Main points
▪
Human beings do not have a soul
▪
The soul is a cognitive illusion/delusion
▪
There is no ‘life after death’
This makes life as we know it all the more
precious
▪
Where we are
▪
The problem
▪
The approach
▪
The form of the argument
▪
The nature of evidence
The form of the argument
Serious evidence
No serious evidence
Today: setting the stage
▪
The problem
▪
The approach
▪
The form of the argument
▪
The nature of evidence
Evidence
▪ Two
➢
notions of evidence:
Evidence 1:
The popular/intuitive/loose notion of evidence
➢
Evidence 2:
The much more stringent scientific notion of
evidence
The world wide lottery
• There are a billion possible
combinations
• Therefore odds of winning are
1/109
• A billion tickets are issued with each
possible combination
• One billion people buy tickets
The world wide lottery
• Therefore one person MUST win!
• 100 000 people visit “miracle sites”
• The winner happens to be a “miracle site” visitor
The naïve version
• Odds were 1 in a billion
• Person visited a “miracle site”
• And won the world wide lottery!
• This MUST be a miracle!!!!
In fact there is no ‘miracle’ whatsoever!
Correlation does not entail causation!
Why supernatural
‘explanations’ do not
explain anything
Science
▪
Seeks to provide naturalistic as opposed to
supernatural explanations of the world
▪
Naturalistic forces: not intelligent, no
intentions, no foresight, no purpose, blind,
mechanical …
▪
Supernatural forces: intelligent, intentional,
have foresight, purpose, even emotions
In the beginning …
“Humanity has had a long fascination with blood sacrifice. In
fact, it has been by no means uncommon for a child to be born
into this world only to be patiently and lovingly reared by
[people] who believe that the best way to keep the sun on its
course or to ensure a rich harvest is to lead him by tender hand
into a field or to a mountain top and bury, butcher, or burn him
alive as an offering to an invisible God”
Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation, p. 93
In the beginning …
“The Sumerians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Hebrews,
Canaanites, Maya, Inca, Aztecs, Olmecs, Greeks,
Romans, Carthaginians, Teutons, Celts, Druids, Vikings,
Gauls, Hindus, Thais, Chinese, Japanese, Maoris,
Melanesians, Tahitians, Hawaiians, Balinese, Australian
aborigines, Iroquois, Huron, Cherokee, etc. ”
Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation, p. 93-94
Science
▪ The
theory of electricity
▪ The
germ theory of disease
▪ The
theory of gravitation
▪ The
theory of mental illness
▪ The
theory of evolution
Science
▪ As
we gain understanding, we move from
supernatural to natural explanations – and not the
other way around!
▪ There
is not a single area where science has
found credible evidence for the operation of
supernatural agents/forces
Outline
▪
Define the soul
Look at the evidence that has been used to support the
existence of souls
▪
Conclude that none of the evidence is scientifically
credible
▪
Review the evidence supporting materialism and
conclude that it is scientifically credible
▪
▪
Present the broader scientific view
Outline
▪
Define the soul
Look at the evidence that has been used to support the
existence of souls
▪
Conclude that none of the evidence is scientifically
credible
▪
Review the evidence supporting materialism and
conclude that it is scientifically credible
▪
▪
Present the broader scientific view
Soul 1
“An entity which is regarded as being the immortal or
spiritual part of the person and, though having no physical
or material reality, is credited with the functions of
thinking and willing, and hence determining all behavior”
[Yourdictionary.com]
“The spiritual part of man regarded as surviving after
death, and as susceptible of happiness or misery in a
future state”
[Oxford Dictionary]
The principle of thought and action in man commonly
regarded as an entity distinct from the body, the spiritual
part of man in contrast to the purely physical
[Oxford Dictionary]
The disembodied spirit of a deceased person regarded as a
separate entity and as invested with some amount of form
or personality
[Oxford Dictionary]
Soul 2
“Intellectual or spiritual power. High development of the
mental faculties. Also, in somewhat weakened sense, deep
feeling, sensitivity”
Oxford Dictionary
In other words, esthetic sensitivity, artistic sensibility,
creativity, etc.
Soul 3
“S/he has soul”
‘Soul’ here means something like character, personality,
charisma, etc.
“Soul as the complete self or
soul as a metaphor”
Soul 1
Supernatural
Soul 2
Soul 3
Natural
The question
▪
Do human beings have a soul that:
➢
Is immaterial
Performs some/all
cognitive/perceptual functions
➢
➢
Survives the death of our physical body
Outline
▪
Define the soul
Look at the evidence that has been used to support the
existence of souls
▪
Conclude that none of the evidence is scientifically
credible
▪
Review the evidence supporting materialism and
conclude that it is scientifically credible
▪
▪
Present the broader scientific view
The evidence
Look at the evidence that has been used to
support the existence of souls:
▪
▪
‘Old’ evidence
▪
Near death experiences
▪
Out of body experiences
▪
Talking to the dead
▪
Gaps in our current scientific understanding
3. Weighing the soul
According to Dr. Duncan
MacDougall, the soul weighs 21
grams …
4. Near Death Experience (NDE)
Death
Clinical death
Brain death/Legal
death
NDE: characteristics
▪
Pleasant emotions; calmness and serenity
▪
Visions of a tunnel with bright light at the end
▪
Encounters with deceased relatives or spiritual figures
▪
Experiencing a ‘life review’
▪
Out of body experience
▪
Being returned to the body, often reluctantly
5. Out of body Experience (OBE)
Popular illustration
The question
Dreams vs. NDE and
OBE
Do they tell you anything
about the world out there?
The God helmet
Michael Shermer outof-body experiment
Virtual OBE
Virtual out-of-bodyexperience
Electrical stimulation
Ghosts and laptops
5. Talking to the dead
Talking to the dead
Such claims have been around for hundreds of
years, if not more …
▪
If there was credible evidence, we would know
by now …
▪
Remember that extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence …
▪
The $ 1,000,000 prize
James Randi
6. The unexplained
Consciousness?
On explanations
Natural
explanations
Supernatural
explanations
Time/progress
Where we stand
Supernatural
explanations
Materialistic
explanations
7. The ‘new physics’
Does the mind really create reality?
In sum
What is the
evidence?
No real evidence
In sum
Popular sense of
‘evidence’
Yes
Scientific sense of
‘evidence’
No
But there could be real
evidence in principle …
▪
From dreams
▪
From ‘talking to the dead’
▪
From NDE and OBE
In sum
Note that we have not strictly speaking
‘disproved’ the existence of the soul
▪
We have simply shown that there is no
credible evidence that souls are real
▪
Not been disproved yet …
The fact that I, Julien Musolino, am
an alien from the planet Bullshitron,
disguised as a psychology professor,
and on a mission to stop God’s plan
to elect Michelle Bachman to the
presidency of the United States in
2012 by perverting your young,
innocent minds with crazy liberal
Pew Global Attitudes Project, November 2007
The magnitude of the divide
87% of Americans say they “never doubt the
existence of God”
▪
- Recent Pew, Gallup, and Newsweek polls (cited
by Sam Harris)
▪
93% of the members of the US National
Academy of Sciences say they do not believe in
a personal God
- 1998 Poll (cited by Victor
Stenger)
Main points
▪
Human beings do not have a soul
▪
The soul is a cognitive illusion/delusion
▪
There is no ‘life after death’
This makes life as we know it all the more
precious
▪
Three groups of people
▪
The choir
▪
The undecided
▪
The enlightened
Today: Setting the stage
▪
The problem
▪
The approach
▪
The form of the argument
▪
The nature of evidence
What
are
we?
_____________________________
▪ Are
▪
we mere biological robots?
If so, how does flesh produce the richness of
our mental lives?
What
are
we?
_____________________________
▪ Are
we mere biological robots?
▪
If so, how does flesh produce the richness of
our mental lives?
▪
If not, what else are we made of?
Awesome implications!
Today: Setting the stage
▪
The problem
▪
The approach
▪
The form of the argument
▪
The nature of evidence
The approach
vs.
The modern
scientific view
The traditional/popular
view
Pope John Paul II
“Today … some new findings lead us toward the
recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis. In
fact it is remarkable that this theory has had
progressively greater influence on the spirit of
researchers, following a series of discoveries in different
scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of
these independent studies—which was neither planned
nor sought—constitutes in itself a significant argument in
favor of the theory.”
Message delivered to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences 22 October 1996
Pope John Paul II
“Pius XII underlined the essential point: if the origin of
the human body comes through living matter which
existed previously, the spiritual soul is created directly by
God”
“As a result, the theories of evolution which regard the
spirit either as emerging from the forces of living matter, or
as a simple epiphenomenon of that matter, are incompatible
with the truth about man.”
Message delivered to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences 22 October 1996
The
asymmetry
_____________________________
Views/opinions
Rarely hear
about
Vilayanur Ramachandran
“The soul as it is usually spoken of,
“an immaterial spirit that occupies
individual brains and that only
evolved in humans — all that is
complete nonsense.” Belief in that
kind of soul “is basically
superstition””
Albert Einstein
“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the
objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after
our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of
human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual
survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor
such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.”
(Albert Einstein, obituary in New York Times, 19 April 1955)
Materialism
Materialism is a set of related theories which hold that all entities
and processes are composed of — or are reducible to — matter,
material forces or physical processes. In general, the metaphysical
theory of materialism entails the denial of the reality of spiritual
beings, consciousness and mental or psychic states or processes, as
ontologically distinct from, or independent of material changes or
processes. Since it denies the existence of spiritual beings or forces,
materialism typically is allied with atheism or agnosticism.
[From: Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig. 1998
Routledge, New York]
The Wedge document
“To defeat scientific materialism and its
destructive moral, cultural, and political
legacies.”
“To replace materialistic explanations with
the theistic understanding that nature and
human beings are created by God.”
Dualism
Dualism is the concept that our mind is more than just
our brain. This concept entails that our mind has a nonmaterial, spiritual dimension that includes
consciousness and possibly an eternal attribute. One
way to understand this concept is to consider our self as
a container including our physical body and physical
brain along with a separate non-physical mind, spirit, or
soul.
[From ‘All About Philosophy’]
The Copernican revolution
The Darwinian revolution
The neuroscientific revolution
Everyone knows about the rocky relationship between
science and theology brought about by the revolutionary
proposals of Copernicus and Darwin. Fewer people know
about an equally revolutionary scientific innovation that is
currently under way among neurobiologists. This revolution
in brain research has completely rewritten our understanding
of who we are. It poses fundamental challenges to traditional
Christian theology. According to the scientific worldview
that now dominates, it is no longer necessary to speak of a
soul or spirit as distinct from the functions of the brain.
Back cover, ‘What about the soul?’ Neuroscience and Christian Anthropology
Today: setting the stage
▪
The problem
▪
The approach
▪
The form of the argument
▪
The nature of evidence
Evidence
▪ Two
➢
notions of evidence:
Evidence 1:
The popular/intuitive/loose notion of evidence
➢
Evidence 2:
The much more stringent scientific notion of
evidence
The world wide lottery
• There are a billion possible
combinations
• Therefore odds of winning are
1/109
• A billion tickets are issued with each
possible combination
• One billion people buy tickets
The world wide lottery
• Therefore one person MUST win!
• 100 000 people visit “miracle sites”
• The winner happens to be a “miracle site” visitor
The naïve version
• Odds were 1 in a billion
• Person visited a “miracle site”
• And won the world wide lottery!
• This MUST be a miracle!!!!
In fact there is no ‘miracle’ whatsoever!
Correlation does not entail causation!
Why supernatural
‘explanations’ do not
explain anything
Science
▪
Seeks to provide naturalistic as opposed to
supernatural explanations of the world
▪
Naturalistic forces: not intelligent, no
intentions, no foresight, no purpose, blind,
mechanical …
▪
Supernatural forces: intelligent, intentional,
have foresight, purpose, even emotions
In the beginning …
“Humanity has had a long fascination with blood sacrifice. In
fact, it has been by no means uncommon for a child to be born
into this world only to be patiently and lovingly reared by
[people] who believe that the best way to keep the sun on its
course or to ensure a rich harvest is to lead him by tender hand
into a field or to a mountain top and bury, butcher, or burn him
alive as an offering to an invisible God”
Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation, p. 93
In the beginning …
“The Sumerians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Hebrews,
Canaanites, Maya, Inca, Aztecs, Olmecs, Greeks,
Romans, Carthaginians, Teutons, Celts, Druids, Vikings,
Gauls, Hindus, Thais, Chinese, Japanese, Maoris,
Melanesians, Tahitians, Hawaiians, Balinese, Australian
aborigines, Iroquois, Huron, Cherokee, etc. ”
Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation, p. 93-94
Science
▪ The
theory of electricity
▪ The
germ theory of disease
▪ The
theory of gravitation
▪ The
theory of mental illness
▪ The
theory of evolution
Science
▪ As
we gain understanding, we move from
supernatural to natural explanations – and not the
other way around!
▪ There
is not a single area where science has
found credible evidence for the operation of
supernatural agents/forces
In sum
▪ The
emotional jury
▪ The
rational jury
Let’s take the reverse case
EVOLUTIONARY
PSYCHOLOGY AND THE
SOUL
EVOLUTION AND ITS RELEVANCE TO
PSYCHOLOGY
What we know about evolution:
▪Behaviors that benefit our survival are more
likely to appear in future generations
How we approach evolution:
▪Imagine the time frame in which evolution
occurred, use what we know about the
species’ development, and formulate
hypotheses about how the trait developed
▪E.g. peppered moths in England
EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
Imagine human beings in the Environment
of Evolutionary Adaptedness– 10 million to
10,000 years ago
Pre-agriculture, egalitarian societies,
hunting, gathering
What’s our most important tool for survival?
Our speed? Our strength?
Our brains
Why?
Importance of social living
Why is
childhood
so much
longer for
humans
than other
species?
Head needs to
fit through
mother’s pelvis,
Mother needs
to walk upright,
keeping the
pelvis a certain
size
Large brains
are really
important to
humans
Childhood –
very different
from most
other species
More brain
development
occurs after
birth
4
COSMIDES AND TOOBY’S 5 PRINCIPLES
Principle 1. The brain is a physical
system. It functions as a computer
(metaphor!). Its circuits are designed to
generate behavior that is appropriate to
your environmental circumstances.
Principle 2. Our neural circuits were
“designed” by natural selection to solve
problems that our ancestors faced during
our species' evolutionary history.
COSMIDES AND TOOBY’S 5 PRINCIPLES
Principle 3. Consciousness is just the tip
of the iceberg; most of what goes on in
your mind is hidden from you.
Principle 4. Different neural circuits are
specialized for solving different adaptive
problems.
Principle 5. Our modern skulls house a
stone age mind.
Some Examples
REASONING AND EVOLUTIONARY
PSYCH
There are 4 cards. Each card has a letter on one side
and a number on the other
Rule: If a card has a vowel on one side, then it must
have an even number on the other
Which cards do you turn over to be sure that the rule
is being followed?
A
√
B 10 5
Always
irrelevant
If consonant,
irrelevant
√
REASONING AND EVOLUTIONARY
PSYCH
New rule: If a person is drinking beer, that
person must be at least 21
Which cards do you turn over to be sure that
the rule is being followed?
Age:
24
√
If beer,
irrelevant
Age:
17
Always
irrelevant
√
REASONING AND EVOLUTIONARY
PSYCH
Wason selection task demonstrates
evolutionary psych principles:
Two problems are logically identical
We perform much better at the second
because it uses the cheater detection
system
Cheater detection is a specialized system
“designed” to solve adaptive problems of
living in social groups
▪Compare to vampire bats
We don’t consciously realize that we are
thinking about the 2 problems differently
MORE EV PSYCH EXAMPLES
Extends the work of Fodor (1983):
most of the mind is small, specialized
modules – compartments that feed
information to some central
executive area of the brain
Just as we can’t help but see things
in color because that is how our
vision system represents energy in
the world, we can’t help but see the
world according to what our modules
focus on and present to us.
EV PSYCH AND THE SOUL
If we want a psychology of religion/soul
that is meaningful, we have to better
understand what the mind is doing in the
day-to-day
Who here has taken cognition?
Categorization
Animate Things
Inanimate things
Birds
Mammals
Natural
things
Fish
Shark
Eagle
Bass
Salmon
Big Bird
Foods
Robin
Toys
Mouse
Cat
Trees
Rocks
Drinks
Dog
Fruit
Vegetables
Peas
Stuffed
animal
Carrot
Broccoli
Book
We make assumptions based on category membership
Ball
TEMPLATES AT WORK
Let’s say I encounter a new item I had
never heard of before:
▪Zygoons are the only predators of hyenas
▪ What can you tell me about Zygoons?
▪ None of you has ever heard of the word Zygoon, but
at this stage you have an image of an Animal, and
thus to you Zygoons…
▪ Grow and die
▪ Need food for survival
▪ Give birth to other Zygoons
▪ Eat hyenas
INFERENCE SYSTEM
Sentence
Refers to
Zygoons
eat hyenas
Inference:
Zygoon is
an animal
Properties
Being a
carnivore
TEMPLATES AT WORK
Thricklers are expensive, but cabinet makers
need them to work wood
You now know that Thricklers:
Are manmade
Have a function defined by a goal
Shape fits function
Inanimate
expensive,
This is because these are all parts of your
representation of a Tool, another important
template
(These examples can be found in Boyer, Religion Explained, pg. 57-60)
MORE ABOUT TEMPLATES
What happens when you assume?
You make an ASS out of U and ME
Actually, that’s only what happens when
you assume and you’re wrong
This style of categorization provides the
ability to make basic assumptions about
things and not have to think about them –
it’s highly efficient
TEMPLATES AT WORK
What is going on when I read about a zygoon?
Inferences
▪ Information we intuit without being told – e.g. we
assumed that a zygoon is an animal
Default inferences
▪ I assume that since it is an animal, it will maintain
properties of other animals (gives birth to its own
kind, grows and dies, etc.) unless I encounter any
information to the contrary
▪ Note that these are expectations. We’re not tied to
them, but we do find them reasonably likely, and
we’ll be surprised if they are not upheld.
EV PSYCH AND CATEGORIZATION
We have categories for things we usually
come in to contact with
We make automatic assumptions using
these categories
Our automatic assumptions relate to
evolutionary needs
▪E.g. we don’t have a category for all animals that
are brown, because color is not useful info in
most scenarios
▪But we do know which animals are carnivores and
which are herbivores
▪Volunteer?
EV PSYCH AND AGENCY
Agency
▪Inferences in video – what is causing them?
▪A description of the source of movement → an
agent is something that moves on its own.
▪Fundamental distinction made early in life
between things that move on their own and
things that don’t
AGENCY AND INANIMATE OBJECTS
If a ball rolls behind two screens in this
demonstration, the child (age 2) is surprised if
he doesn’t see it pass between the screens.
Don’t get the same reaction if a person does
this
AGENCY AND THE SOUL
Agency is a very important factor in the
evolutionary environment, but it’s something we
cannot see
▪ Therefore describing the source of agency grabs
attention
Concept of a meme (Dawkins, pre-God-bashing
phase)
▪ Idea or tendency that is found independently in many
cultures because of its usefulness
Not a historical hypothesis
▪ Aim for the soul is to understand it on a conceptual
level – what part of our concepts are important in
forming the concept of soul?
SOME HYPOTHESIZED PROPERTIES OF
THE SOUL
Immaterial
Animacy / center of agency
Center of morality
Essence of a living being / identity
Indivisibility.
What an evolutionary context has to say
about these attributes
Study from last year – early thoughts on the
topic
Assumptions of PERSON
Sandra rolled down the hill, because
she wanted to get to the bottom
Has Agency
Sandra
(=PERSON)
Rolled down the hill
because she wanted
to get to the bottom
Belief-Desire
Psychology
Is subject to the
laws of physics
Assumptions of OBJECT
The
rock rolled down the hill,
because it wanted to get to the
bottom
Rock
(=OBJECT)
Rolled down the
hill because it
wanted to get to
the bottom
Therefore, this sentence is
absurd
Has Agency
Belief-Desire
Psychology
Is subject to
the laws of
physics
Sandra’s Soul rolled down the hill
because it wanted to get to the
bottom
Sandra’s Soul
(=SOUL)
Rolled down the hill
because it wanted to
get to the bottom
Therefore, we predict this
sentence will also be seen as
absurd
Predicted
Assumptions
of SOUL
MAYBE
Has Agency
MAYBE
Belief-Desire
Psychology
Is subject to the
laws of Physics
FINDINGS – AGENCY AND HUMAN
ESSENCE
Absurd
5.00
4.50
4.00
3.50
3.00
Soul
Mind
2.50
2.00
1.50
Very
1.00
reasonable
Horse
A horse has a ____
Shrub
A shrub has a _____
FINDINGS – MORALITY
4
Absurd
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
Very
0.5
reasonable
0
A person’s soul can be
disgusted by Hitler
A person’s soul can be
disgusted by roadkill
CONCLUSIONS
Evolutionary context influences our
thinking
Modern, explicit, conscious ideas, may
have their roots in evolutionary problems
or modes of thinking
The concept of the soul is one such idea
CONCLUSIONS
Religious and cultural concepts build on
challenges of our environment:
▪describing agency
▪Identifying moral behavior
▪Keeping track of a person’s essence
We might want to consider people’s
concept of soul as a way of taking an
unconscious inference and putting it into
words
What does this mean about how the
concept of “soul” came to be?
CONCLUSIONS
We can argue about religion’s truth endlessly
Cognitive approach to religion attempts to
understand and describe the mental processes
involved in thinking about religious concepts
Doctrinal vs. intuitive beliefs
▪ E.g. at RU, approx. 60% believers, 30% agnostic, 10%
atheists
▪ But – over 95% believe in a soul
▪ Suggests the soul is something very different than
religion, reflects different belief systems – don’t
confuse them
Soul Beliefs: Causes & Consequences
Darwin’s Dangerous Idea
“There is a simple grandeur
in the view of life with its
powers of growth,
assimilation , and
reproduction,...that from so
simple an origin, through the
process of gradual selections
of infinitesimal changes,
endless forms most beautiful
and wonderful have evolved.”
-- Darwin (1842)
Soul Beliefs: Causes & Consequences
Darwin’s Zeitgeist
Victorian England – the first
“Information Age”?
Charles Darwin was young,
undecided, and restless
Soul Beliefs: Causes & Consequences
Darwin’s Excellent Adventure
Captain Fitzroy’s The Beagle (1832-1837)
• Amazing diversity of flora & fauna
• Incredible landscapes
• Sea shells on a mountaintop
• Malthus on population dynamics
• An earthquake (July 1837) Darwin’s
“prototypical scene”
• The BIG Idea!
Soul Beliefs: Causes & Consequences
The Dangerous Delay of His Dangerous Idea
By 1842, Darwin had
• drafted most of the ideas
• insured the eventual publication
But….
• daughter died
• son ill
• Darwin ill
• Studied barnacles
• Vestiges of the Natural History of
Creation (1844) (The “Victorian
Sensation”)
• …. and that pesky brain thing
Wallace’s Wake-up Call!!
Soul Beliefs: Causes & Consequences
The Book, The Book
On The Origin of Species (1859)
• a tour de force of the theory
• deliberately ‘scholarly’ to counter
Vestiges
• Fitzroy’s lament
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having
been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that,
whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of
gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and
most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Soul Beliefs: Causes & Consequences
So Simple & Straightforward
Two Main Processes Drive Evolution
• Natural variation
• Natural selection
…. Let’s take it for a test drive.
Soul Beliefs: Causes & Consequences
Peppered Moth
• Adaptive coloration
• Changed with environment
• …………. and back
http://www.ndpteachers.org/perit/PepperedMoth%5B1%5D.GIF
http://www.ndpteachers.org/perit/PepperedMoth%5B2%5D.GIF
Soul Beliefs: Causes & Consequences
Intricacies – Liver Fluke Life Cycle
Soul Beliefs: Causes & Consequences
The Natural Heritage of the Brain
MacLean’s Triune Brain
• Reptilian
• Paleomammalian
• Neomammalian
Darwin’s Two Simple Rules
• Natural variability
• Natural selection
Kalat: "Some ancient animals that
acted the way we do survived and
reproduced more successfully than
some closely related animals that
acted some other way; the first
group of animals therefore became
our ancestors and the second group
became extinct."
Soul Beliefs: Causes & Consequences
Darwin’s Loss of Geological Time
Soul Beliefs: Causes & Consequences
Darwin’s Loss of Mendelian Genetics
• Addressed Society of Bruenn (1865)
• Hybridization
• Inheritance
• Snubbed by elitists
Soul Beliefs: Causes & Consequences
Test of Time
“They [creation & evolution] are presented as
alternatives that exclude each other….this clash is
an absurdity because on one hand there is much
scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears
as a reality that we must see and which enriches
our understanding of life and being as such.”
---- Pope Benedict VI
Soul Beliefs: Causes & Consequences
Mental Evolution
“In the future I see open fields for far
more important researches.
Psychology will be securely based
on…the necessary acquirement of
each mental power and capacity by
gradation.”
-- Charles Darwin
Functions of Religion
The word religion is derived from the
Latin word “religure” which means
“to bind”
Communal dancing, trances, communication with
spirits, gods, and dead ancestors
Need for group cohesion, territorial defense,
handling freeloaders
The need to be a member of a TRIBE. Wade’s
primary argument is it was a matter of physical
survival
As religion evolved it secured a new level
of social cohesion that was further
strengthened by the monotheistic
acceptance of one and only one god who
served as a stern overseer of people’s
actions. Fear of divine punishment in this
life and in afterlife as enhanced intra-tribal
ties.
Learning how to be a member of a tribe
• Imitation
• Instruction
• Initiation
Cognitive Dissonance
Advantages of being member of a tribe, any tribe,
but particularly a religious tribe
• Protection
• Sense of Identity
Answers the question of “Who am I?”
“I am a name of religion”
The arrival of Protestantism and the weakening
of ties that bind
Emile Durkheim. French sociologist in late 19th
Century. Study of suicide rates
More suicides in Protestant communities than
in Catholic and Jewish communities
The concept of anomie
From physical survival to psychological survival
The onset of Protestantism as a case in point.
Martin Luther and his fit in the choir. “Ich bin nit!
Ich bin nit!” (I am not! I am not!)
Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Erik Erikson (1902-1994)
Author of Young Man Luther
Who am I?
How do I fit into the adult world?
What do I believe?
What roles are available to me?
What is my ideology?
Defending religious ideologies
Recent outbreaks of violence sparked by
video as case in point
The result of insulting members of a tribe
Research on religion and health
•Seventh Day Adventists
•Mormons
•Regular church attendance
•The earlier the better
Making causal inferences when two
variables are shown to be related to each
other at a level of statistical significance.
In this instance, do the results indicate
that belief in one or another religion is a
prominent cause of longer life spans?
Next class
Arguments that religions are bad for
people
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