Belief in the Supernatural as an Adaptation

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Belief in the Supernatural as an Adaptation

• David Viitala
• November 29, 2006

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Supernatural Belief

• Religion or spiritual beliefs are found all over
  the world, in almost every culture
• About 3/4 of the worlds population follows one
  of the following four
• Christianity (33)
• Islam (21)
• Hinduism (14)
• Buddhism (6)

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Supernatural Belief

• Supernatural experiences include
• Religious experiences
• Spiritual experiences
• Near-death experiences
• Out-of-body / astral projection
• Feeling the presence of spirits
• Feeling possessed by spirits, demons
• Auditory and visual hallucinations
• and so on
• These experiences are found world-wide

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Beginnings of Supernatural Belief

• Early humans had been performing mortuary
  practices as long as 120 000 years ago
• Neanderthals and early humans placed the deceased
  in a sleeping position, with objects surrounding
• This does not necessarily indicate a religious
  belief, or the idea of having a god
• However this does show an awareness of death,
  perhaps what could come after death, as well as
  feelings of loss, love, and mysticism

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Beginnings of Supernatural Belief

• Thousands of years go by, and rituals become more
  diverse and detailed
• Beliefs represented in paintings, artifacts
• Eventually organized religion emerges

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Some say

• Some say we believe in
• God, or a god, because
• there truly is a God
• There very well could be?
• The universe is very
• mystical!

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However

• In terms of evolution, the belief in supernatural
  beings or worlds may have been an adaptive trait,
  increasing the fitness of early humans
• How?

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Belief in supernatural as an adaptation

• Early humans would have benefited from living in
  groups
• Avoiding predators
• Hunting and gathering
• Investments in kin
• Sharing of resources
• These groups would have been in competition with
  other groups for resources and habitats, thereby
  increasing the need for a strong, united group
• Cooperation and cohesion would have been important

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Belief in supernatural as an adaptation

• Humans are self-interested
• In a group of cooperators, a cheater could thrive
• However, collective action and cooperation can be
  increased if there is a credible threat of
  punishment
• Cooperation has costs, but a threat of punishment
  can have higher costs

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Belief in supernatural as an adaptation

• It would have became harder to cheat with the
  arrival of two abilities
• Capacity to infer the contents of other minds
• Language
• These new selection pressures would have been
  entirely novel
• Much greater social transparency

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Belief in supernatural as an adaptation

• The belief in supernatural beings and a threat of
  punishment, either immediate or in the
  after-life, may have increased unity and deterred
  transgression
• A god could dictate what is good, and what is bad
• Cooperation requires some level of morality

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Some supportive evidence

• Sosis (2000) found that cooperation is higher
  among those who are more devout
• Roes and Raymond (2003) found that there is a
  modest but significant correlation between size
  of society and likelihood to be characterized by
  a belief in moralizing gods
• Johnson (2005) found that in a sample of 186
  human societies, high gods are significantly
  associated with larger societies

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It could also be in part

• It is important in nature for organisms to find
  patterns and develop expectancies
• It was perhaps a natural consequence of human
  brains fearful of invoking the calamities of
  nature upon themselves as a result of their
  actions
• Belief in the supernatural could have been an
  effective coping mechanism

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Some argue

• There are no brain regions specifically for
  religious practices
• No animal precursors
• Deficiency in religiosity does not seem to impede
  ability to survive (at least in todays world)
• No evidence that religiosity is heritable

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Biological basis

• The regions of the brain that have been linked to
  spiritual experiences when activated include
• The amygdala
• The hippocampus
• The temporal lobe
• These experiences can include
• trance-like states, astral projection, dreaming,
  near-death experiences, and hallucinations of
  ghosts, spirits, demons, angels, etc
• As well as intense experiences involving
  sexuality, fear, and rage
• Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon have been found to
  have well developed inferior temporal lobes and
  limbic systems

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Biological basis

• Particularly the right side of the brain seems to
  be involved in dreaming and hallucinations
• The right temporal lobe is more active during
  REM, and the left is more-so during non-REM sleep
• LSD-induced hallucinations are more greatly
  reduced with the damage of the right temporal lobe

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Conclusions

• Evolution its complicated
• It is possible that the belief in supernatural
  agents would have been the result of a number of
  selective pressures
• Evolutionary theory explains why religion is
  found everywhere

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Thank You

• and you

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