Philosophy
Even though I'm not as vociferous about my antagonism toward religious belief as people like Christopher Hitchens, PZ Myers, Jerry Coyne or Bill Maher, my feelings on the subject are probably not all that different from theirs. Arguing about supernatural nonsense on ethical terms is easy, and it's only in cases of forced special pleading and unjustifiable double standards that we are willing to let religiosity get away with things that we would not grant to any other kind of ideology or belief system.
But here is a possible risk that we secularists ought to be careful about: if we want to be able to explain why religions exist and thrive, we can't let our opposition to religion be the guide. It's easy to want to argue, a la Richard Dawkins, that religion is probably just a by-product of a natural instinct to want to trust parental figures because overall that tends to work out better than the alternative. It's also easy to argue, a la Daniel Dennett, that maybe religion is the cultural and memetic equivalent of a virus that seeks to further its own interests without regard for those of its host.
Such maybes are interesting, but without more than anecdotal evidence, they are fun speculation but not very scientific. Enter David Sloan Wilson, evolutionary biologist from Binghamton University, who has been working on the scientific study of the evolution of religion (among a plethora of other cultural phenomena) for at least a decade.
In the following fascinating and thought-provoking lecture, he clarifies a lot of important evolutionary concepts, such as the distinction between proximate and ultimate explanations, neatly organizes the different kinds of hypotheses offered to explain the evolution of religion (and other meaning systems), explains how they can be framed scientifically so as to be testable, and continues to discuss some of the evidence supporting a few of these hypotheses. The man doesn't know how not to be interesting :)
And just in case the youtube version disappears at some point, here's the original:
In the interests of full disclosure, I studied evolutionary theory under Dr. Wilson, who is objectively awesome, so no bias here :)
- Can There Be A Fake Religion?
Before a meeting yesterday, I was glancing around the room at some of the older books in our religion department's library. One that caught my eye was called The World's Great Religions. I proposed other volumes for the series. For those that...
- E.o. Wilson - Advice To Young Scientists
"The world needs you, badly." That's how celebrated evolutionary biologist and entomologist E.O. Wilson (also known as Darwin's heir, or the Lord of the Ants) begins this fascinating, amusing and inspirational TEDTalk presentation encouraging...
- Debate - Is Islam A Religion Of Peace?
The question of whether Islam is a religion of peace is, as any intelligent person realizes, extremely complex. When debating any issue, philosophers are fond of trying to define their terms so that the conversation is focused and everyone understands...
- Is Atheism The New Fundamentalism?
Atheists have been around for a long time, but until recently, they usually tended to keep their free-thinking disbelief to themselves, both because they considered their opinion a personal matter and out of politeness for believers. The rise of increasingly...
- Templeton Prize Criticized
"Templeton prize is bad news for religion, not science" by Michael Brooks March 25th, 2010 NewScientist In his acceptance today of the £1 million Templeton prize for "an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension", evolutionary...
Philosophy
David Sloan Wilson - Religion and Other Meaning Systems
Even though I'm not as vociferous about my antagonism toward religious belief as people like Christopher Hitchens, PZ Myers, Jerry Coyne or Bill Maher, my feelings on the subject are probably not all that different from theirs. Arguing about supernatural nonsense on ethical terms is easy, and it's only in cases of forced special pleading and unjustifiable double standards that we are willing to let religiosity get away with things that we would not grant to any other kind of ideology or belief system.But here is a possible risk that we secularists ought to be careful about: if we want to be able to explain why religions exist and thrive, we can't let our opposition to religion be the guide. It's easy to want to argue, a la Richard Dawkins, that religion is probably just a by-product of a natural instinct to want to trust parental figures because overall that tends to work out better than the alternative. It's also easy to argue, a la Daniel Dennett, that maybe religion is the cultural and memetic equivalent of a virus that seeks to further its own interests without regard for those of its host.
Such maybes are interesting, but without more than anecdotal evidence, they are fun speculation but not very scientific. Enter David Sloan Wilson, evolutionary biologist from Binghamton University, who has been working on the scientific study of the evolution of religion (among a plethora of other cultural phenomena) for at least a decade.
In the following fascinating and thought-provoking lecture, he clarifies a lot of important evolutionary concepts, such as the distinction between proximate and ultimate explanations, neatly organizes the different kinds of hypotheses offered to explain the evolution of religion (and other meaning systems), explains how they can be framed scientifically so as to be testable, and continues to discuss some of the evidence supporting a few of these hypotheses. The man doesn't know how not to be interesting :)
And just in case the youtube version disappears at some point, here's the original:
In the interests of full disclosure, I studied evolutionary theory under Dr. Wilson, who is objectively awesome, so no bias here :)
- Can There Be A Fake Religion?
Before a meeting yesterday, I was glancing around the room at some of the older books in our religion department's library. One that caught my eye was called The World's Great Religions. I proposed other volumes for the series. For those that...
- E.o. Wilson - Advice To Young Scientists
"The world needs you, badly." That's how celebrated evolutionary biologist and entomologist E.O. Wilson (also known as Darwin's heir, or the Lord of the Ants) begins this fascinating, amusing and inspirational TEDTalk presentation encouraging...
- Debate - Is Islam A Religion Of Peace?
The question of whether Islam is a religion of peace is, as any intelligent person realizes, extremely complex. When debating any issue, philosophers are fond of trying to define their terms so that the conversation is focused and everyone understands...
- Is Atheism The New Fundamentalism?
Atheists have been around for a long time, but until recently, they usually tended to keep their free-thinking disbelief to themselves, both because they considered their opinion a personal matter and out of politeness for believers. The rise of increasingly...
- Templeton Prize Criticized
"Templeton prize is bad news for religion, not science" by Michael Brooks March 25th, 2010 NewScientist In his acceptance today of the £1 million Templeton prize for "an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension", evolutionary...