Generally, speaking, as usual, Darwinian concepts prove of anything, everything, and nothing, which makes them perfect for dissemination on increasingly irrelevant tax burdens like the BBC. On the subject of Catholics and holy communion, for example, a BBC journalist suggests it started as food-sharing among ape-like creatures (that’s not at all the recorded history of the Christian rite of holy communion but never mind):
The author, journalist Brandon Ambrosino, wanders off into a discussion as to whether religion is an adaptation or a spandrel. Does belief in God arise because it helps us in the struggle for reproductive fitness (“Don’t use that birth control, honey!”) or because, while it is adaptatively neutral, it is linked to adaptation (“I met a really cute girl at Mass today!”). Of course, if Darwinism is true, how is one to know? “Natural selection” has no mind and thus no purposes, and adaptation is really just the consequence of internal biological constraints and natural history.
So evolutionary “research” is just story time, not much different from fables told to children except that you (the taxpayers) pay for the stories. The meter is always running… Michael Egnor, “How Did Religion “Evolve”?” at Evolution News and Science Today:
The BBC demonstrates its independence from its funding sources by sponsoring stuff no one would pay for if they were not compelled to do so by law.
It’s telling that one kind of evolution always seems to be missing from these “theories” about the evolutionary origins of religion. How did atheism evolve? Surely godlessness had its origins in neocortices of impious apes. Why did some apes evolve to become materialists, Darwinists and atheists? It certainly seems maladaptive — it’s doubtful that contemplating the Origin of Species makes you more fecund. Michael Egnor, “How Did Religion “Evolve”?” at Evolution News and Science Today:
Statistically, atheism functions as an efficient form of birth suppression but—of course— a Darwinian explanation can be found for that too.
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See also: Michael Egnor: Apes are NOT spiritual beings
and
Free Will: One Woman’s Left Hand Seemed To Have A Mind Of Its Own.Did It?
Michael Egnor is a neurosurgeon, professor of Neurological Surgery and Pediatrics and Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, Neurological Surgery, Stonybrook School of Medicine