Encyclopedia of Evolution.pdf - Online Reading Center

eligion, evolution of
pathogens never evolve permanent ways of taking advantage
of their victims.
The red queen hypothesis applies particularly to the evolution
of sex (see sex, evolution of). An asexual lineage
may be perfectly able to evolve adaptations to climatic conditions.
But sexual reproduction continually produces new
combinations of, for example, defensive chemicals, allowing
sexual organisms to more effectively “outrun” their predators
or pathogens than asexual organisms.
Further Reading
Van Valen, Leigh. “A new evolutionary law.” Evolutionary Theory 1
(1973): 1–30.
religion, evolution of Homo sapiens is a religious species.
This is one of the few behavioral universals of the human species.
Though there is individual variation in the strength of
this trait, no society is without it; those that tried to eliminate
it have failed. Religion is ineradicable. There is clearly no biological
basis for particular religions, but it is likely that there
is a biological basis for the capacity for religion.
Neandertals apparently did not have religion. The
contrast between the religious artifacts of Homo sapiens and
their absence in Homo neanderthalensis in their regions of
overlap could hardly be greater. While Homo sapiens had
intricate burials (a burial of two children in Sungir, Russia,
contained 10,000 shell beads, each of which took from one
to three person hours to prepare), Neandertals apparently
dug the shallowest possible graves to keep the body from
stinking. The Shanidar burial of a Neandertal with flowers,
even if it is confirmed, is a rare and isolated instance. Neandertal
pendants associated with the Châtelperronian culture
have been mostly dismissed as imitative of the Aurignacian
culture of the Cro-Magnon, and even if they were not, their
connection with religion is unclear. Neandertal caves totally
lack the wall art that abundantly and resplendently represents
Cro-Magnon religious experience. Anthropologist David
Lewis-Williams calls Neandertals “congenital atheists.” Yet
Neandertals had brains at least as large as those of modern
humans. Other groups of H. sapiens, all over the world, had
a similar abundance of religious practice. The evolution of
religion in the modern human species may have involved a
change in brain quality unconnected with a change in brain
size, which has remained unaltered in H. sapiens for at least
100,000 years.
Specific areas and functions of the brain have been
implicated in the mystical, religious experience. Neurologists
Andrew Newberg and Eugene d’Aquili have been particularly
active in researching the brain activities associated with religion.
They point out, for example, that when humans enter
an altered state of consciousness, the orientation association
area of the brain (which in the left lobe is associated with the
sensation of having a limited body, and in the right lobe with
the sense of space that a person occupies) contribute to outof-body
experiences.
Religion is not pathological, but brain pathologies can
help scientists to understand its neurological basis. Stimulation
of the right temporal lobe by electrodes (or pathological
stimulation by epilepsy) produces experiences closely paralleling
the near-death experience of passing through a tunnel
toward the light. Similar effects are also produced by the
drug ketamine. The patterns of brain activity during religious
ecstasy are similar, according to Newberg and d’Aquili, to
those of other forms of ecstasy, for example sexual ecstasy.
Stimulation of the amygdala can create a sensation of awe,
which is also part of the complex of religious feelings.
Of course, religion does not consist only of such experiences.
Religions also have content: belief in life after death,
Supreme Being or beings, universal mythological story lines,
etc. The human brain cannot not think; therefore, when religious
experience first evolved, humans struggled to make
sense of it (see intelligence, evolution of). A side effect of
intelligence may have been the susceptibility to altered mental
states, induced by natural compounds (such as psilocybin in
some mushrooms), sensory deprivation (as in a cave), ritual
rhythmicity, or particularly vivid dreams, which further contributed
to the circumstances that favored the evolution of
religion.
Religion would probably have been a local aberration
in early human populations had it not provided some evolutionary
advantage. In modern tribal societies, shamans who
have (and can confirm) exceptional religious experiences have
considerable social power, which can translate into greater
resources and reproductive opportunities; no doubt this was
also the case during the prehistory of Homo sapiens. David
Lewis-Williams points out that this would be the same in
the Lascaux cave as in modern charismatic Christianity: In
a church as in a cave, those individuals who receive “showers
of blessing” are revered by the others. This would be the
within-population fitness advantage that is necessary for natural
selection. Once the trait was established or at least
common within a tribe, this tribe would have advantages
over tribes that did not possess it—for example, social cohesion
and identity that allowed them to prevail in conflicts.
Individuals within the tribe would benefit from membership
in a tribe in which religion was established by biology and/or
culture (see group selection).
Although all Homo sapiens groups have religion, there
was a striking development of religion when Homo sapiens
encountered Homo neanderthalensis in Europe, and later
when the most recent Ice Age forced Northern European
tribes southward where they encountered tribes that already
lived in Southern Europe. Religion then functioned in tribal
identity. There were geographical differences in types and
styles of artwork—for example, cave painting vs. pendants
vs. sculptures. Different caves specialize on different animals,
reflecting differences in established traditions.
There have been many different attempted explanations
of the Cro-Magnon cave paintings. Some anthropologists say
that the paintings were sympathetic magic to promote successful
hunting. However, as David Lewis-Williams points
out, the set of animals in the paintings is not the same as the
animals that the people ate (for example, they did not eat
bears and lions), and only 15 percent of the paintings show
animals with spears. They obviously performed a religious
function, but what was it? Lewis-Williams points out that the