes to reasonably accurate experiences. According to defenders of PP, the internal model is reasonably reliable because it is constantly updated when there is a mismatch between the sensory input and the internal model. A mismatch is called a ‘prediction error’. For example, our bird watcher will have a prediction error when she is not expecting to see a (very rare) bird, but sees one anyway. Her internal model assigns a very low probability to finding the rare bird and therefore predicts that she will not observe any. When she does get sensory input of the rare bird, the probability of finding the rare bird is updated so that it is at least not trivial. By constantly updating the internal model after prediction errors, the internal model can be expected to grow ever more reliable and precise. According to defenders of PP, processing of sensory input happens on multiple, hierarchical levels. Lower levels deal with events happening at faster timescales and have greater detail. Higher levels deal with things happening at slower timescales, which are more abstract in nature. Models at the higher levels construct plausible hypotheses about the cause of the sensory input by making predictions. Only the lowest levels receive a representation of the original sensory input, the next levels merely receive the prediction error if there is one. If no prediction error was recorded, higher levels receive no signal and continue as if the hypothesis was correct. Another important question is what drives the model to be ever more precise and reliable. According to defenders of PP, an internal model can be expected to grow more precise and reliable because of the free-energy5 principle. The principle states 5  See: Friston (2010). The concept of free energy was first used in thermodynamics. Here the change in free energy is maximum work a thermodynamic system can do in a process at constant temperature. Defenders of PP use a concept of free energy that is more similar to how the term is used in variational Bayesian methods. Here free energy represents the upper bound on a variational Bayesian model. In PP, free energy is therefore the upper bound on surprise and minimizing that upper bound can reduce surprise.

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that systems tend to avoid disorder. For this reason they tend to minimize the entropy of their sensory states. Entropy is the measure of uncertainty the internal model has. An uncertain model will yield a lot of prediction errors and therefore a lot of surprise. Because models that are better attuned to the environment will yield less surprise, a system will move towards a more accurate model. The whole process often remains unconscious. An important way to reduce entropy and surprise is by taking action.6 A subject with an inaccurate model will be prompted to take action to minimize surprise. Not acting will often result in more surprise, which is what systems are trying to minimize. For example, a walker who hears a cry will be prompted to take action and find out what it is. Friston argues that reflexes are often ways in which a subject tries to get more specific sensory input (Friston 2018). Although predicting minds will move towards more accuracy, efficiency requirements imply that a subject will not and should not get everything right. As all minds, human minds need to be able to make quick calls about their environments to survive and to flourish. As a result the human mind cannot pause too often to check whether its internal model matches well with the input it receives from its environment. On many occasions, friction will go unnoted and the internal model will not be updated. The predicting mind can thus be expected to have an imperfect model, which leads to some inaccurate experiences and false beliefs about the environment. How often these inaccurate experiences occur is unclear. Marc Andersen argues that the predicting mind can be expected to make more errors in low-light environments or when the subjects suffers from sensory deprivations.7 There is another reason why the internal model should not be expected to be perfect. Updating the internal model too stringently runs into the danger of overfitting. The term ‘overfitting’ comes from statistics. A statistical model overfits when it corresponds too closely to a particular subset of the data. A model can overfit in at least two ways. First the model can take too many features into account. Returning to our example, if the bird watcher updates his model to incorporate all features of every observed bird (color, structure of feathers, size of beak, etc.), his model will fail to generalize to new, unobserved birds that lack some of these features. As Rajesh Rao and Dana Ballard note, the model needs to be efficient (Rao and Ballard 1999). Efficiency requires a certain level of generality. A second reason why models could overfit is by relying on an unrepresentative set of samples. A bird watcher who has only been exposed to black birds and has never received any information about colored birds might form an internal model wherein all birds are black. The internal model will have little problems correctly identifying crows and ravens as birds. It will have problems correctly identifying parrots and finches.

 For the relation between action and minimizing surprise, see Friston (2018).  See: Andersen (2017).

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Another reason why internal models should not be perfect is that human have a limited amount of cognitive energy. Activities that use up a lot of cognitive energy tend to have negative effects on cognitive performance. For example, job interviews where subjects need to respond to a lot of questions or public presentations often leave subjects tired and distracted afterwards. These effects are called ‘depletion effects’.8 Other causes of depletion effects are emotion suppression and high self-­ regulation (Baumeister et al. 1998).9 Having very detailed and complex models of the world likely poses great demands on the human cognitive system and have negative effects on cognitive performance in the long run. Having slightly less detailed and complex models will likely be less consuming and have a better performance in the long run. Predicting Supernatural Agents Recently, Marc Andersen applied the predictive processing framework to religious cognition. Andersen argues that the PP-framework can explain why people have experiences of supernatural agency. We discussed how two factors contribute to sensory experiences according to defenders of PP in the previous section: (1) sensory input, and (2) a subject’s internal model of the world. For experiences of supernatural agency, both factors are: (a) Some ambiguous stimulus. (b) An internal model with beliefs about supernatural agents. Andersen’s examples of (a) resemble the examples given by defenders of HADD. A subject could have experiences of supernatural agency after seeing patterns of ambiguous objects or after hearing vague noises. The main contributions for the experience, however, come from the internal model. If the subject believes that supernatural beings exists and engage with people, it is far more likely that her internal model will make her have experiences of supernatural agency. This is the case because their internal models predict that the probability of finding supernatural agents is at least non-trivial. Religious believers, with a religious internal model, will therefore be more prone to conclude that some ambiguous sensory input is caused by a supernatural agent and therefore experience the input as such. According to Andersen, experiences of supernatural agency can also be brought about by suggestion. Internal models of subjects who are suggested that some supernatural agent might be around, will assign greater probabilities to finding supernatural agents. This could very well lead them to have more experiences of supernatural agency. Andersen draws support for his claim from a number of studies  The term was first used by Baumeister et al. (1998).  Schjoedt et al. argue that depletion effects can explain why people often fail to process religious events individually and are more susceptible to authority and suggestion (Schjoedt et al. 2013). 8 9

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(see: Andersen 2017). In one study, a Swedish team tried to replicate a study conducted by Michael Persinger and his team. Persinger claimed that a helmet could induce mystical experiences by electro-magnetic radiation (Booth et al. 2005). The Swedish team found that a placebo helmet had the same effects that Persinger reported before. Since their helmet was fake, they attribute the effects to suggestion (Granqvist et al. 2005). PP can explain why subjects had unusual experiences with the fake helmet. Because the subjects were suggested that the helmet could trigger strange experiences, their internal models were updated to assign greater probability to experiencing something strange. A number of authors applied predictive processing to mystical experiences. According to Chris Hermans, these experiences arguably involve mental processing at a higher level (Hermans 2015). Van Elk and Wagenmakers agree and argue that the predictive processing framework needs to be expanded to account for these higher level experiences (van Elk and Wagenmakers 2017). Van Elk and Andre Aleman give some suggestions on how predictive processing could account for various mystical experiences (Van Elk and Aleman 2017).

Religious Biases as Practiced Natural Marc Andersen puts his own PP-theory in sharp contrast to standard CSR-­ approaches. In this section, we argue that parts of older CSR-theories can be fitted into a PP-framework. Integration requires us to rethink the idea that religious belief is maturationally natural. I argue that the intuitions and empirical data that drive older CSR-theories fit equally well with the idea that cognitive biases for religious belief are the result of something akin to overfitting at a young age. This can also account for the adaptive use of religious belief and content biases for religious belief. In this way, PP can explain why people have biases for religion that result from cultural processes. Born Overfitters We noted that, although systems tend to form ever more accurate models, a case can be made that pragmatic problems prevent them from updating internal models too stringently. If the error processing takes its normal route, an overfit model (e.g. a model with only black birds) can be updated. The mind can, however, become rigid. There is evidence from neuroscience that brains cells shrink and connections between different areas of the brain disappear when subjects grow older (Aleman 2014). There is also evidence that young children are more eager to learn and form new ideas (Gopnik 2009). What a subject was exposed to at a young age might thus have a far greater impact on the subject’s internal model then exposure at older age. Older

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minds might very well have a harder time updating overfit models. Prediction errors might also be less noticeable to older, overfit minds. For example, a mind that is trained that all birds are black will be less attentive to colored dots in the sky when the subject is out bird watching. Below we argue that the cross-cultural phenomena to which older CSR-theories refer could result from overfitting at a very young age. Some phenomena, which I call ‘relapse phenomena’, appear to contradict my claim. I argue that these can be explained by time constraints. When under time pressure a subject might not be able to evaluate incoming sensory content in light of hypotheses at higher levels and thus be more likely to apply lower level hypotheses. Overfitting on Features Andersen argues that older CSR-theories rely too heavily on modular theories of the mind.10 We noted that according to modular theories of mind, the human mind has a range of distinct tools for distinct functions.11 Defenders of PP argue for domain general models of perception and cognition instead. On these models, the same computational principles are used to process information for a large range of different domains (Andersen 2017: pp. 6–7). Some authors have argued that CSR-theories can do without relying on the massive modularity thesis. Most CSR-theories allow for flexibility in the operations of cognitive mechanisms and even for conscious intervention.12 Andersen, however, goes even further. He suggests that there is no distinct cognitive mechanism for religious belief like HADD or ToM. Instead, (religious) cognition would rely on one or more general mechanisms, which can process a whole range of input and produce a whole range of beliefs. We argue that although PP leaves little room for distinct cognitive mechanisms, it does leave room for learned cognitive biases. Andersen’s portrayal of PP leaves little room for distinct cognitive mechanisms. David Maiij and Michiel van Elk argue that PP can make room for cognitive mechanisms by allowing for ‘evolved priors’. They note that relying heavily on cultural transmission is problematic. The idea runs into the ‘dark room problem’. The problem states that a predictive mind situated in a completely dark room will be unmotivated to move out of the room since doing so would lead to error overload.13 Evolved priors can solve the problem by specifying what a subject without any cultural input will find surprising. A proneness towards agency detection could be one such evolved prior according to Maiij and Van Elk (Maij and Elk 2019). A

 See Cosmides and Tooby (1997).  See McCauley (2011). 12  See Van Eyghen (2018). 13  See Friston et al. (2012), Klein (2018) for a discussion of the ‘dark room problem’. 10 11

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default state with preprogrammed priors about the world could allow subjects to navigate their environments without much or any cultural input. Some PP-accounts do allow for priors that are not the result of cultural transmission. In response to the dark room problem Friston, Thornton and Clark replied that human subjects and minds couldn’t survive in a dark room indefinitely. Since human subjects need things like food and heat to survive, a dark room that is closed off from the world will lead to surprise when these needs are not met. They thereby argue that the bodily form, biomechanics and initial neural architecture of a human subject shape its initial model of the world. These make the human subject ‘expect’ basic requisites for life like food and heat (Friston et  al. 2012). Friston et  al.’s response can be read as arguing for innate priors like an expectation of food and heat. These could very easily have been selected for by natural selection. They are, however, a far stretch from an evolved appetite for agency detection. PP can allow for a hyperactive appetite for agency detection in another way. Hyperactive agency detection can be the result from early-age overfitting on agency. Instead of being evolved, a bias hyperactive agency detection and promiscuous teleology could be learned. Young children quickly learn that animate being are different from inanimate things. John Opfer and Susan Gelman conclude from a survey of developmental evidence that children know the animate  – inanimate distinction by the age of 10 months. They also note that for children the most important features to distinguish animate and inanimate thing are featural cues – in particular whether the thing has a face or not - and dynamic cues – whether the thing can engage in self-generated and self-sustained motion (Gelman and Opfer 2002).14 Focus on both features could lead to overfit. Children could easily form priors that all things that have faces or engage in self-generated and self-sustained motion are animate. By consequence, they could become prone to classify things with face-like patterns and things that make sudden or unexpected movements as agents. Andersen notes that a universal tendency towards agency detection is not supported by the empirical evidence. In response, Stewart Guthrie argues that there is evidence that agency is at least privileged in human cognition (Guthrie 2017).15 The PP-account we outlined above predicts that many subjects will have a proneness towards hyperactive agency detection. It does allow that the proneness can disap-

 A lot of the evidence Opfer and Gelman survey does argue that the animate – inanimate distinction is innate or modular. Whether the distinction can be regarded as an evolved prior falls beyond the scope of this chapter. Friston, Thornton and Clark would probably argue that it is not. 15  Guthrie argues that agency detection is a privileged default in human cognition. Any default prior that goes beyond basic expectations (e.g. expectations of food and heat) seems problematic on a PP-account. Young children who are exposed to other cues of agency (e.g. being self-organizing) could very well develop different priors. However, since engaging in self-generated self-sustained motion are easier to grasp, classifying something as an agent according to these features might come close to being a default. This could also hold for face-recognition since almost all children encounter agents with faces from a young age on. 14

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pear when subjects successfully update their models to include other features of agency. Overfitting can also explain why people are prone to see teleology or design. Generally, complexity is a good indicator of design and teleology. Most complex things young children encounter are designed by human agency. The young mind can therefore easily learn priors that all complex things are designed. When subjects learn how complexity can arise gradually by non-agentic forces (e.g. by natural selection or erosion) the prior needs to be revised and subjects become less prone to see teleology. Kelemen’s work does provide a challenge to our PP-account. Some of her studies suggest that adults slip back into promiscuous teleology under time pressure (Kelemen and Rosset 2009). The adults in the study knew the (correct) mechanistic explanations for phenomena but nonetheless preferred teleological explanations when put under time pressure. We call these phenomena ‘relapse phenomena’. On a PP-account, we should expect adults to update their priors on teleology. Once the priors are updated, promiscuous teleology should disappear permanently. In response to the problem, We note that although adults make more mistakes under time pressure, their responses are still more accurate than those of young children. Adult’s models of teleology therefore appear to be more accurate than those of children. More accurate models can still make mistakes. Making more mistakes under time pressure could be explained by just that: adult predicting minds lack the time to accurately process input and therefore make mistakes. More empirical data on relapse phenomena is; however, need to see how often they occur and whether they are best explained by maturational natural biases or predictive minds. Overfitting on Adaptive Beliefs On Andersen’s account of PP, instruction, learning and testimony are the main sources of (religious) prior beliefs that shape a subject’s internal model of the world. He does allow for some innate, evolved priors (see above section “Religious Biases as Practiced Natural”), but they are very basic and not religious. It does not yet explain why cultural transmission can be expected to reliably produce belief in moralizing, punishing gods. A tendency to overfit (on belief in big gods or other (culturally) adaptive beliefs) can solve this problem. If the human predictive mind is indeed prone to overfit, it can explain why cultural transmission (by means of prestige bias or CRED’s) can meet its adaptive responsibilities. Predictive processing also allows a natural account for how subjects can come to have a committed belief in big gods. Children are confronted with authoritative figures from a young age. Often authoritative figures exert authority for moral reasons. For example, parents punish children for transgressing moral norms. In this way, children learn to follow moral norms by obeying authoritative figures. In doing so they form priors about moralizing, authoritative figures. Cultural transmission can tap into these priors with compelling narratives about supernatural authoritative figures. For example, Old Testament stories about God punishing the

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Israelites for their disobedience can resonate with people because his actions resemble those of human authoritative figures. Compelling narratives that resonate with priors about authoritative figures can make subjects form priors about big gods. These priors can foster cooperation. A young human mind can also fit on other adaptive beliefs like the importance of fidelity and group association. This account can explain why cultural transmission can be expected to reliably produce belief in moralizing, punishing gods. When the moralizing, punishing nature of big gods is emphasized, it can make the predictive mind make a stronger connection between prosocial behavior and moralizing gods. When subjects are often reminded of the moralizing nature of gods and how prosocial behavior can deter punishment, they will become more committed to belief in big gods. The predictive mind will thus fit stronger on prosocial priors. This account also allow for more cultural variation. Ara Norenzayan argues that belief in big gods is on the decline because the modern welfare state has largely taken over the role from big gods of monitoring human behavior (Norenzayan 2013). An account where belief in moralizing gods is transmitted and reinforced by compelling narratives can incorporate this. In modern societies, there will be less need to remind people of moralizing gods because prosocial behavior is successfully enforced by the welfare state. It can also explain why some societies have or had smoother cooperation than others. Minimally Counterintuitive Concepts as Outliers At first glance, the flexibility of the predictive mind seems hard to reconcile with the rigidity of the human mind in preferring minimally counterintuitive concepts. Andersen’s account of PP suggests that the mind should show more flexibility in its preferences. If cultural transmission favors intuitive concepts, the mind should be expected to remember those best. If it favors maximally counterintuitive concepts, they should be remembered more easily. The mind’s preference for minimally counterintuitive concepts might be the result of overfitting as well. In their response to the dark problem, Friston, Thornton and Clark’s suggest that humans come equipped with only very basic priors. It is unlikely that they come quipped with full-blown ontological categories like ‘plant’ or ‘person’. The ontological categories are likelier build up inductively. Subjects learn to classify beings as persons by attending to features that define planthood or personhood. These features in turn come to constitute intuitions for that category. We noted earlier that fitting a model to a restricted set of samples could make the mind rigid. Applied to plants, most subjects will fit on plants that cannot engage in self-generated movement because the vast majority of plants they encounter indeed do not move out of itself. Information about a plant that does move out of itself (e.g. a Venus fly trap) yields an error. Like priors about agency detection, the mind can overfit on ontological categories. By encountering mostly immovable plants, the prior ‘plants cannot move’ can become deeply ingrained in the human mind. When the mind gets less

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flexible by ageing, subjects could find it harder to classify plants that violate the prior as plants. So far we argued that overfitting can give rise to rigid ontological categories. Boyer’s theory, however, claims that concepts that violate a minimal number of expectations of an ontological category will be most salient and best remembered. On PP, minimally counterintuitive concepts will prompt an error. In normal course, the error would prompt a revision of the internal model. A revised model would no longer have a prior like ‘plants cannot move’. Moving plants would then stop being minimally counterintuitive. However, since moving plants are outliers16 among plants, predictive minds could learn not to classify moving plants as just any other ordinary plant. Most statistical models are harder to fit on data with outliers.17 The predictive mind can learn to fit moving plants as plants but because moving plants are outliers, it could easily learn to classify them as special plants. Matters will be more difficult for maximally counterintuitive concepts. Because these violate a lot of expectations that come with ontological categories they are likely to be explained away by the predictive mind and not lead to updates of ontological categories. Rephrasing Boyer’s theory in a PP-framework can help explain why not all MCI-­ concepts are religious. The importance of human interaction for human subjects can explain why MCI-persons are more salient than MCI-plants. MCI-persons also fit better in religious narratives. This could help solve the ‘mickey mouse problem’.18 Cultural transmission can also explain why people no longer worship ancient Greek gods like Zeus.19

References Aleman, A. (2014). Our ageing brain. Chicago: Scribe. Andersen, M. (2017). Predictive coding in agency detection. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 9, 65–84. Barrett, J. L. (2008). Why Santa Claus is not a god. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 8, 149–161. Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Muraven, M., & Tice, D. M. (1998). Ego depletion: Is the active self a limited resource? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(5), 1252. Booth, J. N., Koren, S., & Persinger, M. A. (2005). Increased feelings of the sensed presence and increased geomagnetic activity at the time of the experience during exposures to transcerebral weak complex magnetic fields. The International Journal of Neuroscience, 115, 1053–1079. Calvin, J. (1559). Institutes of the Christian Religion (F.  L. Battles, trans.). Louisville, KY: Westminster Press. Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1997). Evolutionary psychology: A primer. Center for Evolutionary Psychology. University of California: Santa Barbara. Friston, K. (2010). The free-energy principle: A unified brain theory? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(2), 127–138.

 In statistics, outliers are observation points that are distant from most other observation points.  See Motulsky and Brown (2006). 18  See Barrett (2008). 19  See Gervais and Henrich (2010). 16 17

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Friston, K., Thornton, C., & Clark, A. (2012). Free-energy minimization and the dark-room problem. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 130. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00130. Friston, K.  J. (2018). Active inference and cognitive consistency. Psychological Inquiry, 29(2), 67–73. Gelman, S., & Opfer, J. (2002). Development of the animate–inanimate distinction. In U. Goswami (Ed.), Wiley online library Blackwell handbook of childhood cognitive development (p. chapter 7). Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell. Gervais, W., & Henrich, J. (2010). The Zeus problem: Why representational content biases cannot explain faith in gods. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 10, 383–389. Gopnik, A. (2009). The philosophical baby: What children’s minds tell us about truth, love, and the meaning of life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Granqvist, P., Fredrikson, M., Unge, P., Hagenfeldt, A., Valind, S., Larhammar, D., & Larsson, M. (2005). Sensed presence and mystical experiences are predicted by suggestibility, not by the application of transcranial weak complex magnetic fields. Neuroscience Letters, 379, 1–6. Guthrie, S. (2017). Prediction and feedback may constrain but do not stop anthropomorphism. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 9(1), 99–104. Hermans, C. A. (2015). Towards a theory of spiritual and religious experiences: A building block approach of the unexpected possible. Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 37(2), 141–167. Kelemen, D., & Rosset, E. (2009). The human function compunction: Teleological explanation in adults. Cognition, 111, 138–143. Klein, C. (2018). What do predictive coders want? Synthese, 195(6), 2541–2557. https://doi. org/10.1007/s11229-­016-­1250-­6. Lawson, E. T., & McCauley, R. N. (1990). Rethinking religion: Connecting cognition and culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Maij, D. L. R., & Elk, M. v. (2019). Evolved priors for agent detection. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 9(1), 92–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2017.1387591. McCauley, R. N. (2011). Why religion is natural and science is not. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McCauley, R. N. (2020). Recent trends in the cognitive science of religion: Neuroscience, religious experience, and the confluence of cognitive and evolutionary research. Zygon, 55(1), 97–124. Motulsky, H. J., & Brown, R. E. (2006). Detecting outliers when fitting data with nonlinear regression – a new method based on robust nonlinear regression and the false discovery rate. BMC Bioinformatics, 7(1), 123. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-­2105-­7-­123. Norenzayan, A. (2013). Big gods: How religion transformed cooperation and conflict. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Norenzayan, A., Shariff, A.  F., Gervais, W.  M., Willard, A.  K., McNamara, R.  A., Slingerland, E., & Henrich, J. (2016). The cultural evolution of prosocial religions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, 1–19. Rao, R. P., & Ballard, D. H. (1999). Predictive coding in the visual cortex: A functional interpretation of some extra-classical receptive-field effects. Nature Neuroscience, 2(1), 79. Schjoedt, U., Sørensen, J., Nielbo, K.  L., Xygalatas, D., Mitkidis, P., & Bulbulia, J. (2013). Cognitive resource depletion in religious interactions. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 3, 39–55. Van Elk, M., & Aleman, A. (2017). Brain mechanisms in religion and spirituality: An integrative predictive processing framework. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 73, 359–378. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.12.031. van Elk, M., & Wagenmakers, E.-J. (2017). Can the experimental study of religion be advanced using a Bayesian predictive framework? Religion, Brain & Behavior, 7(4), 331–334. Van Eyghen, H. (2018). Arguing from cognitive science of religion: Cognitive science of religion and its epistemic implications. Van Eyghen, H. (2020). Religious belief as acquired second nature. Zygon, 55(1), 185–206. Wiese, W., & Metzinger, T. (2017). Vanilla PP for philosophers: A primer on predictive processing. In W. Wiese & T. Metzinger (Eds.), Philosophy and predictive processing. Frankfurt Am Main: MIND Group.

Chapter 9

Is Religion Still Natural?

Abstract  This chapter explores the concept of naturalness of religion. Religious components may be regarded as natural in the sense of being intuitive and cognitively effortless. Such theories and concepts are critically evaluated. Keywords  Naturalness of religion · Maturational naturalness · Practiced naturalness · Born beliefs · Born contents

What Comes Naturally? Apart from explaining why religion is adaptive, culture can also have a role in explaining why religious beliefs are the way they are. We noted in Chap. 2 that many CSR-theorists claim religious beliefs are caused by the operations of cognitive mechanisms or biases. These cognitive mechanisms would be part of the human cognitive architecture, which is innate or develops reliably with maturation. What is the scope of these explanations? And how much of religious cognition does it explain? In this section, we look at what CSR-theorists write about these questions themselves. Despite some claims to the contrary,1 many CSR-theorists are rather humble about the explanatory scope of cognitive explanations. Robert McCauley notes that cognitive explanations, like all scientific explanations, are reductive in nature. Few, if any scientific explanations aim at presenting a full picture of a phenomenon. Scientists can achieve greater understanding of a phenomenon by looking at it from  See for example: Jones (2016).

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different perspectives. Taking one perspective, by default, implies neglecting other perspective. As an example, McCauley refers to his cognitive approach to ritual. The explanation notes that rituals overwhelmingly cluster around specific patterns. Looking at the human cognitive architecture can elucidate why this is the case but leaves out many of the culturally specific details of rituals (McCauley 2017).2 McCauley’s claim has implications for the explanatory scope of cognitive explanations of religion. If cognitive explanations indeed focus on the cognitive aspects and ignore other perspectives, they merely note the causal contributions of those cognitive aspects. The causal contribution of other aspects, like culture or context, remains off the radar. Another CSR-theorist, Justin Barrett argues that the operations of cognitive mechanisms do not determine human cultural expression in all of its diversity. He compares cognitive mechanisms to the foundations of a house. While foundations give basic shape and size to the house, the particulars may vary considerably. While the operations of cognitive mechanisms do not depend on particular social or cultural conditions, specific religious traditions and theologies require more (Barrett 2012). Barrett does argue that, regardless of specific cultural or social context, cognitive mechanisms give shape to what he calls ‘natural religion’. Natural religion includes teleological beliefs, animism, mind-body dualism, ritualized behavior, anthropomorphic religious beliefs, belief that God has thoughts, and belief that God can interact with the world. Christianity goes beyond natural religion according to Barrett, but many components of Christianity are little more than small elaborations on natural religion. For example, the Christian belief that God created the world is a (small) elaboration on teleological beliefs from natural religion. Belief that humans have an immortal soul would be an elaboration on natural mind-body dualism. Some Christian ideas, however, run counter to natural religion. Barrett points to the Christian belief in the bodily resurrection, which goes against mind-body dualism. Natural anthropomorphic beliefs also do not fit well with Christian views of God (Barrett 2012). Religious traditions, like Christianity, move beyond natural religion by what Barrett calls cultural scaffolding. Cultural scaffolding involves using irregularly available tools or resources to build theologies far removed from natural religion. Examples of these tools are teaching and preaching. Harvey Whitehouse distinguishes imagistic and doctrinal modes of religious behavior (Whitehouse 2004). Imagistic religion largely overlaps with what Barrett calls natural religion.3 Christianity provides a strong example of what Whitehouse has called the doctrinal mode. In the doctrinal mode of religiosity, weekly or even daily practices in which religious ideas are communicated serve as a central device

2  For McCauley, the reductive nature of all scientific explanations calls for pluralism. Many reductive explanations can jointly provide greater understanding of a phenomenon from different perspectives (McCauley 2013). 3  Whitehouse puts more emphasis on religious ritual behavior.

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for helping to transmit and maintain a common body of beliefs and practices. This practice can help a community identify its members (see Chap. 4). The ­doctrinal mode triggers the development of semantic memory (the meanings of ideas) for large bodies of doctrine. Complex ideas and intricate ceremonies are scaffolded by heavy repetition and socially sanctioned doctrinal specialists who help maintain orthodoxy and orthopraxy. The resulting religious communities tend to be bound together by common bodies of ideas and hierarchical power structures. Because having the right commitments to ideas (and related practices) mark out the religious community, the communities can be very large and the religions can spread rapidly. Some CSR-scholars thus argue that certainly not all religious beliefs are fast, intuitive outputs of cognitive mechanisms. We, however, aim to argue that there are good reasons to think that even ‘natural religion’ is not as intuitive as CSR theorists claim. We noted in Chap. 2 that CSR-theorists tend to argue that religion is a byproduct of the adaptive operations of cognitive mechanisms. For example, on Justin Barrett’s theory, religious belief is produced by the hyperactive agency detection device. If any kind of belief is intuitive and thus occurs across the human species, the ones which cope with survival and reproduction challenges are the best candidates to get such status. Clear ­examples are the human fear of snakes (cf. Isbell 2006). Snakes pose an immediate threat to human survival. Therefore, it makes sense to have an intuitive fear of snakes from an evolutionary point of view and such a fear will easily be selected for. On a by-­product view of religion, religious beliefs do not cope with survival or reproduction themselves. Odds are therefore slim that religious beliefs would become intuitive on such a view. On an adaptationist view, odds are also slim that natural selection would select for intuitive religious beliefs because on this view religious beliefs only provide an indirect evolutionary benefit. Defenders of the claim that religious beliefs are intuitive could respond that natural selection could still select for some degree of intuitiveness. It seems plausible that intuitiveness is a matter of degree. Some beliefs are formed very easily and some very hard. Between both extremes, there are beliefs that are formed more easily or harder. Some CSR-scholars suggest that religious beliefs are intuitive in a weaker sense; rather than being the immediate output of a cognitive mechanism, religious beliefs would be remembered and transmitted more easily. One example of such a view is Pascal Boyer’s theory of religious beliefs as minimally counterintuitive concepts (Boyer 2002). In virtue of being only minimally counterintuitive, religious beliefs are more salient and more memorable and therefore more intuitive. This form of intuitiveness is, however, much less stronger than for beliefs that were immediately selected for by natural selection, like fear of snakes. Regarding religious beliefs as, at best, only weakly intuitive has important implications for recent approaches to atheism. We will return to this later.

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Maturationally Natural Religion As we noted, a central claim in CSR is that religion is natural. The phrase ‘religious belief is natural’ can have multiple diverging meanings.4 Some authors argue that religious belief is ‘cognitively natural’ or ‘maturationally natural’. Aku Visala and Justin Barrett define ‘cognitively natural’ as follows: [T]here is something about our minds that dispose it to catch religious ideas. (…) [O]ur belief-forming mechanisms would be biased in such a way as to create a tendency or a disposition to acquire, think, and transmit religious ideas instead of some other kinds of ideas (Barrett and Visala 2018).

Although there is a lot of overlap, beliefs that are cognitively natural are different from beliefs that are cross-cultural because cognitively natural beliefs are formed in virtue of the way the human mind is (Barrett and Visala 2018).5 In other words, cognitively natural beliefs are the way they are to a large extent because of the internal architecture of the human mind. Visala and Barrett add that not all religious beliefs are natural in this sense. Especially, elaborate culturally specific religious beliefs, like belief in the Trinitarian God, are not. Basic beliefs, like the belief that there are supernatural agents, would be cognitively natural (Barrett and Visala 2018). Robert McCauley makes a similar claim and argues that many religious beliefs are ‘maturationally natural’. He writes: “Maturationally natural cognition concerns humans having (similar) immediate, intuitive views that pop into mind in domains where they may have had little or no experience or instruction.” (McCauley 2011: p. 5 emphasis added) Maturational natural cognition is different than what McCauley calls ‘practiced natural cognition’. Practiced natural cognition is achieved by extensive experience in dealing with a domain. Clear examples are judgments experts can make in a snap, like an engineer who intuitively knows what materials to use or a chess player who instantly knows the best next move (McCauley 2011). Practiced naturalness requires a great deal of (cultural) learning while maturational naturalness merely requires a normally developed human mind. McCauley gives 3 arguments in favor of religion’s maturational naturalness. First, religious belief goes way back far in human history. Archeological evidence strongly suggests that prehistoric man had some kind of religious beliefs. Second, religious belief is both geographically and historically ubiquitous. Since religious belief arose in different cultures and is nonetheless considerably similar. Third, species related to man have similar traits. According to McCauley, chimpanzees display behavior that resembles human ritual behavior (McCauley 2011). All three appear to fit better with maturational naturalness than practiced naturalness. Various forms of (cultural) learning were likely less important for prehistoric man than it  For an overview of different meanings: see Barrett and Visala (2018).  Other CSR-scholars are less firm. For example, Ara Norenzayan merely argues that “[there is] a suite of cognitive faculties (…) reliably develop in children, and regularly reoccur across cultures and historical periods. There are several such faculties, which appear to incline human minds towards religious belief” (Norenzayan 2013: p. 15).

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was for modern man. Similarities in religious belief across cultures are better explained by dispositions of the human mind than by specific cultural learning. Cultural learning is also far less important for apes than it is for modern humans. The key in explaining the deep history and ubiquity of religious belief is in looking at the role of cognitive mechanisms or cognitive biases that give rise to religious belief. McCauley and others argue that cognitive biases that reliably develop with cognitive maturation produce elementary forms of religious belief.6 One can argue that (some) religious beliefs are maturationally natural in three ways. One could draw on adaptationist theories to argue that religious belief served an adaptive function. Maturational natural beliefs appear to be better suited to serve an adaptive function because they are more reliably produced than other (practiced natural or non-natural) beliefs. One could also argue that religious beliefs are maturationally natural because they are produced by modular cognitive mechanisms. Since modular cognitive mechanisms appear to be part of the architecture of the human mind, their outputs are (mainly) due to the architecture of the mind and not due to cultural learning. Finally, one could argue that religious beliefs are ­maturationally natural because the mind has fixed content biases (like a bias to form belief in minimally counterintuitive ideas). We note problems with all three arguments and argue that they can be accounted for by our account of cognitive biases shaped by cultural processes which we laid out above. On this account, religious beliefs are mainly learned and thus not maturationally natural. We argue that predictive processing can be wedded to adaptationist theories, can integrate a bias for religious beliefs and can include content biases. Integration shows that religious beliefs or biases for religious belief need not be the product of the architecture of the human mind. Instead, we argue that a bias for religious belief and certain content biases could take root at an early age.

Arguments for Maturational Naturalness In this section, we discuss three arguments for the conclusion that (some)7 religious beliefs are maturationally natural. Each argument appeals to different kinds of CSR-theories.

6  McCauley also argues that religious ritual behavior is maturationally natural (McCauley and Lawson 2002). 7  We noted that Barrett and Visala hold that some religious beliefs are not cognitively natural. Examples would be complex theological beliefs like Trinitarian Christian belief. They therefore only argue that some religious beliefs are cognitively natural. McCauley also argues that while most religious beliefs are formed easily and quickly, other, theologically complex beliefs are not. In the remainder of this chapter, we will not repeat this point and use the term ‘religious beliefs’ to refer to those religious beliefs that are formed quickly and easily.

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Natural Biases for Belief? A first argument refers to CSR-theories that explain religious belief by pointing to the operations of one or more cognitive biases. If one of these theories is true, religious belief would be maturationally natural because cognitive biases result from the cognitive architecture of the human mind. We discussed examples of explanations of this kind in Chap. 2. Does the claim that religious belief results from the operations from cognitive biases support the claim that religious belief is maturationally natural? Authors like McCauley suggest that beliefs produced by massively modular cognitive mechanisms are maturationally natural. In this section, we argue that the operations of HADD and promiscuous teleology fit resemble the operations of massively modular cognitive mechanisms. We also discuss why this would support the idea that religious belief is maturationally natural. Before we argue how the operations of cognitive mechanisms fit well with the massive modularity of mind thesis (MMMT)8, we discuss the main ideas of MMMT. The main idea of the MMMT is adequately captured by Robert McCauley as follows: “They [defenders of the MMMT] hold that the human mind is composed of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of specialized mental modules (…).” (McCauley 2011: p. 52). These modules operate fast and their operations are not easily open to introspection. As McCauley notes, massive modularity is popular among evolutionary psychologists. Evolutionary psychologists can easily argue that modular cognitive mechanisms evolved to tackle specific evolutionary problems. The operations of HADD, as described by Guthrie and Barrett, shares the characteristics of massively modular cognitive mechanisms. Its operations are mandatory and fast. Forming a belief that an (invisible) agent is out there is formed quickly when a subject perceives patterns or vague noises. The operations of HADD also not easily open to introspection. Barrett and Guthrie agree that the operations of HADD usually remain unconscious to the subject. HADD would also have been selected because it helped tackle the problem of predator sneak attacks. Promiscuous teleology also fits well with massive modularity. According to the theory, people have a disposition to give teleological answers when they need to answer fast. Why teleological answers are preferred is also not easily introspectable. Some experiments were even deliberately set up so that participants would have limited time to answer (Kelemen et al. 2013). Now how are massively modular cognitive mechanisms linked to maturational naturalness? They can be linked in three ways. As McCauley notes, massively modular cognitive mechanisms evolved to tackle different evolutionary challenges. If biological natural selection indeed selected for cognitive biases it is likely that these are hard-wired in the cognitive architecture of the mind. 8  The original modularity of mind thesis (Fodor 1983) states that the human mind has a set of distinct, specialized input systems. Defenders of the massive modularity thesis expand the idea to state that central cognition consists of distinct, specialized input systems as well.

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A second reason is that HADD and promiscuous teleology appear to operate from a very young age onwards. Very young children would not have been exposed to various forms of learning long enough to have learned to detect agents or see teleology in nature. Having maturationally natural cognitive mechanisms can explain why they quickly form beliefs about agency and teleology anyways. A third reason points to what we call ‘relapse phenomena’. We discussed how promiscuous teleology ‘resurfaces’ when subjects are under time pressure or forget about alternative mechanistic explanations (see Chap. 2). Maturational naturalness can better account for such phenomena. If teleological beliefs were formed in another way (practiced naturalness or other) we would not expect such a relapse. Maturationally natural beliefs can be regarded as default states that emerge under normal circumstances when they are not overridden or inhibited. On this view, knowledge of mechanistic explanations overrides maturationally natural teleological beliefs. When this knowledge does not override (because of time constraints or loss of knowledge) maturationally natural beliefs reemerge.

Born Adaptive Belief While arguing that religion is natural is more popular among defenders of by-­ product theories, defenders of adaptationist theories also have good reasons to claim that religion is maturationally natural. Religious beliefs that are maturational natural appear to be better suited to tackle evolutionary challenges. Beliefs that are reliably formed under most circumstances, without need for explicit cultural instructions will likely provide more evolutionary benefits than practiced natural beliefs or still other beliefs. For the Big Gods theory to work, subjects need to reliably produce belief in moralizing, punishing gods. Cultural learning appears to be too variable to reliably produce such beliefs. Cultural transmission can take many different courses.9 Belief in moralizing gods could also be replaced with other (non)-religious beliefs in the course of history. Putting the burden of transmitting adaptive beliefs mainly on cultural transmission might be too much to ask. Maturationally natural beliefs are far less subject to cultural changes. For this reason they could reliably yield an evolutionary benefit. Some defenders of the Big Gods theory do claim that cultural learning has an important role for religious beliefs. They argue that evolved cognitive biases canalize and constrain religious belief, but cannot explain why people hold deep commitments to gods. To explain this, cultural transmission must be taken into account. According to defenders, committed belief in big gods is largely the result of cultural learning mechanisms. For example, the fact that much more people share a committed belief to the Trinitarian god and not to Zeus nowadays is largely explained by 9  Gervais at all do argue that cultural transmission is constraint to transmit beliefs that are ‘potentially actionable’, ‘fitness relevant’ or ‘plausible’. These, however, easily allow for religious belief in non-moralizing gods as well (Gervais et al. 2011).

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the fact that most people learn to do so from their cultural environment (Gervais et al. 2011). The Big Gods theory therefore does rely on cultural learning to some extent. Although evolved cognitive biases can be expected to reliably produce religious beliefs, they cannot be expected to produce the right kind of religious beliefs required for large-scale cooperation. At least some of the burden rests on cultural learning.

Born Content Biases A final argument points to content biases that lead to religious beliefs and are present at a very young age. The most widely discussed content bias that leads to religious belief is Pascal Boyer’s cognitive optimum (see Chap. 2). Benjamin Purzycki and Ayani Willard argue that minimally counterintuitive concepts should be sharply distinguished from counterschematic concepts. On Boyer’s theory, the intuitive ontological categories are deeply ingrained in the human mind.10 When a being or object is classified under one ontological category, the mind can make ‘deep inferences’ by applying expectations that come with the category. These ‘deep inferences’ stand opposed to ‘shallow inferences’. The latter stem from more accessible and more specific relations between concepts and reflective information. For example a rose is expected to bob in the wind or a cross is expected to have a longer vertical axis. Concepts that violate shallow inferences are counterschematic rather than counterintuitive (Purzycki and Willard 2016).11 The distinction between counterintuitive and counterschematic maps well to McCauley’s distinction between maturational naturalness and practiced naturalness. Content biases that are maturationally natural would reliably give rise to intuitive ontological categories and would be present from a very young age on. Practiced natural content biases would be more divergent, more culturally specific and manifest at a later age.

 Purzycki and Willard closely connect the intuitive ontological categories to modular operations of the mind. They argue that Boyer’s theory fits in a strong modular view of the mind. On this view, modular, encapsulated mechanisms would naturally give rise to ontological categories 11  Purzycki and Willard argue that many empirical tests of Boyer’s theory did not take this distinction into account. They do raise severe worries whether the distinction between deep and shallow inferences can be properly operationalized. This would make Boyer’s theory hard to test (Purzycki and Willard 2016). 10

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Religion as Practiced Natural In the previous chapter, we developed an account based on predictive processing that explains how cultural processes can give rise to religious biases. We argued that these biases can explain hyperactive agency detection, promiscuous teleology and a preference for minimally counterintuitive concepts. We also argued that these biases can reliably produce adaptive religious beliefs. This final point shows why religious beliefs need not be maturationally or cognitively natural in order to serve an adaptive function. Cultural processes like prestige biases, CRED’s and narratives, if sufficiently strong, can reliably make sure that a great deal of the population holds the required beliefs to have an adaptive benefit. Conceptualizing vague religious beliefs as resulting from predictive minds that learn religious biases can explain why (1) we find evidence for religious beliefs in human deep history, (2) why we find religious beliefs cross-culturally with recurrent features and (3) why related species display similar traits. Prehistoric man had a brain that is not radically different than the brain of contemporary humans. Prehistoric man therefore likely had a similar predictive mind that could easily learn biases for agency detection and teleology and ontological categories. Our human ancestors likely did not have narratives about moralizing gods. This fits well with the claim that belief in Big Gods became dominant at a later stage in human history. Since humans have similar minds and are exposed to animate and inanimate things, we can expect them to develop biases for agency detection and teleology cross-culturally. Whether cultures have a belief in Big Gods will depend on whether they have been exposed to narratives of Big Gods. This also fits well with what defenders of the Big Gods theory claim. They claim that belief in moralizing gods grew dominant in the Neolithic age but not that it grew to be universal.12 We can also expect humans with similar predictive minds to learn ontological categories. Matters are more speculative concerning related species. It is not clear how different the minds of apes are to the minds of humans. Claiming that apes have predictive minds that learn biases or ontological categories is therefore highly speculative. McCauley is, however, also careful to draw strong analogies between human religious behavior and animal ritualistic behavior. For one thing, animal ritualistic behavior appears to lack meaning (McCauley 2011: pp. 150–151). An account where religious beliefs are practiced natural but produced by cultural processes can better explain subtle differences in religious beliefs. It can better account for why belief in big gods diminishes when it loses its evolutionary function because of the rise of the welfare state (Norenzayan 2013). Our account can also better explain cultural differences in content of religious beliefs. Some authors pointed out that societies with harsher environments tend to have stricter views on morality and more belief in punishing gods (Gray and Wegner 2010; Pazhoohi et al. 2017).  In his defense of the Big Gods theory, Ara Norenzayan gives examples of small groups without belief in Big Gods like the Hadza of Tanzania (Norenzayan 2013: pp. 121–122).

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References Barrett, J.  L. (2012). Towards a cognitive science of Christianity. In J.  B. Stump, A.  G. Alan, & G.  Padgett (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to science and Christianity. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Barrett, J.  L., & Visala, A. (2018). In what sense might religion be natural? In P.  Copan & C.  Taliaferro (Eds.), The naturalness of belief: New essays on theism’s reasonability (pp. 67–84). Lanham: Lexington Press. Boyer, P. (2002). Religion explained: The human instincts that fashion gods, spirits and ancestors. London: Vintage. Fodor, J. A. (1983). The modularity of mind: An essay on faculty psychology (1st and 3rd pr. ed.). Cambridge: MIT Press. Gervais, W., Willard, A. K., Norenzayan, A., & Henrich, J. (2011). The cultural transmission of faith: Why innate intuitions are necessary, but insufficient, to explain religious belief. Religion, 41, 389–410. Gray, K., & Wegner, D. M. (2010). Blaming god for our pain: Human suffering and the divine mind. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 7–16. Isbell, L. A. (2006). Snakes as agents of evolutionary change in primate brains. Journal of Human Evolution, 51, 1–35. Jones, J. W. (2016). Can science explain religion? The cognitive science debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kelemen, D., Rottman, J., & Seston, R. (2013). Professional physical scientists display tenacious teleological tendencies: Purpose-based reasoning as a cognitive default. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 142(4), 1074. McCauley, R. N. (2011). Why religion is natural and science is not. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McCauley, R. N. (2013). Explanatory pluralism and the cognitive science of religion: Why scholars in religious studies should stop worrying about reductionism. In D.  Xygalatas & W.  W. J. McCorkle (Eds.), Mental culture: Classical social theory and the cognitive science of religion (pp. 11–32). London: Acumen. McCauley, R. N. (2017). Twenty-five years in: Landmark empirical findings in the cognitive science of religion. In L. H. Martin & D. Wiebe (Eds.), Religion explained? The cognitive science of religion after twenty-five years. London: Bloomsbury Academic. McCauley, R. N., & Lawson, E. T. (2002). Bringing ritual to mind: Psychological foundations of cultural forms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Norenzayan, A. (2013). Big gods: How religion transformed cooperation and conflict. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pazhoohi, F., Lang, M., Xygalatas, D., & Grammer, K. (2017). Religious veiling as a mate-guarding strategy: Effects of environmental pressures on cultural practices. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 3, 118–124. Purzycki, B. G., & Willard, A. K. (2016). MCI theory: A critical discussion. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 6(3), 207–248. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2015.1024915. Whitehouse, H. (2004). Modes of religiosity: A cognitive theory of religious transmission. Walnut Creek, CA: Rowman Altamira.

Chapter 10

Atheism

Abstract  The final chapter discusses the cognitive and evolutionary contexts of atheism and non-belief. While atheism is considered by CSR scholars as a secondary phenomenon which is unnatural and non-intuitive, there are good reasons to study its evolutionary history. This chapter states that there are strong reasons to look for adaptationist explanations of atheism. Keywords  Atheism · Non-belief · Adaptivity of atheism

Introduction The phenomenon of atheism is interesting for most recent evolutionary and/or cognitive accounts of religion. Most cognitive and evolutionary theories focus on religiosity and not on atheism or non-belief.1 Cognitive explanations of religion tend to argue that humans possess some sort of pro-religious bias. For this reason, atheism is considered as odd, unnatural and counterintuitive. In this chapter, we discuss how the phenomenon of atheism fits into an adaptationist account.

Cognitive Explanations of Atheism Atheism provides an explanatory challenge for cognitive explanations of religion because they regard religious beliefs as natural and intuitive phenomena. Naturalness, intuitiveness and cognitive easiness (cf. McCauley 2011) are attributed to religious 1  Atheism is sometimes defined as ‘believing that no gods exist’ or alternatively as ‘not-believing that God or gods exist’ (e.g. Flew 1972). Most authors appear to rely on the second definition, which corresponds to non-belief. In this chapter, we will do likewise.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 K. Szocik, H. Van Eyghen, Revising Cognitive and Evolutionary Science of Religion, New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63516-9_10

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belief but not to non-belief. For this reason, the occurrence of non-belief is a surprising fact that stands in need of an explanation. In this section we discuss a number of these explanations. A first explanation for atheism states that atheism is only superficial. Many CSR-­ authors argue that religious belief is a ‘cognitive default’, meaning that all else being equal humans develop religious beliefs because of the operations of cognitive mechanisms. Jesse Bering, who subscribes to the ‘cognitive default’ view, explains atheism by distinguishing two kinds of religiosity. One kind of religiosity is a “full epistemological commitment to an already well articulated, culturally defined set of theistic or supernatural ideas” (Bering 2010: p. 167). A subject can be more or less committed to this strong form of religiosity and it can have more or less effects on a subject’s behavior. A second kind of religiosity does not have the same level of commitment. This kind of religiosity is vaguer and less reflected. While Bering acknowledges that subjects can be placed on a scale from low to higher strong religiosity, the second form of religiosity is (almost) universally shared by humans. Bering adds that atheism (understood as scoring low on strong religiosity) requires considerable cognitive effort to override the outputs of evolved cognitive mechanisms (Bering 2010). He points to other research where people who explicitly disavowed the continuing existence of the soul or psychological functions after biological death continued to endorse statements that implied the psychological functioning of a dead character (Bering 2002). In another study American atheists seemed prone to acknowledge the existence of teleology and intrinsic in their lives. Bering argues that such attributions are untenable without recourse to God (Heywood and Bering 2010). A second cognitive explanation of atheism also claims that atheism requires cognitive effort but does not claim that atheism is merely superficial. The explanation draws on dual processing theories that distinguish between intuitive and analytic cognition.2 The first happens fast and is automatically cued while the second is slow, reflective and requires working memory. We noted earlier how many CSR-theorists argue that religious cognition falls within that category (see Chap. 2). There is some evidence that analytic cognition is negatively associated with religious belief (Pennycook et al. 2012, 2016). Another study found that stimulating analytic thinking decreased religious belief (Gervais and Norenzayan 2012). Defenders of the second explanation argue that humans can override religious intuitions by applying analytic cognition. The outputs of intuitive cognitive mechanisms would lose its force when subjects take time to reflect deeper on matters and this would result in less religiosity. According to Farias et al. the second explanation suggests that religious beliefs are the result of an overgeneralization by intuitive thinking whereby the cause of events is attributed to supernatural agents without looking for further explanations in a reasoned, analytical way (Farias et al. 2017).

2  The distinction was defended, among others, by Daniel Kahnemann and Dan Sperber (Kahneman 2012; Sperber 1997).

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Catherine L.  Caldwell-Harris combines atheism with advanced cognitive processes. She explains atheism in terms of by-product of independent learning and systemizing connected with skepticism, individualism, and non-conformism. In her model, atheism is a by-product of learning styles evolved under selective pressures (Caldwell-Harris 2012, pp. 70–72). This hypothesis suggests that supernatural beliefs are the result of an overapplication of a default system whereby the cause of events is attributed to supernatural agents, without looking for further explanations in an analytical way. Both explanations appear to be compatible. Defenders of both explanations claim that intuitive religious beliefs can be overridden by cognitive effort. Defenders of the second explanation are more explicit about what kind of cognitive effort can do the job. Both do appear to diverge on how ‘deep’ atheism goes. We noted that self-proclaimed atheists easily slip back into affirming religious beliefs according to Bering. Defenders of the second explanation suggest that this need not be the case. They suggest that analytic thinking can be more of a mindset or character trait that people have than a (temporary) strategy that people apply. They suggest that some people are more prone towards analytic cognition than others. For them, atheism can go beyond mere superficiality. Some have pointed to a link between analytic thinking and scoring high on the autism spectrum (Clark 2017). For people scoring high on the autism spectrum, analytic thinking is second nature. They need not consciously apply it to override intuitive beliefs. Armin Geertz and Guðmundur Ingi Markusson provide a third explanation of atheism. Contrary to the two previous explanations, they do not claim that atheists need to override or water down naturally formed religious beliefs. While Geertz and Markusson subscribe to the naturalness of religion hypothesis, they argue that it does not imply general religiosity. They point out that defenders of cognitive theories argue that while religious beliefs are easily formed because of the way the human mind is structured, external stimuli or input is still required. In some cultural environments or niches, the required stimuli might not be present or far less prevalent (Geertz and Markusson 2010). Geertz and Markusson refer to Justin Barrett. Barrett suggests that the unconscious, cognitive mechanisms that underpin religious belief, like HADD, are likely less triggered in modern environments that are largely man-made. In such environments there is much less incentive to interpret causal relations in terms of nonhuman, supernatural agency. In modern western societies, competing naturalistic explanatory frameworks might also make people less prone to interpret phenomena as caused by supernatural agency (Barrett 2004: pp. 115–118).

Criticism All three cognitive explanations of atheism have been the subject of criticism. According to Lindemann et al. there is little, if any evidence for implicit religious beliefs in atheists (Lindeman et  al. 2016). Bering himself did point to some evidence, namely experiments that showed how skeptics attribute teleology (Kelemen

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and Rosset 2009) or affirm afterlife beliefs (Bering 2002). We argued above that such ‘relapse phenomena’ can be explained as errors or hastily generalizations under time pressure (see Chap. 8). On our account, attributions of teleology or afterlife under time pressure therefore do not constitute evidence for implicit religious beliefs. Bering could argue that lack of evidence for implicit religious beliefs is not evidence of their absence. He could argue that we need more research and better experimental setups to detect implicit religiosity. For now, cognitive explanations of religious belief make it sufficiently likely that there is implicit religiosity since religiosity is the natural output of cognitive mechanisms. However, we argued in the previous chapters that the case for these explanations is not as strong as is often believed. We also argued that cognitive biases could be altered by cultural influences (see Chap. 8). As a result, arguing for implicit religiosity requires more than merely pointing to cognitive explanations. The second cognitive explanation for atheism has been criticized more thoroughly. Gervais et al. conclude from a cross cultural comparison that analytic thinking is not relevant for atheism (Gervais et al. 2018). Faris et al. conclude from three experiments that there is no relationship between intuitive or analytical thinking and supernatural belief. They note that the original studies that supported the explanation lacked ecological validity. To overcome this, they conducted a study where the subject’s working memory was depleted. A depleted working memory results in more intuitive thinking. If the explanation is correct, subjects should become more prone towards religiosity. The study, however, showed no correlation with religiosity. Farias et al. also suggest that atheism might be cognitively less demanding than religiosity in some settings. In secular cultures subjects are challenged to articulate the arguments for holding supernatural beliefs in a way in which they are not in a society where the default is to be religious. Farias et  al. conclude that socio-­ educational upbringing likely plays a much larger role in explaining the strength of supernatural belief than cognitive styles and biases (Farias et al. 2017). A final reason to be skeptical of the claim that atheism is best explained by slow, rational thinking is the importance of slow rational thinking for religious belief. Some authors argue that humans spend a lot of effort to make sure that they arrive at true beliefs. Robert Audi argues that behavior that follows from true beliefs provides better chances for survival than behavior based on false beliefs (Audi 2014). Kelly Clark and Dani Rabinowitz argue that people are not inclined to follow beliefs they perceive as false (Clark and Rabinowitz 2011). Dan Sperber et al. point to the importance of epistemic vigilance. They argue that humans developed a range of cognitive mechanisms to assess what information is reliable and what is not (Sperber et al. 2010). This all strongly suggests that religious beliefs probably require some level of rational thinking. Geertz and Markusson’s explanation received criticism from defenders of competing explanations of atheism. Jesse Bering argues that Geertz and Markusson’s claim is based on research that does not take dormant, implicit beliefs into account. As a result, they have not ruled out that atheists implicitly endorse religious beliefs (Bering 2010).

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Another point of criticism is that on some evolutionary theories of religion, being religious requires at least some level of reflection. On the big gods theory, people should need to reason about the moralizing nature of gods and how this affects their chances at punishment when they free-ride or cheat. On the costly signaling theory, people should be able to reason that highly religious people are more trustworthy.

Adaptationist Explanations of Atheism In some sense, regarding religiosity as a functionless by-product could open space for regarding atheism as adaptive. On by-product theories, religion yields no adaptive value. Some authors also argue that religion is in fact evolutionarily costly. If religion is evolutionarily neutral, atheism could be favored because a state of non-­ belief is more parsimonious than a state of belief. If religion is evolutionarily costly, non-belief is obviously more beneficial and without strong institutional support, atheism is more natural because of its higher intuitiveness and lower costliness. In this section, we will not pursue this line any further and look at theories where atheism itself provides some adaptive value. Dominic Johnson argues that having a subgroup of atheists within a population that is largely religious can be adaptive for various reasons. Johnson’s functional explanation for atheism is therefore compatible with (his own or other) functional explanation for religion. According to Johnson there is no doubt that at some point in human history non-­ belief was the default state. If we go back for enough in human history, we reach a point where humans lack the necessary cognitive sophistication to hold complex beliefs about supernatural beings. If religion is indeed adaptive (which Johnson himself claims), evolutionary pressures must have been sufficiently strong to overturn one default state (non-belief) with another (religious belief). An important point for Johnson’s explanation(s) of atheism is variation in religiosity. Like many adaptive traits, there are stronger and weaker forms of religiosity in any population. Variations in religiosity are clearly present in modern societies. Johnson theorizes that variation also goes back in human history. There is also sufficient variation in religiosity among children. Variation in religiosity makes it plausible that religious and non-religious beliefs were acted upon differentially by natural selection (Johnson 2012). Variation in religiosity already provides an evolutionary explanation of atheism. If human brains have (cognitive) mechanisms that make humans susceptible to religious beliefs and there is variation in individuals’ propensities to hold religious beliefs due to variation and interaction among genes, physiology or environment, atheists could simply represent the far end of the distribution of religious belief. Though evolutionary, such an explanation is not an adaptationist explanation (Johnson 2012). On this explanation, atheism is rather a by-product of the natural propensity towards religiosity.

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Johnson presents other suggestion how holding atheist beliefs could itself provide some adaptive benefit. All his suggestions argue that atheism could be adaptive, as long as it coexists with religious belief and neither becomes too common (beyond some threshold). Evolutionary game theory shows that some traits do better when they coexist with other different traits. One obvious possibility where atheism is adaptive is that atheists free-ride on the efforts of believers (Johnson 2012). For example, on the big gods theory, atheists could free-ride on the increased trust and cooperation resulting from widespread belief in moralizing gods. As long as the benefits of exploitation outweigh the costs of shirking group norms (and/or having to pretend to be a believer), and as long as there are not too many atheists and not too few believers, atheism could be selected for (Johnson 2012). Another suggestion from Johnson is that atheism is adaptive for leaders of a community. It is possible that Karl Marx was right, and that religion is a means of oppressing subjects or keeping order in society (cf. Marx 1970). If this is the case, leaders benefit from not sharing in religious beliefs themselves. This would allow them to use religion as a tool for their own personal gain while avoiding the loss in time and resources that involve participating in religion (Johnson 2012). The problem with this suggestion is that ‘faking religion’ could very well be more costly than honest participation. To be credible, leaders will at the very least have to show that they take religion seriously and partake in religious actions from time to time. Doing so comes more easily if leaders are religious themselves. The next suggestion by Johnson claims that atheism is more adaptive than religiosity in some ecological settings. We noted that some adaptationist theories claim that religiosity is stronger in harsher settings. For example, Snarey found that societies with scarcer resources were more likely to belief in moralizing gods. Johnson suggests that the need for religiosity could be removed in environments without harsh conditions. Whereas the costs of religious participation would be overridden by its beneficial effects in coping with scarce resources (for example by increasing cooperation and trust), this is no longer the case in more friendly environments. Johnson also suggests that religiosity might never arise on such contexts (Johnson 2012). Another suggestion by Johnson is that atheists can serve as ‘catalysts’ for religious beliefs. Having atheists in a population can remind people of religious beliefs and thereby trigger their evolutionary functions. They thereby fulfill a similar role as ‘loners’ do in the evolution of cooperation. Loners can have the effect of driving cheats out of the population because there are fewer cooperators for cheats to exploit, and cooperators can subsequently thrive. Johnson also notes that the costly signaling theory can only work if there are members who do not signal honesty by engaging in costly rituals. Only because individuals can distinguish themselves from others can they signal honesty and trustworthiness. Atheists can fulfill this role (Johnson 2012). Another way in which a minority of atheists could be beneficial is by bolstering religiosity in the face of skepticism. Having a minority of atheists among them can compel the religious community to constantly reinforce religious beliefs and behaviors to answer criticism. Boosting religiosity may increase the evolutionary function

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of religious beliefs or commitment. For example, Richard Dawkins and other vocal atheists may have won converts to atheism, but their efforts also served to cement members of religious groups together. The charge of vocal atheists creates a common enemy around which they can unite. Challenging religious doctrine with a set of tough questions increases incentives to develop theological counterarguments and gives an incentive to practice and rehearse doctrinal defenses. As a result, religious communities may be more united, better versed in their core beliefs and have stronger justification after battling with a skeptic. Johnson adds that skeptics must not be too convincing for bolstering to take effect. If skeptics succeed in converting too many believers, the evolutionary function of religion might wane (Johnson 2012). According to Johnson, atheism can also work in a reverse way to tone down religious doctrine. This could help prevent fanaticism and make the doctrine more credible. If a religion becomes too costly, incredible, destructive, or exploitative, then criticism may serve to tone down doctrine and prevent disintegration. Johnson notes that there are plenty of historical examples where religious communities brought about their own demise. The Shakers have more or less died out because of their strong emphasis on chastity. A number of cults wiped themselves out in mass suicides. The most famous being Jim Jones’ People’s Temple and Heaven’s Gate. Jared Diamonds’ Collapse provides examples of societies that created practices that led to their own demise, like the Eastern Islanders who heavily invested in expensive sculpture. Atheists can have an important role to keep religious doctrine and behavior within reason and within the realm of sustainability (Johnson 2012). A final way in which atheists can provide an evolutionary benefit is by becoming a religion themselves. Atheists could find benefits as a group in their shared atheism and associated values. According to Johnson this is particularly true of the ‘New Atheists’, characterized by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens (Johnson 2012). According to David Wilson New Atheism can be regarded as a “stealth religion,” because its proponents masquerade as objectively scientific but in fact betray features that are similar to a religion, including a polarized belief system that represents everything as good, good, good or bad, bad, bad (‘how religion poisons everything’), the unquestioned authority of its leaders, and even the portrayal of bad ideas as like demons (parasitic memes) that need to be cast out (Wilson 2009). Some atheists do appear to adhere to a distinct worldview with its set of shared values, signaling and even rituals. Some are convinced of the superiority of their beliefs and are evangelical. Richard Dawkins and his foundation go through remarkable efforts to advertise their worldview and convince others to join them. Whatever their motivations are, the outcome surely shared many parallels with religious groups and their members or leaders (Johnson 2012). Unlike Johnson, who suggests explanations for the presence of atheists in overall religious societies or communities, others offer evolutionary explanations for why people or societies become less religious. Jay Feiermann argues that religiosity is on the decline in western societies because religion lost much of its evolutionary function. On Feiermann’s own theory, religious institutions serve as ‘breeding grounds’. They facilitate in-group mating by propagating various norms and by enforcing wearing of identity markers (see Chap. 6). According to Feiermann, religious insti-

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tutions have lost this role in modern western societies. Both in the USA and Europe assortative mating has been slowly declining among catholics, protestants and Jews over the last century. As this evolutionary function of religion wanes, so does its external form, i.e. religiosity. Feiermann adds that religious institutions did not acquire new functions to replace their old waning function (Feierman 2019). Defenders of the big gods theory also present an explanation for secularization. Like in Feiermann’s explanation, secularization is the result of loss of evolutionary function of religion. Ara Norenzayan argues that the institutions of modern welfare states have largely taken over the role of moralizing gods in bolstering trust and avoiding free-riders. Because courts and surveillance can punish free-riders or threaten to do so, there is no more need to believe that a big god does so. For this reason, religiosity would be on the decline in the west (Norenzayan 2013). A similar claim was defended by F. Leron Shultz. LeRon Shults points out that today in the Anthropocene, religious beliefs and religious biases have lost their adaptive value. But in his view, they are not neutral as well. Shults claims that religious forms are deleterious for the natural environment. For this reason, he defends an adaptive atheism, understood as an ideological alternative for religious beliefs. According to Shults, such a form of atheism fits better in the current antropocene as a next, atheistic stage in human evolution (Shults 2015: p. 725). Shultz defense of adaptive atheism goes against accounts where religiosity is the default mode. Shultz suggests that a nonreligious environment does not activate cognitive biases that favor religiosity, or at least not to the same extent. If cognitive mechanisms are not triggered by cultural input, religious beliefs and behavior do not arise. An account like this draws on the functionality of religion and is able to explain transitions and shifts in belief systems. Both explanations of secularization differ over the evolutionary function of religion, but share the idea that religiosity diminishes when its function wanes or is supplanted. Such an explanation is only available when religion is explained by cultural evolution. If cultural evolution favored religion by means of context biases (see Chap. 5) or changing the operations of cognitive mechanisms (see Chap. 8), religion is less likely to take root when it no longer serves its function. This is the case because cultural processes are sufficiently flexible. This is, however, not the case when religion is a biological adaptation. Biological processes that give rise to adaptive traits or behaviors are far less flexible. New adaptive mutations usually need considerable time to take root and spread throughout a population.

Atheism as Both Adaptive and Non-adaptive Our own explanation of atheism draws on both Johnson’s account and Feierman’s account of secularization. In our view, differences in ecological pressures give rise to a continuum in religious beliefs. Larger changes in the cultural environment can have the effect that atheism can become more intuitive and dominant.

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Johnson argues that populations, which are overall religious, have a continuum in religious beliefs. While a majority of the population is religious (because religious beliefs would come more natural and intuitive), some individual are less religious or not religious at all. According to Johnson, such variation could be the result of variation in, and interactions among, genes, physiology, cognition, and environment (Johnson 2012). On a cultural evolution account, variation in religiosity could arise because of variations in evolutionary pressures within a population. For example, if religion evolved to promote trust and avoid free-riders, subsections of a population that do not engage in many exchanges have less need for religion. If religious rituals evolved to create (closely knit) communities, subsection that are closely knit because of family ties have less need to engage in rituals. Because various subsections of a given population are subjects to different (levels of) evolutionary pressures, these subsections could be less prone to develop religiosity. In this way, evolutionary theories can account for variations in religiosity with a population. Changes in evolutionary pressures can also affect whole populations and thereby change its religious outlook. These changes can affect what kind of religion is dominant within a population or the average level of religiosity within a population. Both Feierman and Norenzayan argue that average levels of religiosity are on the decline in modern western societies because religion has lost much of its evolutionary function (Feierman 2019; Norenzayan 2013). Changes in evolutionary pressures can lead to profound changes in the occurrence of any trait within a population. If the mechanisms that give rise to that trait are sufficiently flexible, these changes can also occur rapidly. Changes in evolutionary pressures do not merely explain changes in the level of religiosity but also that religions are dominant within a population. Defenders of the big gods theory argue that belief in moralizing gods became dominant because it responded better to the evolutionary needs of large-scale societies. Increased cooperation and trust because of belief in big gods allowed for more exchanges and consequentially up scaling societies. In this way, changes in evolutionary pressures can explain why one kind of religion (religions with big gods) grew to become dominant. Modern western societies have also seen the rise of some religions, although far less spectacular. Over the last decades, religious or spiritual movements like new-age, yoga and tantric practices have grown in influence. A 2017 study concluded that 42% of US adults believe that spiritual energy can be located in physical things. 41% reported believing in psychics; 33% in reincarnation and 29% in astrology. All beliefs are widely prevalent among Christians and unaffiliated although they are significantly less prevalent among atheists (Gecewisz 2018). A 2015 study concluded that 37 million people in the US practice some form of yoga (The 2016 Yoga in America Study Conducted by Yoga Journal and Yoga Alliance 2016). A study conducted 33 years earlier concluded to 20 million. New age and yogic beliefs or practices likely meet other functions than other religious beliefs in practices. Yogic practices appear to serve a therapeutic function rather than social function. New age beliefs and practices serve more individualistic needs like self-­ realisation or self-improvement. The growing popularity of these practices can likely be explained by the growing need to cope with stress or to find meaning.

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On our account, both atheism and religious belief (and various kinds of religious beliefs) can be natural depending on the ecological environment. What comes natural depends on what evolutionary pressures are operating and how strong they are. The evolutionary pressures are translated into context biases which have an effect on cognitive mechanisms. On our account, there is no default natural inclination towards religiosity that needs to be overcome to have atheist beliefs. Like Farias et al. (2017) we claim that some beliefs are more intuitive in some settings than in others. Additional support is found in common sense. In highly religious countries like Poland, the Philippines and the Middle East being religious is easier than being atheist. Atheists are regarded as odd and non-typical in those countries. Most inhabitants appear to regard being religious as the default, intuitive position. These countries are usually highly religious because of historical reasons. In countries where context biases do not favor religiosity atheism appears to be more intuitive and being religious is harder.

Prior Atheism On the account we sketched in the previous chapters, religious components are mainly selected for by cultural selection. While there might have been some basic religious beliefs or basic ritual behavior, these can often barely be called religious and do not amount to any recognizable religiosity. On our account most religious components are produced by cultural processes, like prestige biases or CRED’s, which in turn change the operations of cognitive mechanisms. On our account, religiosity does not arise naturally from human cognitive architecture. As a result, non-­ belief is in a sense prior to religious belief. We agree with Geertz and Markusson (2010), that atheism is the cognitive starting mode and not religiosity, although we do so for different reasons. On Geertz and Markusson’s account, atheism is prior because infants’ and young children’s cognitive mechanisms have not been triggered by the right sort of input to a sufficient extent to produce religious ideas or behavior. On our account, atheism is prior because young children have not developed religious ideas or behavior through cultural processes. On our account, religiosity wholly or largely depends on social context and not on the operations of cognitive processes with proper input. In this way, our account resembles older approaches that attribute religiosity to gullibility (e.g. Weekes-­ Shackelford and Shackelford (2012, p. 90), Dawkins (2006)). Dawkins argues that an acquisition of religious beliefs is a combined result of indoctrination and prestige bias. He rejects an idea of cognitive pro-religious biases. Dawkins (2006) points out that a key cognitive factor in a development of religiosity is gullibility, not default pro-religious bias. Contrary to these accounts, gullibility is not necessarily a negative connotation since humans learn most of their social and moral beliefs and skills through similar means.

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Chapter 11

Conclusion

We presented the case that religion evolved because it served an adaptive function. We criticized the competing view that religious components were selected as a functionless by-product of other adaptive traits and surveyed arguments that religion (either components or religion as a whole) yielded an adaptive benefit in its own right. Possibly, religion was selected for because it provided meaning and value to human lives or because it aided cooperation in some way. We did not take a strong stance on whether all religious components were selected for by biological or by cultural evolution. While we do not rule out that some basic religious components were selected for by biological evolution, culturally specific components were clearly selected for by cultural evolution. We also presented an account how religion could be produced by cultural tools without any need for prior basic religious components that evolved through biological evolution. On this account, cultural processes give shape and direction to cognitive mechanisms, which consequently produce practiced natural religious beliefs. While most theories that regard religion as an adaptation fail to account for a (large) number of religious phenomena, we argued that sexual selection theory is able to explain some religious components in a better way. On sexual selection theory, many apparently useless religious beliefs and behaviors can be explained as signals of excess in resources or health to attract potential mates of the opposite sex. In this way sexual selection theory can explain differences in religiosity between the sexes. Our account has implication for the claim that religious belief is natural and for atheism. On our account, religious belief is not merely the result of the normal functioning of the human cognitive apparatus. Because cognitive mechanisms and their outputs are thoroughly shaped by cultural processes, religious beliefs are better regarded as an acquired second nature. Our account also implies that religiosity is not the default state. What the default state is (atheism or religiosity) depends on the cultural setting. In predominantly

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religious societies, cultural processes will favor religiosity and religiosity will be the default state for most. In predominantly secular societies (like Western Europe), the default state will be non-belief for most.