Tag: Cognitive

Evolution may have delivered tendencies to believe certain things but that does not tell us whether those beliefs are true. There are risks in making up evolutionary “just-so” stories to explain the origins of complex human beliefs, such as religious ones.  Evolutionary biology will be of little help in “explaining” human beliefs in either quantum mechanics or the finer points of theology.

There has been a swathe of dubious reports recently about the supposed benefits of religion; how it makes you healthier, happier, less anti-social and ensures that you grow better tomatoes.

Considerable debate has surrounded the question of the origins and evolution of religion. One proposal views religion as an adaptation for cooperation, whereas an alternative proposal views religion as a by-product of evolved, non-religious, cognitive functions. We critically evaluate each approach, explore the link between religion and morality in particular, and argue that recent empirical work in moral psychology provides stronger support for the by-product approach. Specifically, despite differences in religious background, individuals show no difference in the pattern of their moral judgments for unfamiliar moral scenarios. These findings suggest that religion evolved from pre-existing cognitive functions, but that it may then have been subject to selection, creating an adaptively designed system for solving the problem of cooperation.