Comments on Biology of Religion

@Andrew

Michael Blume — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:05:40 +0200

Thanks for the terrific organizing - and the ongoing thoughts! Of course, I gladly take the time to answer to your questions:

The data you present seems to suggest that religion, or religiosity, is fitness increasing - right?

Yes. After years of work in the field, I am certain about that one.

The more I think about it, I wonder whether or not this is the case. Given that the majority of the world's population are religious, wouldn't that automatically correspond with increased reproductivity assuming the majority are fit?

I don't quite understand. The secular parts of the world populations (like Western Europe, Russia, Japan etc.) are actually shrinking for decades, lacking births. That's obviously not evolutionary succesful.

I also wonder wether or not it is just that there are cultural codes in place, such as 'be fruitful and multiply' which if followed, merely look like reproductive advantage when measured in terms of fitness. Maybe such codes were adaptive in our evolutionary past, but why so today?

Well, we are just having the data of today, e.g. comparing the fertility rates of non-affiliated or Amish in the US or secular and religious Jews in Israel. And we're seeing the reproductive advantage of the religious today. Most questions query how far in the past we could project these findings.

Similarly (and I tread on risky ground here) some might observe that reproduction rates, teenage (biologically the best age) pregnancies etc, are high in impoverished areas with low levels of emphasis on education.

Yes, but as shown in the slides, the reproductive advantage is taking place e.g. in Switzerland, too - which is not an impoverished area. And Swiss Jews and some Christian denominations show very high birth rates, although having higher percentages of academics and high-earners. We also found strong religious-demographic effects of the well-educated in the German ALLBUS survey and the Australian Census, see e.g. here, p. 162:
http://www.blume-religionswissenschaft.de/...y.pdf

Haven't there also been studies (cannot cite - apologies) which show a correspondence with low levels of education and religiosity?

Yes, many educated and well-off abandon religion. Affected strata are promptly affected by sharp demographic decline.

With this in mind, and given that, famously, one cannot derive an 'ought' from an 'is' in biology, is it wise to rush to the conclusion that religiosity is 'fitness increasing' from an evolutionary perspective and therefore vindicating in some way?

We are certainly not talking about a rush - the respective studies have taken years to collect and connect. And I am certainly understanding about the discomfort of the religious-demographic findings, as formulated by fellow scientists as Eric Kaufmann, too:
http://www.scilogs.eu/...new-book-by-eric-kaufmann

High rates of reproduction could be damaging in fact, as with every offspring comes increased costs.

Yes, and we see religious traditions adapting to that. For example, 19th century methodists emphasized smaller, better educated children and the Hutterites broadened acceptance of contraceptions within the last decade as they struggled to find new land for their exponentially growing communities. Nevertheless, only religious traditions seem to be able to attain birth rates above replacement level for a century or more - although we searched intensively, we didn't yet find a single secular group who managed to do that. I agree that this is a disturbing find to many.

Also, I do think it is worthwhile exploring Nick Humphrey's suggestion that religious families may continue to have children until they have a male child - the possibility being, that such archaic institutions might place greater value on 'male heirs', so to speak.

Yes, I wouldn't rule out that there might be special effects in specific traditions, but would like to point out that orthodox Jews, Amish or Hutterites are having many daughters, too. As you may see in one of the last slides, the membership of almost all succesful religious traditions is primarily female.

Just some thoughts - I'm still undecided on the matter...

You are very welcome! Please feel free to review the slides or the papers on the homepage:
http://www.blume-religionswissenschaft.de/....html

You might also like the book of Eric Kaufmann ("Shall the Religious inherit the Earth?")
http://www.scilogs.eu/...new-book-by-eric-kaufmann

or Inglehart & Norris "Sacred and Secular", which was quoted by Ara Norenzayan, too.

Best wishes!

@Tom

Michael Blume — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:44:25 +0200

Yes, I sure hoped to meet you there! You would have enjoyed the lectures and debates thoroughly! Hope, we will get another chance to meet one day!

@Konrad

Michael Blume — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:43:01 +0200

Thanks for your great post! It has been great to meet you and I am looking forward to many debates.

Reproductive Benefits of Religiosity

Andrew Atkinson — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:14:17 +0200

Hey Michael - great to see you at the conference. I have a few questions about your talk.

The data you present seems to suggest that religion, or religiosity, is fitness increasing - right?

The more I think about it, I wonder whether or not this is the case.

Given that the majority of the world's population are religious, wouldn't that automatically correspond with increased reproductivity assuming the majority are fit?

Haven't there also been studies (cannot cite - apologies) which show a correspondence with low levels of education and religiosity?

High rates of reproduction could be damaging in fact, as with every offspring comes increased costs.

Just some thoughts - I'm still undecided on the matter...

Sounds like it was fun

Tom Rees — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:02:10 +0200

Gutted I couldn't make it :(

Another view of the meeting

Konrad Talmont-Kaminski — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 01:15:08 +0200

My own write-up of the meeting is at: http://deisidaimon.wordpress.com/...on-in-bristol/

@C. p&s

Michael Blume — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 21:13:50 +0200

Thank you very much for the interest! And, well, I would love to have an English nearly as good as your German is!

I just checked out your blog and plan to regularly visit it.