DISCUSSION

BIOLOGY AND RELIGION: ON ESTABLISHING A PROBLEMATIC1

BENSON SALER

1.

In an article on 's Hall} the Mind Works, Steve ,Jones opines that for most scientists, "philosophy is to science as pornogra- phy is to sex: it is cheaper, easier, and some people seem, bafflingly, to prefer it" (1997: 13-14). The sort of philosophy to which Jones refers is the interpretation of nature "in metaphysical terms" (Jones 1997: 13), an enterprise warned against in the motto of the Royal Society of London, .Nullius in verba, trust not in words Jones 1997: 13). But while we might incline to the Royal Society's aversion to meta- physical conjectures, we would do well not to conflate such conjec- tures with philosophical concerns and reflections of an epistemologi- cal and analytical sort. Philosophical concerns of an epistemological and analytical sort are of importance for establishing a problematic in the study of biol- ogy and religion. Such concerns can be expressed in the form of questions such as these: What do we want to know? Why do we want to know those things? And what sorts of constraints might affect our understandings? The study of biology and religion implicates at least two interests: an interest in religion and, more broadly, an interest in the condition, particularly as that condition may be illuminated by theo- rizing about evolutionary developments and human nature. But while establishing a problematic embraces both interests, different scholars are guided by different agendas and emphases. In some cases, primary emphasis is directed to religion as explanandum, the thing to be explained or to be better understood. In other cases, consideration of religion is largely instrumental or illustrative.

1 A shorter version of this paper was read at the 96th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., November 23, 1997. 387

Gravitating toward one interest rather than the other will have consequences. That is so not only respecting treatment of the interest that receives relatively less emphasis, but also for the sorts of criti- cisms likely to be raised by other scholars. An example of what I mean can be drawn from a two-part essay in the New York Review of Books by (1997a; 1997b). That essay is followed by Gould's responses to some criticisms of the essay by Steven Pinker (Gould 1997c). Gould suggests that religion is a "spandrel." Spandrel is a term that Gould and (1979) borrow from architecture and incorporate into . They use it to mean a non-adaptive evolutionary develop- ment. That is, it is an architectural byproduct of other evolutionary changes. Although not originally adaptive, it may eventually take on functional significance. Gould relates that he and Lewontin borrowed the term spandrel to make "a crucial distinction between non- adaptive origin and possible later utility." They did so, indeed, "in order to expose one of the great fallacies so commonly made in evolutionary argument: the misuse of a current utility to infer an adap- tive origiyt" (C?ould 1997c: 57; emphases in original). Now, in treating religion as a spandrel, Gould is not primarily interested in religion in the essay and responses cited above. His emphasis there is on criticizing what he calls "Darwinian fundamen- talists" (i.e., adaptationists who treat as if it were the sole mechanism in ). Gould, in contrast to that species of "fundamentalists," advocates a pluralistic view of evolution. He maintains that natural selection is the primus inter pares of evolutionary principles, and he argues that we ought to take account of other evolutionary laws or mechanisms in addition to natural selection. He contends, moreover, that we should also make allowance for histori- cal contingencies (1997b: 47). Gould's invocations of religion and of Sigmund Freud's theorizing about religion are given in this passage in the essay: Even such an eminently functional and universal institution as religion arose largely as a spandrel if we accept Freud's old and sensible argu- ment that invented religious belief largely to accommodate the most terrifying fact that our large brains forced us to acknowledge: the inevitability of personal mortality. We can scarcely argue that the brain got large so that we would know we must die! (1997b: 52)

The above statement forms a very minor part of Gould's overall argument. Students of religion, nevertheless, may regret it as simplis-