Brain Buys (28 page)

Psychologists have noted that children seem to naturally assume that the thoughts and emotions of animals persist after they die. In one study to this effect the psychologist Jesse Bering and colleagues used puppets to tell children the story of a hungry baby mouse that was eaten by an alligator. After the play, the children were asked questions about the mouse, such as “is he still scared of the alligator?” Over 75 percent of the five- to six-year-olds answered yes. This percentage decreased progressively in eight- to nine-year-old and eleven- to twelve-year-old children.
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This and other studies seem to indicate that young children naturally presume that there is a soul that outlives the body. The psychologist Paul Bloom suggests that this apparently innate form of dualism was co-opted by religion.
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But, on the other hand, one must consider the possibility that children naturally believe in souls because they were selected to do so; in other words, their innate dualism was adaptive because it supported religious beliefs.

THE GROUP SELECTION HYPOTHESIS

Under the by-product theory religious beliefs were not directly selected for by evolution any more than noses evolved to rest our sunglasses. The counter hypothesis is that our affinity for supernatural and religious beliefs was a direct product of evolutionary pressures. Under this view, as stated by the biologist E. O. Wilson, “The human mind evolved to believe in the gods…Acceptance of the supernatural conveyed a great advantage throughout prehistory, when the brain was evolving.”
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In other words, the human species evolved to harbor religious and superstitious beliefs because it behooved us to do so.

Generally evolution operates at the level of individuals. A new gene, or a mutation of an old one, that improves the reproductive success of its owner increases the representation of that gene in the overall pool. Many of those who think religious beliefs were selected for don’t believe the process took place through the standard evolutionary routine of favoring the fittest individuals. Rather, they believe evolution selected for groups of people that expressed religious beliefs over groups that did not. This process of
group selection,
which was mentioned briefly in Chapter 5 in the context of the evolution of cooperation, postulates that a gene (or group of genes) can be selected if it provides an advantage to a group of individuals operating as a social unit, even if the gene decreases any single individual’s reproductive success. For this to occur the new gene would initially have to make its way into some critical number of members of a group, but once this is achieved, it could be more likely to be passed along because social groups in which the gene is expressed would out-compete social groups lacking the gene.

The evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson, among others, contends that a set of genes that endowed individuals within a group with religious proclivities would increase the fitness of the group because it fueled a quantum leap in group cooperation.
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In his view religious beliefs allowed group members to function as a superorganism—one for all and all for one. During much of hominin (our “postape” ancestors) evolution, men would hunt and women would gather, and for the most part food would be shared. For hunter-gatherer societies to function effectively there has to be a fair amount of trust among the members; the arrangement does not work as well if there is a lot of hoarding going on. David Sloan Wilson argues that religion offered a framework to foster trust. In the presence or absence of religion, groups can come up with moral codes—along the lines of
do unto others what you would have them do unto you
. But moral codes generally do not work based on the honor system alone. Beliefs in supernatural deities, however, provided the ultimate policing system to enforce moral codes. First, the gods have eyes and ears everywhere; it is impossible to cheat without their finding out. Second, cheaters would not merely suffer the punishment of other members of the group, but the ire of supernatural beings. The threat of eternal suffering may have provided—and still does—a powerful incentive to play by the rules.

Religious beliefs may have also enhanced the fitness of a group by providing an advantage during violent conflicts with other groups. An unshakable sense of unity among the warriors, along with certainty that the spirits are on their side, and assured eternity, were as likely then, as they are now, to improve the chances of victory in battle.
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It is indeed striking that virtually all ancestral and modern religions emphasize within-group cooperation. Almost any folk or modern religion could be used as an example, but let’s consider the Klamath, a hunter-gatherer tribe that occupied Southern Oregon until contact in the early nineteenth century. The Klamath transmitted their beliefs through an oral tradition rich in tales populated with talking animals and supernatural beings.
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The content of these stories is remarkable in that the main plot often revolved around starvation, presumably because of the ever-present risk of food shortage during winter. Many of these tales contrasted two individuals or animals, one dying of hunger and the other with an abundant supply of food but who was unwilling to share. The endings were invariably the same: as a result of supernatural intervention there was a proverbial reversal of fortunes, which in some stories involved the greedy party’s being turned into a rock. These were not subtle stories; they clearly had the goal of instilling the importance of sharing resources in the hope of maximizing the survival of the tribe. Presumably the oral transmission of these stories contributed to survival not only because they inculcated altruistic behaviors among tribe members, but also because the Klamath believed that they might actually be turned into stone if they did not share their food.

The within-group altruism characteristic of most religions often stands in stark contrast to the prescribed conduct toward outsiders. For instance, in Deuteronomy (15:7–8) the Bible states:

In the face of battle with the neighboring state, however, Deuteronomy (20:13–16) instructs:

David Sloan Wilson argues that group selection provides the best (but certainly not the only) hypothesis to understand this apparent paradox.
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Mercy and kindness within a group coupled with mercilessness between groups makes sense under group selection. Members within a group are likely to share “religious genes,” so, in effect, helping thy neighbors might also help propagate the religious genes. From this perspective, however, generosity toward outsiders who might not have the same “religious genes” amounts to squandering precious resources that could be used for oneself.

“THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE”

The argument that religious beliefs were selected for because they enhanced within-group cooperation is a compelling one.
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However, the notion of group selection in general remains a controversial hypothesis because it has a serious loophole: defectors or free riders.
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If everybody in a group has the genes that underlie the religious beliefs that lead to cooperation, group selection is on fairly solid ground. If a few individuals don’t have those genes, however, they will reap the benefits of living among altruists, but not pay the individual costs of cooperation, such as sharing their food or dying in war. These individuals will eventually out-reproduce the altruists in the group and undermine the premise of group selection. There are a number of theoretical “fixes” for this problem, including the possibility that continuous warfare could from time to time wipe out tribes with too many defectors or that free riders would be punished by other members of the group. But an additional problem is that the genes that encourage religiosity would have to be present in a significant percent of the population for the group selection to come into effect. How would this come to be, if these genes don’t afford any advantage to the individuals?

Richard Dawkins has stated, “Everybody has their own pet theory of where religion comes from and why all human cultures have it.”
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I will now prove him correct by offering my own suggestion as to how, very early in human evolution, “supernatural genes” could have been adaptive to individuals. Once these genes were in place, they could have served as a platform for the further selective processes operating at the level of groups.

The computational power of the brain expanded throughout human evolution, apparently culminating with
Homo sapiens
. At some point in this process we started to use our newly acquired neocortical hardware to do something quite novel and bold: to ask and answer questions. As humans began to pose and solve problems, indulging one’s curiosity could pay off. Primitive man figured out how to make fire, build and use tools, deceive enemies, and develop agriculture. Intelligence and curiosity are ultimately the reason we now live in a world that is radically different from that in which we evolved. All modern technology is the product of a cumulative sequence of intellectual advances, driven by a presumably innate desire to ask and answer questions. But as many of us know firsthand, the ability to ask and attempt to answer questions can also be a momentous waste of time and energy.

“Hummm…here ground is muddy like near a river, maybe water in ground, me dig,” is potentially a fruitful train of thought for a thirsty
Homo erectus
(an ancestor of
Homo sapiens
that survived for over a million years), and perhaps even meritorious of a research grant in the form of help from some band mates. On the other hand, “Me very thirsty, rain comes from loud clouds in sky, how make clouds?…maybe if make rumbling sounds like thunder” is less worthy of funding. At any given time and place there are questions that have a chance of being answered within the lifespan of the individual, and others that do not. For primitive man, asking if he can make fire, use a stone to sharpen another, or wondering if a fruit-bearing tree would emerge from a seed are excellent questions—ones that are not only within his reach but that would likely increase survival and reproduction. In contrast, asking how to make it rain may not be the most productive way to spend his free time, nor would trying to figure out why, from time to time, the bodies of some members of the tribe become unresponsive and grow cold. Simply put, some questions are better off not being asked, or at least we are better off if we do not waste our time attempting to answer them. As early humans developed an increasingly impressive capacity to pose and answer questions, there may have been a very real danger of prematurely becoming philosophers—pondering mysteries outside their grasp. Evolution would have favored pragmatic can-do engineers.

But how could primitive man know which questions were likely to bear fruit and which would be barren? Perhaps brains that could compartmentalize problems into two distinct categories—which today would correspond to natural and supernatural phenomena—would be better able to focus their newly acquired cognitive skills toward productive questions and avoid wasting time trying to understand the incomprehensible and attempting to change the unchangeable. The well-known serenity prayer requests that God grant the “wisdom to know the difference” between the things that can and cannot be changed.
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In a way, natural and supernatural labels provide such wisdom: the natural is potentially within our control, whereas the supernatural is far outside our control. Undoubtedly our ancestors did not distinguish between natural and supernatural phenomenon in the way we do today, but it may have been adaptive to consciously or unconsciously discern between doable and undoable challenges. Which problems belong in each category could have been determined across generations and relied on cultural transmission.

The evolution of another computational device, digital computers, is illustrative. The invention of computers was a revolutionary turning point in modern technology. Much like the emergence of the modern brain in hominin evolution, computers and the Internet produced a game-changing shift in what is doable. The minds that contributed to the creation of computers and the World Wide Web suspected as much. They probably did not anticipate, however, that one of the most common uses of these technologies would be to allow anybody on the face of the planet to play Warcraft with any other person on the planet, or to have instant access to erotica. Video games and pornography were not originally planned or foreseen functions of computers. But any sufficiently powerful technology will be put to use for purposes other than those it was originally designed for. My point is that there was a real possibility that the newly granted computational power of the neocortex of early man could have been diverted toward applications with no adaptive value: daydreaming, collecting butterflies, playing Dungeons & Dragons, or trying to find the ultimate answer to “life, the universe, and everything.” Valid pursuits perhaps, but unlikely to increase your share in the gene pool when faced with obligatory activities, such as finding, yet not becoming, food.