At 01:00 PM 12/4/2007, Nick Arnett wrote: snip
>You've set an impossibly high burden of proof by claiming that religion >causes evil. You'll never prove it. I don't think that's the proper model. Evolutionary psychology states that *every* human psychological trait is either the result of direct selection or a side effect of direct selection. (With a bit of possibility of something being fixed due to random genetic drift.) I think we can agree that the psychological mechanisms behind religion are a species wide psychological trait. It's known from twin studies to be at least as heritable as other personality traits. You have a choice of directly selected (like the psychological mechanism behind Stockholm syndrome) or a side effect like drug addiction. (In the EEA being wiped out on plant sap was a formula for experiencing the intestines of a predator from the inside.) I favor direct selection via a primary mortality mode in the EEA, wars between groups of humans. Here is the background: http://cniss.wustl.edu/workshoppapers/gatpres1.pdf I have gone a little further than Dr. Gat and propose that the psychological mechanism leading to wars starts with a population average "bleak outlook." Under circumstances where parents can see they won't be able to feed the kids through the next dry season, it makes genetic sense for an evolved behavioral switch to flip. So the future looks bleak enough, it is cost effective from the gene's viewpoint for a group of related males to go to war and take the high risk of dying. Of course genes want the tribe to go to war as a *group* because coordinated attacks on neighbors are a lot more likely to succeed. Even chimps agree on this point (see Goodall). I have proposed that the mechanism works thus: Detection of bad times a-coming turns up the gain on the circulation of xenophobic memes. The memes synch the tribe's warriors to make "do or die" attacks on neighbors, which (in the EEA) almost always solved the problem of a bad ratio of mouths to food. You ask: "How do religions fit in here?" What are religions? They are memes of course, but in particular religions are *xenophobic* memes. When times are good they are relatively inactive seed xenophobic memes. What we see today as religions are the result of evolved psychological mechanisms that induce groups to go to war as needed by conditions. By this model religions don't _cause_ wars. It's easy to see how religions and wars or other social disruptions are associated with religions because some meme (often a religion class meme) will be amplified up to serve as a synchronizing reason to go to war. "Evil" is a difficult concept in this model. Humans became the top predator a *long* time ago. So if conditions are such that a population anticipates a kill or starve situation, humans have to be their own predator. Do we consider lions killing zebras "evil." If you consider killing people "evil" or at least undesirable, and want to get back to a "cause," it's population growth in excess of economic growth. Malthus with method if you like. Religions are just xenophobic memes. When people feel the need to thin out the overpopulation, some meme (including memes like communism) will gain enough influence over enough people to serve as a "reason" for a war. Since they bear the children, you can blame women for wars. <grin> Of course you also have to give them credit for peace. In this model the low birth rate is the reason Western Europe has been so peaceful since WW II. If you wonder about the recent Sudan and the school teacher incident or the Danish cartoons a few years ago, it because population growth has generated a bleak future for these people. That turned up the gain on xenophobic religious memes. A substantial fraction of the population is now primed for war or related social disruptions. It wouldn't help if there were no religious memes circulating beforehand because some warrior synchronizing meme would be amplified out of the noise. >That doesn't mean you're wrong, but it >means you're acting on faith in your intuitions and experience, not reason. >Meanwhile, it's BORING to hear the same thing over and over. Do you really >imagine that one day, anybody will be enlightened by your repetition? > >In hopes of going somewhere more interesting with this topic, let me offer >this challenge -- can you (or anybody else who can stomach the subject) come >up with external causalities when religion and evil co-occur? If we're >going to argue about whether or not faith is anti-scientific, how about if >we do so in a reasonably logical manner? It only seems fitting. Is this model logical enough for you? Keith Henson _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
