Living in Europe, it is rather easy to assume that people around the world would share a perspective on the evolution of our species. But as I learned from some comments and mails, this is not the case. Therefore, I decided to present the scientific standard of knowledge about the evolution of homo sapiens before proceeding with the specific topic of the evolution of our religiosity and religions.

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Is there an unbridgeable enmity between science(s) and religion(s) - or will they reconvene as in concepts of evolutionary theism? From the perspective of evolutionary studies of religion, that's less of a philosophical question than an empirical one. COULD it happen may be a question of fruitless speculation. But DOES it happen is a question of scientific observation.

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Just reading "On the Origin of Stories. Evolution, Cognition and Fiction" by Brian Boyd, I would like to reflect about our human propensity to present facts in the form of narratives. In a sense, that seems to be a very basic universal, with those of us religious just extending the stories into the supernatural realms of mythology. For example, Richard Dawkins offered a retelling of the evolutionary process as "The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution", quite obviously adopting religious terminology. From the very beginnings of scientific biology, scientists began to marvel at the "glory in plants".

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For some years, a range of empirical studies (e.g. Inglehart & Norris in "Sacred and Secular", 2004) confirmed a global correlation of religiosity to societal levels of want and income inequality and (especially) insecurity. As respective publications have been made available at the internet for free, a wider public is getting the message. E.g., a sound example of a well-done study has been published by Tom Rees in the Journal of Religion and Society.

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Every human perception is shaped by underlying assumptions, of which we are aware only partially. For example, Western thinking has been shaped (at least since the classic Greeks) by a strong preference for dualisms: Human and Animal, True and False, Good and Evil, Body and Soul, Brain and Mind, Nature and Culture etc. Although the discovery of evolution clearly bridged these distinctions, they creeped back into place again and again, especially in Western perceptions of sciences. For example, we owe the discovery of distinct cultural traditions among non-human primates to Japanese primatologists (honoured in a beautiful book by Frans de Waal), whose Western successors i.e. as Jane Goodall nevertheless had to fight strong prejudices against giving chimpanzees individual names, attributing them emotions etc. to this day. 

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Among most scholars in the thriving field of evolutionary studies on religion, findings of burials are perceived as the first strong indicators of phenotypes evolving religiosity - that is: behavior towards supernatural agents (as ancestors, spirits or gods). Interestingly, these peculiar behaviors evolved not only in Homo sapiens, but also in Homo neanderthalensis.

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Among the most widespread prejudices against modern evolutionary theory is the notion that selection would favour strong, mean, selfish phenotypes. As I had the joy to lecture last week at the invitation of the evolutionary biologists at Tübingen University around Prof. Nico Michiels, I met a bunch of bright and open-minded people open to interdisciplinary dialogue and the public. Among other things, they had produced a creative song and clip for use in Web 2.0 in order to counter prejudices against evolution. See for yourself! (More)

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Ever heard this call? Christian theologian and itinerant preacher Michael Dowd and his wife, evolutionary biologist Connie Barlow, are espousing exactly that across religious and secular institutions in the US. And Dowd's respective book, endorsed by renowned voices from religions and sciences including some nobel prize winners, turns out to be a successful story. (More)

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Many religious traditions evolved techniques of chanting specific texts, which sometimes induced religious experiences and trances. Although Christianity and Islam had evolved their own forms (i.e. Catholic rosary prayer or Sufi dhikr, often accompanied by the use of prayer beads), Hindu chantings of "Hare Krishna. Krishna Krishna. Hare Rama. Rama Rama." became a huge success in the 60s and 70s among young seekers in Western countries.  (More)

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Of course, we don't have specific Genes inheriting the specific musics of Jazz and Beethoven or the languages of French and Chinese. But there is no scientific doubt that we have the genetically heritable traits of musicality and the abilities to speak - which then have to be acquired and formed into concrete, cultural forms in order to confer their benefits. And the same is true of religiosity and religions... (More)

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In the sad and ongoing "Culture Wars" between religious and secular worldviews, extreme proponents of religions and atheisms are misusing science, especially distorting evolutionary studies - instead of using them to better understand each other. (More)

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