The Origins of Religion: How Supernatural Beliefs Evolved
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But not everyone agrees that religious thinking is just a byproduct of evolution — in other words, something that came about as a result of nonreligious, cognitive faculties. Some scientists see religion as more of an adaptation — a trait that stuck around because the people who possessed it were better able to survive and pass on their genes.
Robin Dunbar is an evolutionary psychologist and anthropologist at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom whose work focuses mostly on the behavior of primates, including nonhuman primates like baboons. Dunbar thinks religion may have evolved as what he calls a “group-level adaptation.” More.
The first thing that strikes a person reading this ridiculous effort at evolutionary psychology is the effrontery of people imagining that they are doing any kind of science.
They are telling boring folk tales with featureless characters. People didn’t used to get paid for that.
Here’s what Stone Age religion probably looked like. The Pope, as it happens, represents a form of religion (revealed religion employing philosophical propositions) that has largely replaced Stone Age religion. But trust evo psych to get everything wrong by conflating the two.
See also:
“The evolutionary psychologist knows why you vote — and shop, and tip at restaurants”
and
If naturalism can explain religion, why does it get so many basic facts wrong?
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