Encyclopedia of Evolution.pdf - Online Reading Center

paintings resemble what people at that time would have seen
during hallucinations. Some of the geometric symbols resemble
the images seen during migraines. The animal images are
not in their natural habitats, and appear to be floating, with
no particular orientation with respect to one another or the
ground, and they sometimes lack hooves.
To the Cro-Magnon, as to many recent tribal peoples,
the wall of a cave may have represented an interface between
the outer world and the underworld. When the prehistoric
people entered a cave, they were literally entering the underworld.
In the darkness they would hallucinate from sensory
deprivation, and possibly also from the high levels of carbon
dioxide. Then when the lamps were lit, they would paint
the images they had seen. Sometimes the artists would also
paint their hands, leaving either positive or negative images
of them, as a mark of direct contact with the underworld.
Hand contact with the wall, and the process of spit-painting,
were part of the overall religious experience. The visionary
quality of the paintings is particularly evident in the deepest
recesses of the caves, where quick sketches of many animals
overlapped.
Next would come the communal aspect. The solitary
visionary could then lead other people down into the cave,
where his (or her) paintings would represent visual evidence
that they had, indeed, made contact with the world of
spirit animals. Unlike the modern view of the paintings with
harsh light, the Cro-Magnon would have seen them flickeringly
illuminated by small lamps. The shamans could have
manipulated the visitors by suddenly surprising them with a
previously hidden image. They also had flutes, and there is
evidence that they struck the sides of stalactites—creating
ritualistic sounds. As Lewis-Williams says, “The caves, if not
the hills, were alive with the sound of music.” Perhaps only
the shamans went deep into the caves to paint or carve (some
paintings are as much as a kilometer from the entrance), and
perhaps only their associates followed them later; the shallower
reaches of the cave served as the assembly rooms for
the general population, and it is in such places that the large,
vivid images are found. The shamans’ claim that they had
seen these visions would be credible to the general population,
all of whom would at least have had (to them inexplicable)
dreams.
With the advent of civilization, religion was usually
dominated by priests and kings and used as a tool of oppression
of the masses, as Marxist and other sociologists have
pointed out. The power structure that provided an advantage
of some people over others in a society could also allow one
city-state to dominate another. This role of religion continues
to this day. At the same time, there has been a parallel lineage
of prophets who have visions and criticize social norms. In
ancient Israel, for example, practically all the prophets were
outcasts who lived in huts and caves and were sorely hated
by the priests and kings.
The foregoing does not mean that there can be no such
thing as revealed religion from a higher deity, in which many
scientists believe (see essay, “Can an Evolutionary Scientist
Be Religious?”). Rather, evolution explains the neurological
basis that made human spirituality possible.
reproductive systems
Religion will be with the human species as long as it exists.
Not just a religious sense of reverence, but specific and even
fundamentalist religious doctrines, seem to be here to stay.
With a rush of Enlightenment optimism, Thomas Jefferson
said, “There is no young man alive today who will not die a
Unitarian.” But it is the most fundamentalist forms of religion
that are now spreading the most rapidly in the world. Today,
as during the Paleolithic, people want the assurance that they
have a degree of magical control over their health, wealth, and
fate, and over other people; and they want to be told what to
believe, rather than to face the dangers of the unknown.
Further Reading
Atran, Scott. In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of
Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Bering, Jesse M. “The cognitive psychology of belief in the supernatural.”
American Scientist 94 (2006): 142–149.
Broom, Donald. The Evolution of Morality and Religion. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. New York: Houghton Mifflin,
2006.
Dennett, Daniel C. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.
New York: Viking Penguin, 2006.
Hamer, Dean H. The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired into Our
Genes. New York: Doubleday, 2004.
Lewis-Williams, David. The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and
the Origins of Art. London: Thames and Hudson, 2002.
——— and David Pearce. Inside the Neolithic Mind. London:
Thames and Hudson, 2005.
Newberg, Andrew, Eugene d’Aquili, and Vince Rause. Why God
Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. New
York: Ballantine, 2001.
Paul, Gregory S. “Cross-national correlations of quantifiable societal
health with popular religiosity and secularism in the prosperous
democracies: A first look.” Journal of Religion and Society 7
(2005): 1–17. Available online. URL: http://moses.creighton.edu/
JRS/2005/2005–11.html. Accessed October 7, 2005.
Shermer, Michael. How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of
Science. New York: Freeman, 2000.
Sosis, Richard. “The adaptive value of religious ritual.” American
Scientist 92 (2004): 166–172.
reproductive systems Reproductive systems are adaptations
of organisms that promote crossbreeding with other
organisms in the population. Reproductive systems are part
of the life history of an organism, which is the pattern
of growth and reproduction, from birth to death. Sexual
reproduction allows new gene combinations to be produced
(see sex, evolution of). Many adaptations have evolved
that enhance reproductive success, differently for males and
females (see sexual selection).
Across the animal kingdom, individuals typically seek
mates that are genetically unrelated to them. Humans do
this not only through social convention (the “taboo” against
incest is one of the few nearly universal human morals) but
also subconsciously. Experiments by Swiss evolutionary biologist
Claus Wedekind, in which women were asked to rate
the attractiveness of the scent of shirts worn by men (whose