Genes contribute to religious inclination

Interesting post. Helps explain why I have become religious.
If there is a gene for religiosity, then the implication is that it is an evolved trait. I can see the evolutionary advantage of religion in a species that survives best in complex social groups. That is why I don't think religion is useless.

If there is a gene for religiosity, then the implication is that it is an evolved trait.

— Katarina

RPM: I was merely throwing out a hypothetical. If you are not interested in talking about it, fine. But I agree with what you say, it is unlikely to find a gene for religion, there being so many religions first of all, and secondly, so many motives for becoming religious. No, it would be difficult to put a finger on the gene or set of genes for such a broadly defined behavior.

Makes sense to me. I have always had a suspicion that original sin was encoded in our genes. I bet if Augustine was around, he'd agree.

Imagine that David, a single mutation may make someone free of original sin.

I'm going to make my standard point that "heritablility" is not the same as "heritable." Heritability is a measure of the proportion of the variation of a trait that is due to genetic variation. Fitness traits, for example, can be completely determined by genetics, but still show zero heritability because they have zero genetic variation.

Reed A. Cartwright,

Would you expand on your comment? I don't understand why fitness traits have no genetic variation.

Isn't the Island of Dr. Moreau based on that idea? Cool movie.

Reed A. cartwright,

Would you please explain why fitness traits have no genetic variation? I am not challanging this, I just don't understand.

I don't see any problem with "religiousness" being heritable and favorable. Although "having a predisposition to being religious" would probably be a better term. Aspects of a person's psychology (perhaps being more willing to uncritically accept things that make them feel better) could be under genetic control. These traits could be favorable for all sorts of reasons, however recall that over the past few thousand years, and probably longer, people have been persecuted and killed for not holding a particular set of religious beliefs. Surely that would have lead to selective pressure against people who were stubbornly anti-religious. In the end though why people are or aren't religious is going to be exceedingly complicated.

Sorry about the double post.

What about studies that have pointed to the overall better health and longevity of religious people? Surely that would be an evolutionary advantage.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/31/health/main327496.shtml

Say there was found an atheist gene. Hypothetical thought experiment here. Say it was discovered that there was a single gene which, getting a homozygous pair of them made the person an atheist 99% of the time. My thought experiment question is, would fundamentalists support abortion when the fetus had that gene situation?

About a dozen studies have shown that religious people tend to share other personality traits, although it is not clear whether these arise from genetic or environmental factors. These include the ability to get along well with others and being conscientious, working hard, being punctual, and controlling one's impulses.

Much of the earlier literature has been summarized in William Wright's book "Born That Way." I am particularly impressed with this area as it is in accord with the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis and a deterministic view of the universe which I feel the facts, especially those concerning organic evolution, strongly indicate.

Albert Einstein put it this way:

"Our actions should be based on the ever-present awareness that human beings, in their thinking, feeling, and acting are not free but are just as causally bound as the stars in their motion."
Statement to The Spinoza Society of America, September 22, 1932

and

" Everything is determined... by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables or cosmic dust - we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by a mysterious piper."
In the Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929.

Just thoughts, but thoughts that give me pleasure.

John A. Davison

My thought experiment question is, would fundamentalists support abortion when the fetus had that gene situation?

Check out here for a quick and dirty definition of heritability. Reed is saying that heritable means that a trait is "inherited," but heritability is the measure of the proportion of phenotypic variation in a population attributable to genetic variation. In this example, religiousness is the phenotype. If there is no genetic variation in a population, then a trait has heritability=0, even though some aspect of the phenotype (or even the entire phenotype) is determined by genetics. That is why the heritability of a particular trait is only relevent within the population it was determined. I'll repeat again, it is not a very useful metric (of course not as useless as mean fitness).

I would like to know what her defintion of religiousness was? From the "new Sceintist" article it was just checking how often children who were raised in religious families continued to follow those traditions.

From what I read...the amount of change in behavior was more or less the same in twins.

My question: Is this "heretiable train" limited only to religious behavior? Could it also apply to other behaviors taught in child hood?

We may not have found a "religious" gene but maybe a "listen to your mother" gene? :)

Is this what its come to? Genes associated with thoughts and beliefs? Can we expect conservative and liberal genes? Classical and jazz genes? Impressionist and realist genes? This is absurd.

Depression is linked to thoughts of suicide. Are you saying it's absurd to think that a gene could be associated with depression?

This suggests a new strategy for defeating Creationism: Start a human breeding program.

A gene could be associated with depression because it may cause a decrease in a certain hormone that would make the individual depressed. However, how could a gene be associated with religiousness? The idea seems rediculous. What's next? Genes for determining whether a person believes that there is life in outer space?

Religiousness very well may be based on hormones or have some other chemical basis in the brain. We're talking about feelings of conviction and the occasional state of bliss, not academic notions such as whether there's life in space.

Hasn't Dawkins suggested that, since humans are relatively slow to mature and require parental assistance for an extended period of time, the tendency to take arbitrary statements "on faith" in early childhood is a survival characteristic? Not being equipped with much in the line of instinct, it behooves infants and very young children to behave (as Patrick Harris said, "listen to your mother") willy nilly and hope for the best.

Now, what if much of what is imparted at this age goes beyond health and safety directives, and includes, uh, highly speculative material presented as flat take-it-or-leave-it fact? What if this in a position to impart this information know this, and do so for that very reason?

Now, why would identical twins (all else being equal!) tend to diverge less from such early instruction than fraternal twins as they grew older? It seems possible that this tendency to stay alike is genetic, but alike "about religion" is a red herring, because they stay alike more across the board.

My comment merely showed that associating genes with thoughts is not in principle absurd. Whether there's a link between x gene and y belief is a different question.

Title: Handedness and Religious Beliefs Authors: Douglas Degelman, Denee Heinrichs, and Hisashi Ishitobi Affiliation: Vanguard University of Southern California Introduction: Niebauer, Christman, Reid, & Garvey (in press) have found that strongly-handed individuals, whose two cerebral hemispheres may interact less than mixed-handed individuals, were more likely than mixed-handed individuals to believe in Biblical creationist accounts of human origins. Niebauer et al. argue that the two hemispheres are involved differently in how individuals maintain and update their beliefs, with the left hemisphere more involved in maintaining consistency of beliefs and the right hemisphere more involved in monitoring beliefs and registering inconsistencies. If interhemispheric communication underlies the updating of beliefs, and if strongly-handed individuals evidence less interhemispheric interaction than mixed-handed individuals, then strongly-handed individuals may be more likely than mixed-handed individuals to maintain religious beliefs that have been uncritically held.

Conservative and liberal genes were anticipated by Gilbert and Sullivan before the dawn of the 20th century:

"Every boy and every girl that is born into the world alive,
Is either a little liberal or a little conservative."
Iolanthe

Liberal versus conservative biases have already been demonstrated to have a genetic basis. I recommend William Wright's book "Born That Way."

That is why I am so taken with Ann Coulter. We both see the world the same way. It is in general accord with the the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis that everything, and I mean everything, is genetic. Don't blame me. That is the way it is. Get used to it, that is if your genes will allow it.

John A. Davison

In my not even slightly humble opinion, religion is one of the primary reasons that we are the only remaining large primate species within our genus, and unquestionably the dominant organism in our size range.

One of the benefits religion conveys is the ability to transmit complex information intact across many generations. If an apparently irrational "don't eat those -- they are unclean" holy prohibition only prevents one massive red tide shellfish poisoning episode every five generations, it has proved its worth.

Another advantage is indirect: because of the nonlocal social cohesion that religion promotes, there is no practical upper limit to the size of a human war party. Such was apparently not the case with any of our late competitors.

Just ask anybody in the Balkans about the role of religion in establishing group identity.

Ok. So, this is kind of like when I'm gambling and I don't know what the next card, then the feeling I get of what it might be is encoded in my genes? How so?

Title: Handedness and Religious Beliefs Authors: Douglas Degelman, Denee Heinrichs, and Hisashi Ishitobi Affiliation: Vanguard University of Southern California Introduction: Niebauer, Christman, Reid, & Garvey (in press) have found that strongly-handed individuals, whose two cerebral hemispheres may interact less than mixed-handed individuals, were more likely than mixed-handed individuals to believe in Biblical creationist accounts of human origins. Niebauer et al. argue that the two hemispheres are involved differently in how individuals maintain and update their beliefs, with the left hemisphere more involved in maintaining consistency of beliefs and the right hemisphere more involved in monitoring beliefs and registering inconsistencies. If interhemispheric communication underlies the updating of beliefs, and if strongly-handed individuals evidence less interhemispheric interaction than mixed-handed individuals, then strongly-handed individuals may be more likely than mixed-handed individuals to maintain religious beliefs that have been uncritically held.

I'm 100% certain that living organisms were designed. Anybody care to show the genes that caused me to come to that conclusion?

I'm going to make my standard point that "heritablility" is not the same as "heritable." Heritability is a measure of the proportion of the variation of a trait that is due to genetic variation. Fitness traits, for example, can be completely determined by genetics, but still show zero heritability because they have zero genetic variation.

I'm 100% certain that living organisms were designed.

Attending religious services, and praying are based upon beliefs just like believing whether or not life exists in outer space, so my comment earlier is totally relevent. But, however, you may believe that such behaviours are totally useless and a waste of time and therefore don't engage in such behaviours. From the study, they appear to be showing that there is an 'attend church' gene or a 'pray' gene or a 'I will carry around Jack Chick tracts in my pocket' gene. It is so absurd it is laughable.

I would have been really surprised if there was no genetic component. Nature/nurture is simply a false dichotomy and IMHO a rather silly dichotomy at that.

--
Anti-spam: Replace "user" with "harlequin2"

Jeff Low wrote: But, however, you may believe that such behaviours are totally useless and a waste of time and therefore don't engage in such behaviours.

"This suggests a new strategy for defeating Creationism: Start a human breeding program."

Great idea; and I'm just the mad scientist to pull this off! who's with me?

It's time for a new sexual revolution! Scientists! free yourself and breed! for the sake of all of us!

We could turn the next noble prize meeting into a scientific woodstock!

seriously tho, the longer you think about, the more it makes sense...

cheers

Speculating on evolutionary advantage:
Couldn't (the tendency for) religiousness be a byproduct of our ability to recognize patterns? There is a great advantage to that ability, even though it sometimes makes us see patterns that aren't really there.
It would be interesting to see how well religiousness correlates with that and other traits.

An interesting methological question would be what the null value for religiousness is: religious disinterest or a strong anti-religious conviction? Or is the latter covered as a belief system all its own?
Another exciting analysis would be whether high rationality and strong religiousness are in some way exclusive or independent. The latter outcome would give prime evidence against a favoured creationist lie.

Religiousness very well may be based on hormones or have some other chemical basis in the brain. We're talking about feelings of conviction and the occasional state of bliss, not academic notions such as whether there's life in space.

— wbrameld4

Another exciting analysis would be whether high rationality and strong religiousness are in some way exclusive or independent.

— jonas

Religiousness very well may be based on hormones or have some other chemical basis in the brain. We're talking about feelings of conviction and the occasional state of bliss, not academic notions such as whether there's life in space.

— wbrameld4

Another exciting analysis would be whether high rationality and strong religiousness are in some way exclusive or independent.

— jonas

Darn it, I double posted again. But the second post has a better ending, so may I ask that the first one be deleted?

sir_toejam:  your suggestion has already been implemented, IIRC, by a certain solid-state physicist named Shockley.  His, er, political views may have contaminated the concept in the public mind.

However, I've got a Cuckoo's Egg concept that might work.  Most people doing science are devoted to their work, and aren't willing to take the time (or don't have the money, in their expensive parts of the world) to raise a large brood.  But that doesn't mean they can't leave a bunch of offspring.

Consider the public furor over "frozen babies", the leftover embryos from fertility clinics.  There is no reason why these cannot be donated to couples who don't have the money for their own IVF procedures... or to people with a religious motivation to "save" them.  Why not find very bright, a-religious people in good health, get donated or purchased gametes, and then make the embryos available for donation?

One of the benefits religion conveys is the ability to transmit complex information intact across many generations. If an apparently irrational "don't eat those --- they are unclean" holy prohibition only prevents one massive red tide shellfish poisoning episode every five generations, it has proved its worth.

Is this what its come to? Genes associated with thoughts and beliefs? Can we expect conservative and liberal genes?

This suggests a new strategy for defeating Creationism: Start a human breeding program.

And they are inheritable. And people tend to hookup and mate with folks of like-minded POVs. And thus produce children with like-minded POVs.

Another advantage is indirect: because of the nonlocal social cohesion that religion promotes, there is no practical upper limit to the size of a human war party.

— Michael Rathbun

"Anybody care to show the genes that caused me to come to that conclusion [that all organisms were designed]?"

Genes didn't do that, silly.

God TOLD you to think that!

It is to the advantage of people who would like to create a war in a certain region, if the region is home to people of different ethnicities or religious backgrounds. In times of war, the feeling of patriotism get heightened, and the religion that is identified with the group becomes part of the patriotism. This happened in the Balkans, for before the wars people did not put as much emphasis on their religions.

Religion can serve on a personal basis, as it does for me, to stabilize emotions, or it can serve on a much different level, as it does for leaders who wish to use religion in order to mobilize people into war. People who have a desire to protect their group's religion, if they feel that is under attack, have a much better motive to fight than people who are paid soldiers, or who do not really know what the final aims of the war are, except to gain new territory and resources.

"The problem is that the conservative creationists out-breed liberals like crazy . . . thekeez"

That is why educating us genetically inferior folk won't work. Are genes program us to breed and believe in the supernatural. Thus, any comprehensive social engineering program to try and sell evolution to the public is going to have problems.

How can you blame an IDer or creationist for being ignorant. Ignorance implies an ability to comprehend that may not be there. No we inferior masses are able to become scientists, engineers, physicians, authors, but unfortunately have genes that promote supernatural beliefs and make us question evolution.

Honestly, if you really believe genetics is plays a role in religiousity and rejection of evolution, what is your solution? Can environmental factors overcome this genetic flaw? Are breeding control mechanisms needed?

If you’re trying to say the holiness kosher laws in the Hebrew scriptures are covert health and fitness primers, you’re on real shaky ground. Most serious Biblical scholars would probably agree that the point of the kosher laws was to contribute to the Israelis maintaining their cultural identity - apart from the other peoples in the region.

— Jeff Keezel

This might lead one to ask, if religion really promotes “nonlocal social cohesion”, how is it that these war parties are forming? Perhaps you consider warfare an implementation of cohesion?

— Bayesian Bouffant

Makes sense to me. I have always had a suspicion that original sin was encoded in our genes. I bet if Augustine was around, he'd agree.

— David Heddle

Imagine that David, a single mutation may make someone free of original sin.

— PvM

Andrew,

PvM recognized (I think) my comment as tongue-in-cheek, as it was intended, to match the whole tone of the thread, which, at least at the start, had an undercurrent of amusement. (Which is not to say I haven't speculated on the possibility, but nowhere do I claim it has any scientific basis.) So, sir, it was not I but you who said something ridiculous. I am reminded of China, when a couple years ago the China Daily News ridiculed America in an editorial based on information obtained in an article published in the Onion, which they took seriously. They at least have a cultural excuse.

I didn't respond to PvM because I took it as a continuation of the joke.

As for "pseudo-science", I have more than fifty peer-reviewed publications. I'm assuming your productivity is far greater---which permits you to make such lofty pronouncements.

You might also have taken the trouble to discover that I am not an ID proponent it the sense (Irreducible Complexity vs evolution) that it is used here, nor am I a YEC.

I'm totally out to sea here.
If religion is genetic, then why do genes matter more later in life?
Does "heritable" mean the same thing as genetic?
I plan to adopt some day and raise my child in a church (go UU!). Since I will adopt the child, does that mean there will be zero correlation between my child's religiosity and my own?
How would a gene for religiosity even work?
Am I correct in thinking that "heritability" is only the correlation between parents and offspring? We then infer that the correlation is due to genes and not upbringing (or SES or community)?
I am going into a similar line of work as my father. In my teen years, I would have hated doing so, but as I round out my twenties it seems much more important. Is my career choice also genetic?
Help!
Love the site!

We are all victims of our prescribed, front-loaded genetic heritage and none of it has anything to do with any formal religion. Evolution is finished and we are its final products. Get used to it. I have.

John A. Davison

Oh sorry, I linked over to the New Scientist article and now I think I understand the argument. Sorry to take up your bandwith! :)

As for "pseudo-science", I have more than fifty peer-reviewed publications. I'm assuming your productivity is far greater---which permits you to make such lofty pronouncements.

What may be interesting if that for the first time in evolutionary history 'religious' binding may be unnecessary and given the current state of upheaval with this subject a 'shift' is occurring that makes a rational person more likely to prosper.

Just a thought.

Uber,

Fair point. After my BP dropped I wished I could have deleted that part.

PvM recognized (I think) my comment as tongue-in-cheek, as it was intended, to match the whole tone of the thread, which, at least at the start, had an undercurrent of amusement.

— David Heddle

Makes sense to me. I have always had a suspicion that original sin was encoded in our genes. I bet if Augustine was around, he'd agree.

— David Heddle

Saint Augustine appealed to the Pauline-apocalyptic understanding of the forgiveness of sin, but he also included the notion that sin is transmitted from generation to generation by the act of procreation.

PvM,

I apologize for misrepresenting you.

A big thank you to David Heddle (He Lives), for providing me with a copy of a presentation he gave on Intelligent Design. His material complements Lee Strobel's book rather well.

You might also have taken the trouble to discover that I am not an ID proponent it the sense (Irreducible Complexity vs evolution) that it is used here, nor am I a YEC.

I teach Sunday Schools on ID, give ID lectures at the Rotary, and have snuck ID lectures into university physics courses. I always start with an aphorism that I think is relevant.

When science and the bible disagree, the bible is always right. When science and Christians disagree, Christians are sometimes wrong.

How would you say that evolution deals with the irreducible complexity argument? Personally I find it very weak on that topic. That is an example of a place where ID, in my opinion, does substantively better than evolution.

This is disappointing to me. I am a Christian but I do not accept the bible as infallable. I see the book more as a metaphor with alot of primitive myth abounding. My faith is my faith, period.

To say the bible is always correct is quite scary and it smacks of arrogance. The fact that he 'sneaks' ID in is simply dishonest intellectually and personally.

When science and the bible disagree, the bible is always right. When science and Christians disagree, Christians are sometimes wrong.

I am a Christian but I do not accept the bible as infallable.

Well, I just had a whole lot to say about this over on my blog (if anyone cares). I think the "religion vs. science" debate is mostly bullhockey; this is more a "liberal vs. conservative" debate. A blinding glimpse of the obvious, maybe, but it bears repeating.

Many working scientists are also committed Christians (Kenneth R. Miller), while many atheists are scientific illiterates.

Some may argue that I am conflating religion with culture; however, this distinction is a modern Western concept

Luminous Beauty:

That was amazing: over 100 words and you didn't actually say a damned thing. Are you sure you're not just taking stuff from the postmodern generator?

Luminous Beauty:

That was amazing: over 100 words and you didn't actually say a damned thing. Are you sure you're not just taking stuff from the postmodern generator?

That's nice for you. How do you know which parts are true and which aren't? Maybe all the promises for salvation are fiction and the only true part is God commanding Joshua to slaughter entire nations.

I think the "religion vs. science" debate is mostly bullhockey; this is more a "liberal vs. conservative" debate. A blinding glimpse of the obvious, maybe, but it bears repeating.

Many working scientists are also committed Christians (Kenneth R. Miller), while many atheists are scientific illiterates

Luminous Beauty: That was amazing: over 100 words and you didn’t actually say a damned thing. Are you sure you’re not just taking stuff from the postmodern generator?

— Monty

Luminous Beauty: That was amazing: over 100 words and you didn't actually say a damned thing.

It is difficult to get folks who are wedded to western prejudice, whether of religious or scientific inclination, to consider religion as an evolving set of empirically verifiable spiritual practices legitimized by a lineage of personal instruction rather than an institutionalized set of doctrinal beliefs based on textual interpretation

RE: encoding original sin in DNA.

Just for the record, I assumed David was making a joke. I got a chuckle out of it. Thanks David.

All the blather on this topic assumes we've got a good scientific definition of what religiosity is. That's a questionable assumption, given the range of behavior that masquerades as religious. From my limited experience, some of the most "religious" people---religious in the sense that they hold themselves to much higher ethical standards and sense of duty to their surroundings than the self identified religious---I know are atheists.

I think your experience is not the exception Keanus but the norm.

What one believes doesn't necessarily change who one is. A tyrant would likely be a tyrant with or without religion. Likewise a kind person will be the same with or without religion.

I await an answer from any Social Engineers on this forum.

Creationism/ID keep coming back despite 150 years worth of scientific evidence in support of evolution. I have heard all sorts of arguments as to how society suffers from the persistant refusal of a large segment to accept evolution.

If you really believe genetics is plays a role in religiousity and rejection of evolution, what is your solution? Can environmental factors overcome this genetic flaw by perhaps imposing governmental restrictions on religious expression? Are breeding control mechanisms needed?

Anti-evolution is the doctrine of a very small set of all religious beliefs. No intrinsic incompatability. Shall we, as Jesus advised, separate the wheat from the chaff?

You might also have taken the trouble to discover that I am not an ID proponent it the sense (Irreducible Complexity vs evolution) that it is used here, nor am I a YEC.

— David Heddle

Can you point to someplace on here where I argue that IC is true and evolution is false? My position has always been that Behe does a much better job at making his IC case for the general public than evolution does, and that the simple responses to Behe are not as compelling. That is still my position. But as to my ultimate view on evolution I am ambivalent. In truth---evolution is too soft of a science for my tastes.

— David Heddle

So do you agree that the Democrats might have lost the recent election because of Roe v. Wade? The theory being that there is enough pro-Democrat bias in those who obtain abortions, and that through the residual bias that would have been present (according to your comment) in their offspring, millions of which would now be of voting age had they not been killed, that they might have changed the outcome, say, in Ohio?

I assume you don't mean simply that they were designed by evolution.

I have heard all sorts of arguments as to how society suffers from the persistant refusal of a large segment to accept evolution. If you really believe genetics is plays a role in religiousity and rejection of evolution, what is your solution? Can environmental factors overcome this genetic flaw by perhaps imposing governmental restrictions on religious expression? Are breeding control mechanisms needed?

I am surprised this is considered news, I have known of it for years.

The sad thing is that if there really is a link then mutations may introduce this irrational and damaging superstition back into a nicely secular society.

And what if, heaven forbid, gene duplication multiplies the trait in to wild eyed fanatacism?

We would have to go through the reformation and enlightenment all over again.

Hmmm, another thought. Do you think it is coincidence I come from an ancient line of atheists?

Jan: you have a severe reading comprehension problem. I suggest you get that looked at.

As for "pseudo-science", I have more than fifty peer-reviewed publications.

We are all victims of our prescribed, front-loaded genetic heritage and none of it has anything to do with any formal religion. Evolution is finished and we are its final products. Get used to it. I have.

This is disappointing to me. I am a Christian but I do not accept the bible as infallable. I see the book more as a metaphor with alot of primitive myth abounding. My faith is my faith, period.

To say the bible is always correct is quite scary and it smacks of arrogance.

How do you know which parts are true and which aren't?

I think the "religion vs. science" debate is mostly bullhockey; this is more a "liberal vs. conservative" debate. A blinding glimpse of the obvious, maybe, but it bears repeating.

I have no more evidence for my BELIEF than you do, the difference is I admit it. Just because you believe the entire this is literal doesn't make your belief any more correct than any other view.

I have no more evidence for my BELIEF than you do, the difference is I admit it. Just because you believe the entire this is literal doesn't make your belief any more correct than any other view.

Dr Lenny isn't giving Prof. Heddle enough credit for his subtle positions:

He wrote a novel "that shows the power of Intelligent Design" but never used ID in his any of his scientific work.

He sees ID in the structure of the whole universe but not in the living part of it.

He is not an opponent of evolution but lists Pandasthumb and pharyngula under "Pseudo-cience" on his web site.

He believes that the Bible contains no errors but is not literally true.

He teaches Sunday School in a Baptist Church but is not a Baptist.

He is the head of his household but has never actually overriden his wife in making a decision (you gotta dig for this one).

You might also have taken the trouble to discover that I am not an ID proponent it the sense (Irreducible Complexity vs evolution) that it is used here, nor am I a YEC.

Can you point to someplace on here where I argue that IC is true and evolution is false? My position has always been that Behe does a much better job at making his IC case for the general public than evolution does, and that the simple responses to Behe are not as compelling. That is still my position. But as to my ultimate view on evolution I am ambivalent. In truth---evolution is too soft of a science for my tastes.

How would you say that evolution deals with the irreducible complexity argument? Personally I find it very weak on that topic. That is an example of a place where ID, in my opinion, does substantively better than evolution. Posted by David Heddle at January 28, 2004 03:04 PM

ID is testable, in spite of your claims. There are cosmological tests, which have nothing to do with evolution. Sticking to biology, ID states that God created (sometimes reintroduced) and then made extinct many species to create the bio resources that man would need. Though it does not take a literal view of the genesis account, it does takes a chronological view. So one trivial test is that the fossil record should match the biblical order. It does. If the bible had said mammals predated life in the seas, there would be a serious problem. Posted by David Heddle at January 29, 2004 11:32 AM

When science and the bible disagree, the bible is always right. When science and Christians disagree, Christians are sometimes wrong.

...the first sentence in the statement doesn't ever come into play.

When science and the bible disagree, the bible is always right.

Even if tendency to "religion" were to appear heritable, maybe all that's inherited is a tendency to prefer following along with either authority or the crowd?

Henry

I'd argue that religion is a subset of culture in the western conceptual frame, however, in eastern or indigenous cultures where different religious beliefs co-exist as distinct traditions and/or in synthetic relations the idea is more subtly understood. One of the problems of the western tradition is its cultural narcisism. Religion is generally understood relative to its exclusivist mono-theistic, distinctively western forms. It is difficult to get folks who are wedded to western prejudice, whether of religious or scientific inclination, to consider religion as an evolving set of empirically verifiable spiritual practices legitimized by a lineage of personal instruction rather than an institutionalized set of doctrinal beliefs based on textual interpretation.

— Luminous beauty

I can't believe there are all these comments and only one that made sense to me(Katarina)
The "religious gene" relates to the individual's ability to sense mystical events. Which may be similar to "psychic ability". If you can feel that, then you'll understand religion on some fundamental level if you allow yourself to experience it. If you can't feel that, then you muddle through life with many more doubts.

There's nothing wrong with accepting/rejecting religion anyway - it all comes down to how you treat others and whether you make the world a better place.

Notice that some religious people die for what they believe, some stand up to the government and say "you are WRONG!" These do not all "go with the crowd", instead they show that they have the strength to fight the good fight. Max Schindler. Corrie Ten Boom. Deitrich Bonhoffer.

The "religious gene" relates to the individual's ability to sense mystical events. Which may be similar to "psychic ability". If you can feel that, then you'll understand religion on some fundamental level if you allow yourself to experience it.

— Harriet

David Heddle said: So do you agree that the Democrats might have lost the recent election because of Roe v. Wade? The theory being that there is enough pro-Democrat bias in those who obtain abortions, and that through the residual bias that would have been present (according to your comment) in their offspring, millions of which would now be of voting age had they not been killed, that they might have changed the outcome, say, in Ohio?

"Every boy and girl that is born into the world alive,
Is either a little liberal or a little conservative."

Gilbert and Sullivan, Iolanthe

Please someone show me some characteristic that does not have a genetic component of some sort.

Everything is genetic and everything has been predetermined. How do you like them apples?

John A. Davison

I believe that many who obtain abortions are conservative girls who are living in strict, conservative homes where an unplanned pregnancy would be a major, major family crisis.

but overall, the highest abortion rates are in blue states/areas, like D.C, California, Jersey, and Hawaii.

I want to see studies of what happens to the abortion and STD rates in communities after they replace comprehensive sex ed with abstinence-only info.

According to the U.S. Department of Health Services, National Vital Statistics Reports in December 2003, birth rates for teenagers continued to fall in 2002, reaching record lows for the United States. The birth rate for teenagers 15 to 19 dropped 5 percent between 2001 and 2002, from 45.3 women per 1,000 women to 43 women per 1,000 women. Births to the youngest teenagers (ages 10 to 14) have declined from 12,000 to 13,000 in the mid-1990s, to 7,315 in 2002. http://myopr.com/articles/2005/03/19/news/local_state/news01.txt

The explanation for why humans are religious can be found in brain size with no need to search for genes. Humans were the first animals to have a brain of sufficient complexity to develop self awareness, the concept of the future, and our own death. This awareness leads to a lot of questions about the world we live in. But all this happened at a primitive time before science had found answers in nature to many of the questions. Since it is comforting to have answers and discomforting not to, and since no natural answers were available those primitive humans found answers in the supernatural. Particular humans who were the most creative in inventing answers in the form of stories and legends also discovered that they would enjoy an elevated status among their fellow humans.

The proponents of creationism and ID are modern counterparts of the ancient shamins who gained status by spinning a good tale on the big questions of the day.

I want to see studies of what happens to the abortion and STD rates in communities after they replace comprehensive sex ed with abstinence-only info. There's nothing like good meaty data.

There's a lot of back and forth on what "religion is" in relation to the reported results. But I think that's really beside the point, because the point of the study was to compare relatedness to the tendency to "be religious" in a manner measurable by science, presumably through observance of the practices of organized religion.

I do wish that the report made greater mention of the complexities in the psychology of religion. There isn't too much reason to suppose that it simply involves belief in authority, as some have suggested, but it might include that factor along with many others, including psycho-social factors and the ill-defined "spiritual sense" that likely is involved in religious adherance.

What I especially don't like is belief in the "spiritual gene", or the "spiritual part" of the brain. One really has more reason to ask why some (more the Western and Westernized) humans have become as relatively non-spiritual as they have, than to ask what makes anyone spiritual. For it seems that we begin our more recent cultural evolution, as well as our personal developmental histories, with the sort of wonder and "magical connection" of one phenomenon to another that is involved in the "spiritual experience".

Of course there isn't any one "spiritual experience" either, since a communal calm and the color blasts of an acid trip can both be thought of as being "spiritual experience". What unites both seems to be little more than the sense of connection, beyond reason and comprehension, the sorts of connections that we make prior to "reasoning" that colliding balls "must" do what they do. That is to say, we investigate the world originally in a sort of "magical" spiritual sort of way.

What seems to have happened in the past few hundred years, particularly, is that we have learned how to use rigid (often rigid, though not always) mathematical and rational means of dealing with phenomena, even with the phenomena which do not work according to the Newtonian model. This has necessarily pre-empted the use of less predictive means of dealing with the world, including spiritual connections and traditional knowledge (yes, I know that the latter has some use, but much is now properly neglected).

Yet the creative side of science may still very well be thought of as being a part of the "spiritual thinking" that finds connections before there is sufficient reason to "believe in" such connections. And it might seem odd, but it is this type of thinking that is so lacking in the "ID theorists", who never imagine anything except a kind of Newtonian engineering of "human machines".

Evolution is not religion, far from it, for it insists upon similar processes of adaption and change (of course not similar outcomes, other than in certain aspects under certain pressures) in different organisms residing in different environments. However, it does rely on the human capacity for discerning connections which are not rigidly programmed by simple cause and effect mechanisms.

One has to cast off the Newtonian/programming mode of thought in order to recognize the connections and correlations which are predicted by mutation, natural selection, and the limitations imposed by descent. While quantitative methods are important in evolutionary biology, the initiation into thinking in this mode of understanding requires some of the imagination and comprehensive understanding that is necessary for recognizing connections between languages and stories such as some of those found in Genesis, or in Homer.

Evolutionary thought retains some of the pre-Newtonian empirical methods, then. It is ID that insists that everything has to be understood in top-down engineering/programming terms, and it is because of this that indeed it is those who have been taught to think relatively rigidly (at least on the strictly causal level, if not in the "grand design") who typically glom onto "intelligent design". Even to understand, say, birds as "designed machines" is offensive to the human spiritual senses of the world, and in a different way, it is offensive to the understanding that science has of the complex and highly derivative phenomena that we observe in living organisms, in culture, and in language.

The reductionists are firmly within the ID and creationism camps. Spiritual beings do not understand organisms to be designed (at least not in the same sense as we understand finite "human design"), nor does science. To reduce the complexities and intricacies of living organisms to the mechanics of design not only misunderstands what would be expected of design, but also treats the decidedly unmachine-like birds as if they were merely robots. I can't think of a worse spiritual or intellectual affront than to claim that birds are reducible to design.

On the practical level, archaeologists and others easily differentiate between "designed objects" and birds. Why? Because birds are not "designed for" something, they are more complex than any design that has ever been produced (and if someday we surpass such complexity in our designs, it will be through a long process of design evolution, for we cannot foresee many of the problems found in complex design, and must learn empirically what these are), they do not present the simplicity of design expected from engineering, and perhaps most important of all, they are not made of optimal materials designed for function. Birds are made of good materials, but are severely limited in function by hereditary limits and also by biological limits (no bird as large as our planes could fly--engineering has in a hundred years well-bypassed the limits imposed on birds by biological evolution. And we'd have no problem recognizing that planes are designed, while birds are quite different from plane designs, or any other kind of designs).

Even on the face of it, we do not recognize living organisms as "designed". One has to equivocate with that term even to begin to suggest "design" of organisms. Paley and some earlier thinkers did equivocate, under the influence of mechanistic/deistic thinking, but they never showed how "design" was visible in something so spiritual (or "spiritual") as a bird. It isn't, and only those stuck in the belief in the comprehensiveness of their mathematical, logical design training could ever mistake a bird for an automaton.

Often it is suggested that we could easily discern alien designs if we encountered them. This is true, so long as they are not mimicking "nature" in some way to create life exactly as if it had evolved. At our level of design capabilities, we can easily differentiate between design and life, and any aliens at our level also could not possibly "design life". But even if they did, we could almost certainly recognize how their designed life differed from evolved life, using genetics, design criteria, and by what this life was doing. That is to say, we generally can discern even our slight modifications of wild organisms, for they differ in important ways from what would be expected from "Darwinian evolution".

The "spiritual sense" that began our quest for knowledge can sometimes lead us astray. However it hasn't brought us any mistakes in understanding life to be something quite different from "designed objects". Science remains true to our spiritual/intellectual heritage, while mechanistic/deistic apologists invoke a Newtonian strain of thought to falsify life into automata.

Wow - what Glen said...thekeez

Comment #21390 Posted by Ken Willis on March 21, 2005 12:07 PM ... Humans were the first animals to have a brain of sufficient complexity to develop self awareness, the concept of the future, and our own death. ...

— Ken Willis

"Even to understand, say, birds as "designed machines" is offensive to the human spiritual senses of the world...."

You are failing to understand that a design, and even a machine, can be a work of art. Throughout your post you set in opposition that which is complementary. Upon the foundation of a grid of pixel...that "hard," "cold," "mechanistic," or even "reductionist," Yikes!...a beautiful painting can be created. A work of art is always reliant upon its base, crass materials. Your position amounts to arguing that because computers are based on "cold" or "unspiritual" calculations that an artist cannot use a computer to design a work of art.

Etc.

There is no contradiction. You seem to have an urge to merge, so you feel there is some contradiction between the mechanical or mathematical and a "sense of connection." Yet the mechanical and mathematical have proven to be married and connected to living things, whether you have a sense of it or not. It is odd that humans can write down an equation and it "fits" or symbolizes physical reality itself. It is even more odd that they can build their little symbols up in codes and make equations with them that actually turn out to fit physical reality. That is a true "connection" to the way things are. Perhaps it is based on our sense of connection itself.

I'd suggest the book, The Privileged Planet, which demonstrates a correlation between habitability and measurability.

You seem to be just throwing things out here, mixed in with some mysticism.

"....[birds] are not made of optimal materials designed for function."

What material would you use to make something self-replicating that could last millions of years?

"One has to cast off the Newtonian/programming mode of thought in order to recognize the connections and correlations which are predicted by mutation...."

Why do you suppose that evolutionists make computer programs to try to model evolution? It seems that you have a more mystical view of evolution than they do. Mysticism typically seems nice, somehow....a connection, intuition or somethin', yeah...who needs mathematics? I mean, that's like robots!

Yet the mysts of mysticism tend to dissipate with little questioning.

Part of the reason that Paley's watch analogy seemed so plausible at the end of the 18th Century is because the dominant view of living things was mechanical. Even a human body was conceived of as a contraption operated by a soul. There is an alternative way of looking at the teleology of nature, however, one in which the essence of life is precisely its autonomy, i.e. living things are ends in themselves that demonstrate what Immanual Kant called "purposiveness without a purpose." A watch is a gizmo that serves human ends. A cat is complete in herself. She isn't for something.

Genes contribute to religious inclination, eh...

Sounds reasonable.

I wonder if any genes contribute to accidently releasing documents which spill the beans on your hidden pseudosecular strategy.

D'oh!

That's such a funny event. I hope to pull up PT one day and see The Exposed Wedgie: A Look Back

Also, I wonder if the plaintifs in Dover will find a way to get the Wedge Document into evidence. Judges are smart people. The number one Intelligent Design quackhouse accidently releasing an internal document explaining that the long-term strategy with ID is to promote Jesus, should seal the deal on the legality of Creationism II.

What if aliens landed on earth tomorrow. Through our interactions with them we learn that they encompass many different variations (races) of their species similar to our own (cultural and physical) races, on many different continents across many different planets, a population numbering trillions, with innumerable viewpoints and positions on subjects suitably vast and diverse.

But, despite such diversity of thought, we learn that they don't have religion. Any religion. In any form or format. They don't even have a concept for religion or words in their language to express the concept they don't have. They are completely perplexed by us and our efforts to explain what a religion is. They can't conceive of how a person could acquire knowledge through the (to them) non-concept we call revelation and don't understand how something (a god) could exist and not be a part of what exists(the universe). It is all just delusions in our head they think.

We, however, would know that these aliens know what science is without them even having to tell us, because they had acquired the knowledge and technology to build the ships to traverse the stars and extend their own lifespans sufficient to make the journey. From quantum physics to bio-engineering they know it all.

My question is this. Would their lack of a religious position be a religious position in and of itself. If so, why? If not, then why must atheists and agnostics constantly deal with being told that they are just as religious as theists. How does one argue with that non-sequitar?

Sincerely,

Paul

"Even to understand, say, birds as "designed machines" is offensive to the human spiritual senses of the world . . . ." You are failing to understand that a design, and even a machine, can be a work of art. Throughout your post you set in opposition that which is complementary. Upon the foundation of a grid of pixel . . . that "hard," "cold," "mechanistic," or even "reductionist," Yikes! . . . a beautiful painting can be created. A work of art is always reliant upon its base, crass materials.

Your position amounts to arguing that because computers are based on "cold" or "unspiritual" calculations that an artist cannot use a computer to design a work of art.[/font] No, I was pointing strictly to the mechanistic and mathematical models used to "prove" design. Don't change the subject and attempt to create your own incorrect version of what I wrote and how I see things. No one is actually claiming that birds are "artistic designs" (they are not), and I did not discuss artistic design because of this fact. I don't know why you have to claim that I fail to recognize the possibility of combining design engineering with artistry, particularly when I brought up the recognition of design in archaeology. Most archaeological design does combine both artistic and functional design, which is important to identifying design among archaeological artifacts. There is no contradiction. You seem to have an urge to merge, so you feel there is some contradiction between the mechanical or mathematical and a "sense of connection." Yet the mechanical and mathematical have proven to be married and connected to living things, whether you have a sense of it or not.

It is odd that humans can write down an equation and it "fits" or symbolizes physical reality itself. It is even more odd that they can build their little symbols up in codes and make equations with them that actually turn out to fit physical reality. That is a true "connection" to the way things are. Perhaps it is based on our sense of connection itself.

I'd suggest the book, The Privileged Planet, which demonstrates a correlation between habitability and measurability.

You seem to be just throwing things out here, mixed in with some mysticism.

" . . . .[birds] are not made of optimal materials designed for function." What material would you use to make something self-replicating that could last millions of years?

One has to cast off the Newtonian/programming mode of thought in order to recognize the connections and correlations which are predicted by mutation . . . ." Why do you suppose that evolutionists make computer programs to try to model evolution?

It seems that you have a more mystical view of evolution than they do.

Mysticism typically seems nice, somehow . . . .a connection, intuition or somethin', yeah . . . who needs mathematics? I mean, that's like robots! Yet the mysts of mysticism tend to dissipate with little questioning.

"Even to understand, say, birds as "designed machines" is offensive to the human spiritual senses of the world . . . ." You are failing to understand that a design, and even a machine, can be a work of art. Throughout your post you set in opposition that which is complementary. Upon the foundation of a grid of pixel . . . that "hard," "cold," "mechanistic," or even "reductionist," Yikes! . . . a beautiful painting can be created. A work of art is always reliant upon its base, crass materials.

Your position amounts to arguing that because computers are based on "cold" or "unspiritual" calculations that an artist cannot use a computer to design a work of art.[/font] No, I was pointing strictly to the mechanistic and mathematical models used to "prove" design. Don't change the subject and attempt to create your own incorrect version of what I wrote and how I see things. No one is actually claiming that birds are "artistic designs" (they are not), and I did not discuss artistic design because of this fact. I don't know why you have to claim that I fail to recognize the possibility of combining design engineering with artistry, particularly when I brought up the recognition of design in archaeology. Most archaeological design does combine both artistic and functional design, which is important to identifying design among archaeological artifacts. There is no contradiction. You seem to have an urge to merge, so you feel there is some contradiction between the mechanical or mathematical and a "sense of connection." Yet the mechanical and mathematical have proven to be married and connected to living things, whether you have a sense of it or not.

It is odd that humans can write down an equation and it "fits" or symbolizes physical reality itself. It is even more odd that they can build their little symbols up in codes and make equations with them that actually turn out to fit physical reality. That is a true "connection" to the way things are. Perhaps it is based on our sense of connection itself.

I'd suggest the book, The Privileged Planet, which demonstrates a correlation between habitability and measurability.

You seem to be just throwing things out here, mixed in with some mysticism.

" . . . .[birds] are not made of optimal materials designed for function." What material would you use to make something self-replicating that could last millions of years?

One has to cast off the Newtonian/programming mode of thought in order to recognize the connections and correlations which are predicted by mutation . . . ." Why do you suppose that evolutionists make computer programs to try to model evolution?

It seems that you have a more mystical view of evolution than they do.

Mysticism typically seems nice, somehow . . . .a connection, intuition or somethin', yeah . . . who needs mathematics? I mean, that's like robots! Yet the mysts of mysticism tend to dissipate with little questioning.

Sorry about the double post, but no refreshing or anything else would indicate that the first one had posted. There must be a significant time lag in the computer sometimes.

If anyone could or would delete one, it would save space.

"We're awash in programmers and engineers telling us that they know that life couldn't possibly exist without being "designed", based upon largely non-artistic design analogies."

You are trying to have things both ways, as you apparently like criticizing ID. ID at its most "scientific" and "cold" does fit in with classical science and the sort of thing that cold toads have always liked to say. You attack ID for that based on a the typical spiritualist attack on science. Yet then you attack it again because it supposedly is not scientific! That's the contradiction I noted, setting things in contradiction that are not or making false accusations that IDists do so. There are plenty of IDists who maintain their "hard," "cold," and scientific approach when they are doing science, yet their actual attitude is one of God as an artist. They are criticized for it often enough. These little ones of the Panda's Thumb seem positively obsessed with intents and motivations or some "sneaky sneaking and creeping!" spiritual or religious content in IDism. Ironically, they do not seem to criticize your sort of evolutionist spiritualism at all. If history is any measure, they never will and will accept pretty much all new spiritual views founded on their sort of evolutionism/Naturalism. In the past, pagan Nazism was founded upon it.

If you read what IDists write when it comes to theology, God as artist tends to be what they are writing. That tends to be their personal views. They are keeping their attitudes on theology separate from their science, is all. You seem to be criticizing them for that separation while at the same time arguing that secretly they are the ones who mix the spiritual/religious and the scientific. Instead, like the deistic American Founders they will be the ones to separate and keep distinct the religious and the scientific, tending to focus on engineering and technology. Those with the urge to merge will begin to spiritize the mythological narratives of Naturalism with Geist, Nature based paganism, etc. They will do so in support of socialism or fascism, if history is any measure.

"Perhaps that is why we see so little creativity among IDists...."

Engineering, science, ingenuity, design, technology, that is all quite creative.

"....not modeled by anthropocentric considerations."

Creativity in science, as in technology, has not been very reliant on the misanthropic tendency of those who believe in Naturalism.

"This false charge is nothing new in your post, of course. Let me respond at this point by claiming mysticism for my own."

It's hard to see how it is a false charge when you keep repeating it.

Again, as one who flirted with Deism, there is no contradiction in seeing things as fundamentally engineered (like IDists do) while also maintaining design as art. In fact, these two patterns marry quite well. Perhaps a Deist would disagree with that marriage but most IDists, in their writings on theology, do not. Note Newton's writings on theology as well, most of those who have Deism as a foundation paint a picture on it.

In the end, what most people understand as "science," the hard, cold analysis at the foundation of the work of the cold toads has been pointing to or giving evidence for its own failure as a total view. What is observed, is that we will not be able to observe everything. Etc.

See: The Hidden Face of God, by Gerald L. Schroeder

I do not fear the IDists, not at all. Note, you can't have things both ways to bash them, on the one hand they are "cold" and mechanistic, things that most people associate with science and technology. Yet on the other hand, supposedly they are not scientific and they are just a bunk of sneaky bastards trying to sneak in the spiritual and the religious.

If anyone is placing the spiritual and the religious in science in a way that brings on lectures of an "uholy" mixture from the typical scientist, it's you. But I doubt you will be criticized by the cold toads of the Panda's Thumb for that. It seems they have their little American cultural scripts about things having to do with "science" and "religion" and that's about it for them.

"I adhere to physics, and the evolution that results from physics...."

What is the "evolution" equation? If physics is any measure it will be as elegant as E = mc^2

Is there any indication that biologist's notions of evolution fits in with patterns known from physics? I have a book to finish reading dealing with the topic. Maybe some other time, what I wanted to hammer on here was what I see to be your false attacks on IDists for being too much the cold toads.

They are always demanding a mechanism. That's true. But their view of "science" as hard cold facts with an absence of mysticism is what most people view science as. If you say that science is like mysticism, most people will reply (perhaps ought to reply) that it is not. Rather, modern science gives indications that there might be mysts and mysteries that it cannot clear. Perhaps it is the observation, that the mysts will not clear away for observation.

I have no problem with that at all. I have no problem looking to history, philosophy, religion and so on when it comes to origins and what narratives about origins are probably true. It's the believers in scientism, like many who post on the Panda's Thumb that will tend to have a problem with the answer that scientific observation cannot answer.

"I adhere to physics, and the evolution that results from physics . . . ." What is the "evolution" equation? If physics is any measure it will be as elegant as E = mc^2

Is there any indication that biologist's notions of evolution fits in with patterns known from physics?

what I wanted to hammer on here was what I see to be your false attacks on IDists for being too much the cold toads. They are always demanding a mechanism. That's true. But their view of "science" as hard cold facts with an absence of mysticism is what most people view science as.

If you say that science is like mysticism, most people will reply (perhaps ought to reply) that it is not. Rather, modern science gives indications that there might be mysts and mysteries that it cannot clear.

Re "but the fact that evolution requires more time than Lord Kelvin was willing to allow"
With no knowledge of radioactivity , his way of estimating a maximum age of the Earth fit the physics that was known at the time.

Henry

Shorter Glen Davidson: ID is a throwback to the 17th and 18th Century, the heyday of mechanical philosohy. Let us think of Behe, Demskski, and Berlinski as docents in a conceptual Colonial Williamsburg doing historical reconstructions of obsolete but venerable philosphies. Their ideas properly refer to Vaucanson's celebrated mechanical duck, which, though it quacked and shat, didn't actually live.

I can't answer with a simple yes or no. I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvellously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's pantheism, but admire even more his contributions to modern thought because he is the first philosopher to deal with the soul and the body as one, not two separate things.

For some reason or other, the link I gave as the source for the Einstein quote was cut off, and doesn't work. So I'll try again:

http://www.ctinquiry.org/publications/reflections_volume_1/torrance.htm

Well it worked in preview mode.

So again, math and physics work for evolution within controlled conditions, which is all that is true of physics anywhere.

Also, I wonder if the plaintifs in Dover will find a way to get the Wedge Document into evidence. Judges are smart people. The number one Intelligent Design quackhouse accidently releasing an internal document explaining that the long-term strategy with ID is to promote Jesus, should seal the deal on the legality of Creationism II.

— steve