Biology of Religion

Conference Report - Explaining Religion at Bristol University 2010

blume — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 20:45:46 +0200

Among those scientific conferences I had the pleasure to attend, "Explaining Religion" at Bristol University won (and will hold) a very special place. It had been very well-organized by Finn Spicer, Nathalia Gjersoe, Andrew Atkinson and Samantha Barlow, who not only provided for a beautiful yet concentrated space for lectures, debates and come-togethers, but also for a caring, open and humorous atmosphere among all those attending. Thus, the meeting of diverse scientists interested in the evolution of religiosity and religions managed to bring together hypotheses, fresh data and especially people enjoying to share thoughts and finding during captivating lectures and intensive debates right into the nights. Thanks to Bristol, BIRTHA and Finn, Thalia, Andrew & Sam!

The beautiful city of Bristol turned out to be just the right place for the conference, bringing together diverse traditions and modernities. Just as an example - this picture doesn't depict a Cathedral, but Bristol Train Station!

As our lectures and debates showed that the evolutionary by-product-hypotheses about religiosity and religions were on the retreat (even among cognitive psychologists), I stumbled upon a small well at Victora Garden that quite captured the emerging picture of belief in supernatural agents constituting an exaptation or adaptation in human evolution. It read: "The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life."

But then, the United Kingdom didn't indulge in shallow stagnation. Instead newspapers as "The Times" featured another "god-of-the-gap"-debate,, just at the first day of our conference, this time initiated by Stephen Hawking.

And the debate raged on for three consecutive days, with leading clergy as Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks answering and other scientists and writers contributing their views. What a country where debates about religion(s) and science(s) are rightfully making the headlines!

At the conference, the scheduled speakers managed to connect their respective perspectives and datas into a truly convergent exchange. Susan Blackmore (Plymouth) endorsed the popular metaphors of memetics and spoke in behalf of the dwindling minority of scientists who believed that religiosity and religions evolved as a natural by-product in a separate, cultural realm. As I had included her work in my (German) doctorate thesis some years ago, I enjoyed her talk and the ensuing debates. And although she voiced her distress at my demographic findings about the religious having more children while the seculars lacked offspring, she was impressive in her open way of accepting facts. I will take her "It's tough - but that's what science is about!" as one of the lasting sayings that made these days so special.

Her lecture was followed by Konrad Talmont-Kaminski (Lublin & blog), who not only advocated the frame of dual-inheritance theories integrating genetic and cultural perspectives, but also brought up arguments for defining religious and magical beliefs not in the terms of "supernatural" but "superempirical" entities. I can't wait for his upcoming book on the subject!

Paolo Mantovani (London) delighted the audience with an insightful and humorous debate whether Santa Claus would meet the cognitive criteria quite often cited by psychologists as constituting god-like supernatural agents. He not only showed that evolutionary studies proceed by the repeated testing of hypotheses, but that every perspective (such as the psychological one) needed to be connected with others (such as the sociological and biological) in order to attain meaningful coherence.

Bruce Hood (Bristol) and Deborah Kelemen (Boston) captivated the audience having just accomplished that: In presenting tested as well as brand-new experimental data, they offered new and refined insights in the ways children are construing realities and narratives. And as Jesse Bering (Belfast & blog) brought up new thoughts and findings concerning the way adult atheists and theists made (or found?) purpose in their lifes, you might imagine the constructive excitement emerging among those of us who are used to have very few colleagues in the field in their respective countries!

Ryan McKay (Oxford) and Ara Norenzayan (Vancouver) offered just the arc the debate needed now, showing in game theory and experimental practice how religious beliefs enhanced cooperative potentials among believers. Thus, the truly interdisciplinary exchanges and debates "raged on" intensively well into the late evenings and, finally, nights.

But then, in best British tradition, the conference was also open to ideas from graduates and private scholars. There were many interesting people and talks evolving around the topic. A poster presented by John Jacob Lyons sketching out a signalling-hypothesis concerning the earliest roots of religiosity rightfully catched interest of many participants.

Robert McCauley (Atlanta) and Thomas Lawson (Michigan) quite subsumed the conference with overlapping drafts of the emerging picture - whose similarities were even more striking as they didn't design them together. Actually, they were proving that the evolutionary studies of religiosity and religions are coalescing into an overall frame of gene-culture-coevolution (or just "biocultural evolution"), recognizing religiosity as an adaptive trait with proximate mechanisms working on the individual, social and - finally - biological level.

As I had conducted and presented nearly all of my work in German and among German-speaking colleagues for years, I was somewhat anxious about how it would fit into the international debate. And as you can imagine, I was very happy to see that it was absorbed with interest, open minds and encouragements to do more works and publications in English. If you want to see the slides of "The Reproductive Advantage of Religiosity. Religious Demography benefitting Evolutionary Fitness", just click on the graph to download.

Without a doubt, "Explaining Religion" in Bristol has connected perspectives and findings - bringing evolutionary studies on religiosity and religions to another level. I am grateful that I had the chance to participate in this experience!

* Conference Report in German

Explaining Religion - Conference at Bristol University, September 2010

blume — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:36:53 +0200

During the last years, the increasingly interdisciplinary and international evolutionary studies of religiosity and religions made tremendous progress. 'Explaining Religion 2010' is an interdisciplinary conference run by the University of Bristol's Department of Philosophy and the Bristol Cognitive Development Centre which aims to integrate approaches. The event will be held at the university's beautiful Orangery on the 2nd and 3rd of September (Thursday & Friday).

See the Homepage of "Explaining Religion 2010", Bristol

Confirmed speakers:

* Jesse Bering (QUB)

* E.Thomas Lawson (West Michigan, QUB)

* Susan Blackmore (Plymouth)

* Paul Harris (Harvard)

* Christine Mohr (Bristol)

* Deb Kelemen (Boston)

* Konrad Talmont-Kaminski (UMCS –Lublin)

* Robert McCauley (Emory)

* Bruce Hood (Bristol)

* Ara Norenzayan (UBC)

* Michael Blume (Heidelberg)

As you might have assumed, I am expected to speak about religion(s) and fertility in the field of the evolution of religiosity (and religions). I sure hope that Tom Rees might attend - and would be very happy if you would decide to join the conference, its lectures and debates, too! See you at Bristol!

Charles Darwin about the Evolution of Religiosity and Religion(s)

blume — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 21:20:51 +0200

As more and more among us start to explore the evolution of religiosity and religions from a range of scientific disciplines and nations, e.g. in the Evolutionary Religious Studies-network initiated by biologist David Sloan Wilson, I keep wondering about a peculiar fact: Why are so many dedicated evolutionists (and even declared "darwinists") ignorant or silent about Charles Darwin's own thoughts on the matter?

After all, Darwin had studied theology and was interested in all kinds of human behaviors. Thus, it doesn't come as a surprise that he dedicated sections of his works to the evolution of religious beliefs and behaviors. In his eminent "Descent of Man" (1871) he wrote (Ch. 2, p. 65):

“Belief in God—Religion.—There is no evidence that man was aboriginally endowed with the ennobling belief in the existence of an Omnipotent God. On the contrary there is ample evidence, derived not from hasty travellers, but from men who have long resided with savages, that numerous races have existed and still exist, who have no idea of one or more gods, and who have no words in their languages to express such an idea. The question is of course wholly distinct from that higher one, whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the universe; and this has been answered in the affirmative by the highest intellects that have ever lived.
If, however, we include under the term "religion" the belief in unseen or spiritual agencies, the case is wholly different; for this belief seems to be almost universal with the less civilised races. Nor is it difficult to comprehend how it arose.“

Darwin is here (I'd say rightfully!) advocating methodological agnosticism - the evolutionary exploration of religion(s) is neither proof nor denial of God's existence. What's more, he is distinguishing the universal biological trait of religiosity (as belief in supernatural agents) from its cultural forms, e.g. as poly- or monotheism. In fact, he is ascribing the latter explicitly to cultural evolution (Ch. 21, p.395):

“The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator of the universe does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture.“

Following a lead by David Hume (which I plan to explore in another blogpost), Darwin was convinced that it was not difficult to comprehend how religiosity arose! He assumed the emergence of animistic beliefs borne out of mental faculties which we name today as HAD (Hyper Agency Detection) and TOM (Theory of Mind) (Ch. 2, p. 66):

“I cannot but suspect that there is a still earlier and ruder stage, when anything which manifests power or movement is thought to be endowed with some form of life, and with mental faculties analogous to our own.“

And Darwin took his dog (and an Ape in another chapter) as comparative examples for pre-religious traits, e.g. in Ch. 2, p. 67:

“My dog, a full-grown and very sensible animal, was lying on the lawn during a hot and still day; but at a little distance a slight breeze occasionally moved an open parasol, which would have been wholly disregarded by the dog, had any one stood near it. As it was, every time that the parasol slightly moved, the dog growled fiercely and barked. He must, I think, have reasoned to himself in a rapid and unconscious manner, that movement without any apparent cause indicated the presence of some strange living agent, and no stranger had a right to be on his territory.”

From here, the evolutionary path seemed pretty clear to him, as he -again- emphasized what we call TOM today (Ch. 2, p. 67):

“The belief in spiritual agencies would easily pass into the belief in the existence of one or more gods. For savages would naturally attribute to spirits the same passions, the same love of vengeance or simplest form of justice, and the same affections which they themselves experienced.”

And although Darwin became an agnostic in his later years (while other eminent evolutionist as Alfred Russel Wallace or Antoinette Brown Blackwell retained their religious beliefs), he included religion in his hopefull view of evolutionary progress (!), Ch. 5, p. 184:

“It is apparently a truer and more cheerful view that progress has been much more general than retrogression; that man has risen, though by slow and interrupted steps, from a lowly condition to the highest standard as yet attained by him in knowledge, morals, and religion.“

To me, it seems to be pretty clear that Darwin would applaud our recent findings e.g. of a partial, genetic heritability of religiosity, the signalling function of religious behaviors, the evolutionary psychology of religious symbolism or the reproductive advantages by religious believers as confirmations of his evolutionary theory. And maybe he would be disturbed by those authors as e.g. Richard Dawkins claiming to have written "Darwinian" books about religiosity and religions - without including any discussions of those original hypotheses Darwin devised himself.

Religions and Fertility in the US - GSS-Data

blume — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 19:23:31 +0200

There are many high-fertile religious communities out there - as, for example, the Old Order Amish. Other religious groups, as the Shakers, who didn't manage (or chose) to have enough children, succumbed to (bio-)cultural evolution. In contrast, we still don't know about a single, non-religious population, movement or group that was able to retain more than two births per woman (the so-called replacement level) throughout subsequent generations. This is relevant from a sociocultural perspective: Secularization is taking place (especially among wealthy and secure populations) - but running into demographic dead ends, followed by religious-demographic revivals (through births and immigration). And it is relevant from the perspective of evolutionary studies: Intergenerational reproductive success is "the" benchmark of evolutionary fitness, promoting biocultural traits as speech, musicality - or religiosity.

A range of data sources as e.g. the Swiss Census and the World Value Surveys showed the reproductive potential of various religious communities. Vegard Skirbekk, Anne Goujon and Eric Kaufmann did another study in religious demography at the Vienna Institute of Demography, based on post-millennia General Social Surveys in the USA. Their findings are fully congruent: Most religious communities are showing higher fertility rates than the religiously non-Affiliated, whose birth rates are far below replacement level.

Please note that fundamentalist Protestants do have more children (on average) than moderate and liberal ones. An interesting case is US-Judaism: While Swiss Jews performed near the top of the Swiss birth table -together with the highest portions of academics, leading professionals and urban dwellers-, Jews come out below the non-Affiliated in the USA. The reason is: regional religious history. While there are strong conservative, orthodox and some ultra-orthodox (Haredim) communities among the Swiss Jews, most US-American Jews are (yet) liberal, although the Orthodox share is growing quickly - most importantly due to its higher fertility.

Transition rates

Another interesting set of data explored the transition rates between the various religious groups.

The results seem to be pretty conclusive. There IS secularization: From 7.3% of former Catholic Hispanics to 19.7% of former Hindus and Buddhists, almost all religious groups are losing members to the category of the Non-affiliated (which includes various ranges of individual religiosity and spirituality). But then, nearly half (44.1%) of those raised without religious affiliation chosed to join one later - according to the study, especially women.

Together with the low birth rates of seculars, these data sets explain how waves of secularization and religious revivals progress simultaneously. Neither secularization nor religion may win entire populations - especially among the free and educated, there will be ups and downs driven by demography and culture.

Evolutionary Final

The reproductive advantage of religiosity, which was -according to my knowledge- at first assumed by nobel laureate Friedrich August von Hayek, is observable in the USA, too. Religious communities don't need State funding to raise the average reproductive success of their adherents. And Twin-studies are strongly supporting the - expectable - assumption of partial, genetic heritability. As this wonderful video-clip from Tuebingen University is showing: Darwin rocks! Religiosity and religions are part of the great, evolutionary story.

Clip about Religious Fertility vs. Richard Dawkins

blume — Sun, 30 May 2010 15:39:26 +0200

For a long time, "evolutionary" puns have been an almost exclusive domain of atheists and religious critics such as Richard Dawkins and his followers. But it seems that the tide may begin to turn. Here is a new YouTube-Clip, based on demographic findings published by Eric Kaufmann, contrasting the reproductive advantage of religious people with some "memetic" assumptions of Dawkins, who assumed religious memes to function as mind parasites. And as was to be expected, the clip prompted furious and highly emotional responses - this time predominantly by critics of religion. As human beings, we are ready to enjoy puns only so long as they are aimed at the worldviews of others.

If you are interested in data about the complex interactions of religiosity and fertility, here is a sample:

* Von Hayek and the Amish Fertility
How religious communities manage
to be fruitful and multiply – A Case study

* "The Reproductive Benefits of Religious Affiliation", in: Voland, E.; Schiefenhövel, W.: "The Biological Evolution of Religious Mind and Behaviour", Springer Frontiers Collection 2009.

And there are related blog posts available, e.g. on Eric Kaufmann, the high fertility of religious groups as e.g. the Amish and another clip by Tübingen biologists about the evolutionary relevance of reproductive advantages.

Discussion about Religion and Demography

blume — Fri, 14 May 2010 16:09:17 +0200

After a presentation speech of his book "Shall the Religious inherit the Earth?", (see the review by Tom Rees in "Epiphenom") Eric Kaufmann is discussing religious demographics with Dominic Lawson and Laurie Taylor.

If you are interested in more data (from an evolutionary perspective), you might want to take a look at the

* Web Resources on Religion and Reproduction

The Amish - A Special Case in Evolutionary Studies

blume — Sat, 01 May 2010 22:00:54 +0200

At first glance, nothing would appear to be more different than the Amish on the one side and scientific evolutionary studies on the other. After all, the Amish are a Christian group which branched from the Mennonite Anabaptist movement in Europe during the 16th century and whose members do not seek "worldly wisdom" as e.g. higher education. But on the other hand, the Amish are actually living the very riddle of evolutionary religious studies: They are accepting numerous religious commandments and costly requirements and they had to face discrimination and prosecution throughout Europe - and they nevertheless managed to expand demographically and culturally, passing on their genes and religious-cultural traditions with extreme success. While "modern" and secular Germans and Swiss are dwindling due to the lack of children, the Old Order Amish from the same stock are thriving. How do they do that?

Of course, there are lots of information about the Amish available, the Young Center for Pietist and Anabaptist Studies at Elizabethtown College being a source of strong research and well-written books. There are even informative clips to be found on YouTube:

In 1900, the Old Order Amish numbered about 5.000 adult members, forming a fringe minority frequently accused to be "dumb Germans". But while the US fertility declined to about two children per woman in the USA, the Amish retained their large families and increased their retention rates with the establishment of their own school system. As a result, although reluctant in accepting converts, the Old Order Amish began to grow exponentially, doubling every 15 to 20 years.

In fact, the high fertility rates of the Amish cannot be explained without their religious traditions - proving the evolutionary potential of religiosity. And please note that we know about a lot of other high-fertile religious communities as e.g. the Hutterites, the Mormons, the Haredim (ultra-orthodox Jews) etc. - but of not a single secular group that was able to have enough children to retain its numbers! Long fascinated by the combination of statistical data and ethnological observation, I recently published another paper on the subject (free download per click):

Von Hayek and the Amish Fertility
How religious communities manage
to be fruitful and multiply – A Case study

Regardless if you are religious or not: From a purely scientific perspective, the Amish are a compelling case study in understanding human evolution - past and present...

* Another blogpost about the Amish on the German Scilog "Natur des Glaubens"

New Science Book: The Nature of God - Evolution and Religion

blume — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 19:20:34 +0200

To explain religious behavior is a daunting task. One very recent attempt is to explain religious behaviors and religion within an evolutionary framework. In "The Nature of God - Evolution and Religion" by editor Ulrich Frey, a range of established and young experts from various disciplines analyze religion and religiosity as phenomena in a Darwinian world. Is religiosity adaptive? Are religious people more fertile? Do we have cognitive predispositions to be religious? Are children natural believers? New answers to these questions are presented in this fascinating array of contributions from the field of evolutionary studies of religion.

Ulrich Frey (Ed.): The Nature of God - Evolution and Religion. Tectum 2010

Price: 24,90 €, 180 p., includes graphs

Table of Contents

1. Introduction –
Connections between evolution and religion
Gerhard Vollmer

2. From evolution to religion? About scientific
and non-scientific explanations of religious phenomena
Thomas Sukopp

3. Religious Concepts as Necessary Components
of the Adaptive Religious System
Benjamin Grant Purzycki/Richard Sosis

4. Religiousness in the era of genes
Caspar Söling

5. Can Religious Belief Be Explained Away? –
Reasons and Causes of Religious Belief
Justin L. Barrett/David Leech/Aku Visala

6. The Role of Religious Concepts
in the Evolution of Human Cognition
Rebekah A. Richert/Erin I. Smith

7. Harnessing the Placebo Effect:
Religion as a Cultural Adaptation
Matt J. Rossano

8. Naturalistic Impositions
Hannes Rusch

9. Von Hayek and the Amish Fertility
How religious communities manage
to be fruitful and multiply – A Case study
Michael Blume

Information on the authors

Shall the Religious inherit the Earth? - New book by Eric Kaufmann

blume — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 22:47:55 +0100

Some months ago, I introduced political sociologist Eric Kaufmann here, with whom I had the joy to share and debate some data and ideas concerning our common field of research, the reproductive potentials of religion(s). Coming from the scientific study of religion(s) and an evolutionary perspective, I was curious (and admittedly a little bit sceptical) whether it would be possible to handle the multidimensional topic in the field of contemporary politics in any meaningful way. Now I know that it is. "Shall the Religious inherit the Earth? Demography and Politics in the twenty-first Century" is a groundbreaking book about religions, demography and our future. It has the potential to change perceptions in sciences, publics and politics.

Eric starts with a discussion of theories concerning secularization and demographics. And he points out a consequence of modern demographic transition: As children are becoming a matter of economically expensive choice for more and more people and fertility rates are plummeting, pro-natalist religious traditions are gaining momentum. If you imagine a population with a median birth rate of 4 and a group of highly religious having a rate of 6, this would account for an advantage of "only" 50%, most of which could be levelled out i.e. by secularization and assimilation. But if both rates would drop collateraly by two to 2 and 4 respectively, the gap would extend to 100%, with only the highly religious population still growing. And in fact, birth rates in almost all free and wealthy societies fell below replacement level, with secular strata going down to one child per women and less. (Here, I want to add that Eric is not only right with the numbers, but with the cases studies, too. We are having lots of highly fertile religious communities but not yet a single find of a demographically stable, secular population!)

Thus, Eric notes the diverse development of three different milieus:

* Especially in wealthy and secure countries lacking extrinsic motivations for religious adherence, many people tend to abandon their religious affiliation. Secularization is taking place - but as seculars tend to have very few children, it is running into demographic dead ends. In fact, almost all secular populations are increasingly depending on immigration - which is in almost all cases bringing new religious identities into the field, i.e. growing Muslim groups to Europe.
* Moderate and mainstream religious tend to have somewhat higher birth rates than their secular neighbours. But then, they have low retention rates: Many of their children are abandoning the shallow faiths, most often secularizing.
* It's the fundamentalist movements that are combining high birth rates with high retention rates. While the moderates are torn apart between secular and fundamentalist critics, the highly devout strengthen their borders, building distinct milieus, worldviews, institutions and languages. Highly fertile groups (termed "endogenous growth sects" by Eric) as i.e. the Amish, the Hutterites or orthodox Jews may even chose not to proselytize in order to protect their demographically expanding community structures.

Going through the USA (i.e. highly fertile Christians as the Amish or the Quiverfull movement), the Muslim world (with plummeting birth rates and forming salafist communities), Europe (with a secularly shrinking native population and growing fringe and immigrant groups) and - especially convincing - Israel (with a shrinking secular or moderate majority pincered by the exponential growth of ultra-orthodox Jews and religious Muslims), Eric is emphasizing the observable processes by sound research and data.

And an avowed secular himself, the author is repeatedly discussing the consequences, dangers and options of the development gaining momentum by the day. Those daring to face these well-written pages will get a fresh perspective on everyday politics, from the local to the global level. John Gray endorsed the book by the citation: "Brilliant and provocative... a book every liberal should read". I would just like to add: "And everyone interested in sciences, religions, politics and thoughts has to read it - quickly!"

Links:

* At the blog of his rightfully proud father is an interview with Eric Kaufmann about his new book available.

* "Shall the Religious inherit the Earth?" on wikireligiosus

Clips about the Evolution of Homo sapiens

blume — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:13:45 +0100

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.

Of course, the evolution of hominids has taken place in the broad frame of the evolution of live in general. If you didn't have the chance to admire it yet, you might want to enjoy "Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life" by Sir David Attenborough (6:30 Minutes).

About 500.000 years ago, (at least) two branches descended from our common ancestors, the species of homo erectus: Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens. Both of them evolved burials as the first behaviors that left traces which might be interpreted as religious or proto-religious. As modern Homo sapiens emerged in Africa, they were ready to conquer the planet - while sharing mythologies and performing rituals concerned with supernatural agents. Homo sapiens has been Homo religiosus from the start, and this might have helped him to build stronger communities and to settle all climate zones.

While it has been common conviction for a long time that the evolution of our species took place primarily in the fields of competition, wars and machiavellian intelligence, recent models and studies have shown that our abilities to build trusting social groups of cooperative breeding allowed for shorter birthing intervals, longer childhoods, bigger brains and the increasing importance of cultural evolution. As biologists as e.g. Sarah Hrdy discerned: Homo sapiens and her religiosity evolved not along a path of cooperative killings, but one of cooperative childcare.