The sleep of reason produces monsters
Goya, Francisco Caprichos May common Sense and Reason prevail
Evolutionary psychology of religion and the reign of science Richard Dawkins – an introduction
Primer to Dawkins
BBC programmes
The Root of all Evil
The Enemies of Reason. Slaves to superstition 00.-30 The Virus of faith
REASON and IRRATIONALITY Disclaimer: my religion: Harry Potterism
Hermione Granger & the Resurrection Stone Hermione , ". 'But that's - I'm sorry, but that's completely ridiculous! How can I possibly prove it doesn't exist? .. you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist !‘ Bertrand Russell: the Holy flying China Teapot in Orbit around the Sun RoE 44.50 Too small to be spotted by telescope – we are all teapot-agnostics Fairies, goblins, giants, Dawkins : We’re all atheists about most of the Gods that societies have ever believed in – some of us just go one God further. Disclaimer: my religion: Harry Potterism Severus Snapism
Hermione Granger & the Resurrection Stone Hermione , ". 'But that's - I'm sorry, but that's completely ridiculous! How can I possibly prove it doesn't exist? .. you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist !‘ Bertrand Russell: the Holy flying China Teapot in Orbit around the Sun RoE 44.50 Too small to be spotted by telescope – we are all teapot-agnostics Fairies, goblins, giants, Thor, Aphrodite Dawkins : We’re all atheists about most of the Gods that societies have ever believed in – some of us just go one God further. On evolution
A chicken is just an egg's way of making more eggs. Charles Darwin
Premise 1: Struggle for survival Premise 2: Variability Premise 3: Heritability Premise 4: Fitness
CONCLUSION : NATURAL SELECTION •He observed breeders and different naturally evolving species •Charles Babbage: God = programmer of laws Evolutionary psychology
The Human Animal (Sociobiology) Adaptationism
Originally applied to biological organs – the most well-known is the eye
Extensions: the brain is a biological organ
Supposition: the brain produces behaviour and consciousness
Therefore: behaviour and consciousness is formed by evolution just as the biological body is Problems with evolutionary psychology
Level of selection (individual, gene, group) Question of fitness & adaptation Small designs that lead to a higher reproduction of a trait CIRCULARITY: How do you recognize fitness? Xenophobia, colour of bones, form of earlobes Just-so stories (Rudyard Kipling) The Panglossian Paradox George Jackson Mivart - what do you do with 5% of a wing? Blind adaptationism (by Pinker) Gould: exaptations Physical constraints – Gould: spandrels in the cathedral Genetic Determinism… nature-nurture debate… The Swiss-army-knife model of evolution Pinker, Tooby and Cosmides, Buss
Massive modularity
Modern-day phrenology Dawkins’s views
An ardent opponent to creationism and proponent of evolution - earning him the title of Darwin’s Rottweiler The Blind Watchmaker – focuses on how evolution could create marvellous structures – like the eye William Paley – a watch presupposes intelligent design because of its complexity The Weasel problem
Shakespeare’s Hamlet Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel? Polonius: By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel. Based on the infinite monkey theorem A monkey bashing away at random on a typewriter – given enough time he would type the entire works of Shakespeare how long would it take him to produce the sentence ‘Methinks it is like a weasel.’? The Weasel problem
Methinks it is like a weasel
This is 28 characters
Using 26 letters – only capitals and a space bar
Probability? 28 = 40 27 10 = infinity, or at least much longer than milliseconds from the existence of the universe (13,73 billion = 13,73 * 10 9 years = 7,22 * 10 18 milliseconds) Sir Frederick Hoyle
„approximately the same order of magnitude as the probability that a hurricane could sweep through a junkyard and randomly assemble a Boeing 747 .” solar system full of blind men solving Rubik's Cube simultaneously. The simplest bacterium needs 10 40,000 permutations, while the number of the atoms in the universe is „only” 10 80, the chance is the same as throwing 50 000 sixes in a row with a die Sir Frederick Hoyle
Astronomer and sci-fi writer
He opposed the Big Bang theory – because it needs a cause Steady State theory
He also opposed natural abiogenesis! Intelligent design - Evolution from Space Hoyle’s fallacy
You don’t need 28 letters. You start with say 3. They calculate the probability of the formation of a "modern" protein, or even a complete bacterium with all "modern" proteins, by random events. This is not the abiogenesis theory at all – it starts with VERY SIMPLE organisms They assume that there is a fixed number of proteins, with fixed sequences for each protein, that are required for life. They calculate the probability of sequential trials, rather than simultaneous trials. Changing one at a time – mutations are rare but do not exclude each other They seriously underestimate the number of functional enzymes/ribozymes present in a group of random sequences – only one good solution fallacy The Weasel problem
Cumulative selections instead of a single step selection Two differences in his model:
Copying mechanism – it retains previous states
There is an inherent goal – any change that occurs towards methinks it is a weasel is kept, others are discarded Generation 1: WDLMNLT DTJBKWIRZREZLMQCO P Generation 2: WDLTMNLT DTJBSWIRZREZLMQCO P Generation 10: MDLDMNLS ITJISWHRZREZ MECS P Generation 20: MELDINLS IT ISWPRKE Z WECSEL Generation 30: METHINGS IT ISWLIKE B WECSEL
Generation 40: METHINKS IT IS LIKE I WEASEL
Generation 43: METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL Fitness or adaptive landscapes – genetic variation is pushed to the direction of the arrows
Waddington – epigenetic landscape – curiously posits a rolling, not a climbing ball
Saddle points in mathematics as non-optimal solutions The circular argumentation problem
Inherent goal – often evokes attacks of circular argumentation
The effects strive towards the goal
The goal preexists (who invented the goal?) Answer – evolutionary forces
How do you know this was the goal? Because it is reached!
Mary Midgley: Evolution as a Religion
Buss: the moral phallacy (Dawkins examines it as well.) On evolution and religion The Four Horsemen of the anti- Apocalypse *The end of Faith: Harris *The God Delusion: Dawkins *god is not Great: Hitchens *Breaking the Spell: Dennett
Would you like the Churches empty? The Bible as a literary piece = Harry Potter Evolutionary accounts of religion
Richard Dawkins
Openly attacking religion – derogatory of believers
Supporter of the Brights movement
Bright – Paul Geisert’s umbrella term
Daniel C. Denett
More of a compromise
Restricts himself to the argument that religion can and should be studied by science Daniel Clement Dennett
Philosopher With an interesting history (father spy, self-education)
Darwin’s dangerous Idea
Consciousness Explained (at least not religion..)
No Cartesian theatre bundle of semi-independent agencies content-fixation Denett on religion
An argument towards the scientific study of religion – terrorist attempts 9/11 Explanation given on the basis of meme theory (by Dawkins) Evaluation of good and bad aspects Denett on religion
Part I: Opening Pandora's Box
Relationship of science and religion Part II: The Evolution of Religion Part III: Religion Today
What should be done to stop religious fanatics There is reason in unreasonable behaviour – somewhere, if you look long enough
The story of the suicidal ant and the lancet fluke (a small worm) There are many ideas to die for protecting ideologies
(other animals protect food, cubs or habitat only)
The curious example of the dog (domestication) Ideas are not intelligent themselves- why should they cause others to kill
Neither are lancet flukes and the wings of butterflies What is religion for Dennett?
Religion Social systems Participants avow belief In supernatural agents OR Agents whose approval is to be sought Elvis Presley fan club is not one Need not be anthropomorphic Jehova exists in real-time according to some accounts and not real.time according to others If prayer is a symbolic activity, not addressed to anyone, it is not part of religion Maybe this is the origin of religion Some rituals can pass to non-religious (Santa Claus or Halloween) Private religions – spiritual in his terms, not religious Black magic and satanist cults They are not religions, because no one thinks so?? Buddhism & Confucianism (again a contradiction) Breaking which spell?
Breaking the spell – of religion The analogy of the men with a cell phone in the room Religion as a potentially evil spell – sharin gas attack, 9/11 Other ones mentioned: Drugs Gambling Alcohol Child pornography Addiction? – life without it is not worth living Excessive physical or psychological dependence (conversation? Communication?) Breaking which spell? The fear of knowing
Wouldn’t an extensive and invasive examination destroy the phenomenon itself? Nobody knows the answer – incl.Denett Endangered species – often become extinct because of capturing them to breed – which they don’t in captivity Isolated people are often changed if studied by anthropologists Cadavres were prohibited to study – medicine started off, when they did Alfred Kinsey’s study of Human sexual behaviour – myths dispelled – it improved sex life although consider „free love” Breaking which spell?
Reformulating the category names
Gays and straights (and not glum)
Bright and … supers? (from supernatural) Mind Philip Tetlock’s sacred values
You’re money or your life!
I’m thinking, I’m thinking!
Aside – mugging becomes lucrative.. Breaking which spell?
Religion is a natural phenomena
Not an opposition of culture
Of course it is cultural
Not an opposition of supernatural either
It is in the nature of the homo sapiens to create religious memes New myths
What about a Harry Potter day?
A new pretext to recieve presents!
Would you be in favour of inventing it?
Santa Claus - 1985 Some questions about science
Basically the same argument as Dawkins’ – and Gould’s non-overlapping magisteria again It is possible to be neutral to religion The gap between mind sciences (Geistwissenschaften) and nature sciences (Naturwissenschaften) is narrowing (though not yet disappeared) Some questions about science
Homo sapiens – the power of the source of prediction We can minimalize damages by preventing them – no other species has been observed to do that (collecting food is a general answer to periodic changes) Epidemics Economical crisis Hurricanes Can we prevent the next 9/11 by studying religion? What if music is bad for you? It can’t feed anyone or cure the ill… All he asks for is to study religion – if it turns out to be bad, we need to think if it turns out to be good, atheist attacks can be silenced Why Good things happen
Because of evolution… Footprints of coyotes and dogs Why do coyotes howl? The homo sapiens sugar industry Tons of sugar and its counterpart – obesity clinics, toothpaste Co- evolution of plant strategies to spread and homo s. strategies to find energy source The free-floating rationale It is perfectly rational as a mechanism, but nobody – including the participants – is aware, not conscious i.e. you don’t need to understand it for it to work Why Good things happen
The CUI BONO obsession No free luch – somebody has to benefit „Evolution is remarkably efficient in sweeping pointless accidents off the scene” Remember the lancet fluke And the toxoplasma gondii Which lives in rats, drives them reckless, so they get eaten by cats, which is the only place they can reproduce Sexual reproduction vs asexual – making offspring more inscrutable to parasites – actually adaptation in general Parasites are in an arms race with hosts Why Good things happen
The Good Trick obsession
Anything that enhances fitness is a Good Trick Flight and eyes were invented repeatedly over the course of evolution
Religion takes time & energy, both valuable and finite resources -> it must be a Good Trick -> cui bono?
Free-floating rationale works with culture too – that is a meme You don’t have to understand the shape of the boat in terms of biodynamics - it it is a tradition (N.B. is this true for modern science ?) Why Good things happen
The CUI BONO of religion
The sweet tooth theory Religion is good for us – just as sugar is – and we have developed a taste for it And just as sugar – saccharine – it can be cheated
The Symbiont Theories The lancet fluke theory Primarily it is not the Homo S that religion is good for Mutualists Hundred trillion cells – 90% Commensals not human cells Parasites Why Good things happen
The CUI BONO of religion Sexual selection The Peacock’s tail theory Runaway selection A whim of females? Fitness indicator Not a whim a sign of health Faithfulness Intelligence – music Group selection People with religion were more altruistic in necessary cases – better survival in rough times The pearl theory – spandrels in a cathedral A beautiful by-product Does not enhance anything, it is an objet trouvé The roots of religion
Historians „There have always been religion”
Dennett: that only means religion is more ancient than history writing The CARGO cults & Melanesians – shows the formation of new religions
The John Frum cult
The Pomio Kivung cult The roots of religion
Formation of new religions goes at an astounding pace 2-3 created every day Average lifetime is less than a decade Religions – as known today – are relatively young historically compared to other cultural phenomena Christianity – cca. 2,000 years Judaism – cca. 4,000 years Writing – cca. 5,000 years Agriculture – cca. 40,000 Language – cca. 35,000 - ? The roots of religion
Psychological explanations – raisons d’être
1. To confort
2. To explain the unexplainable
3. Encourage group cohesion
Premature curiosity satisfaction (Dennett – the hows and whys) Pascal Boyer
1. Most of relevant machinery is not consciously available 2. Religion is based on modules that are part of ordinary cognition 3. Mental Modules combined Pascal Boyer
What mental modules are combined? Hyperactive Agent Detector Memes as supernormal stimuli– right ratio of irrational in the ordinary Full Access Agent (access to strategical information) off-line social interaction Divination – decision making Explanation Theory of mind Ritualistic behaviour Healing Agency detection Decision making Contagion avoidance Social bonding Social exchange http://astro.temple.edu/~tshipley/mocap/dotMovie.html http://www.biomotionlab.ca/Demos/BMLwalker.html •Useful if you need to find agentive entities in a noisy background
BiologicalBiological motionmotion • based on a few dots • it does not work upside down • pattern of activity • gender! The roots of religion
HADD – Hyperactive Agent Detector Device (Justin Barrett)
Signal detection theory and game theory combined
Is this noise a tiger?
I think it is tiger rustling
tiger Hit Miss It really is rustling False alarm Correct rejection The roots of religion
HADD – Hyperactive Agent Detector Device (Justin Barrett) Better safe than sorry Missing a signal is more expensive than a false alarm Animism Children the sun smiles at you There are spirits in every tree Adults?? My computer hates me… The less predictable something is, the more you tend to attribute intentions to it The roots of religion
Practical animism – flowers and river Rain dances – impractical animism
(at least without proper meteorological knowledge)
Skinner, B.F.
Pigeon superstition
Random reinforcement
Elaborate dances
The Enemies of Reason SS. 33.19 The roots of religion
Successful memes Some counterintuitive ideas are more interesting than others Invisible person? Living dead? Invisible axe with no handle? Axe made of cheese? Successful? Contradict only one or two biases – but in other ways they fot the schema Often concerned with animacy Proto- meme – obsessional thought Do not miss the circular argument – again… Pascal Boyer – Religion Explained
Concepts of the supernatural = legends, myths, folktales, fantasy & Harry Potter! Domain concepts (person, living thing, artefacts)
They retain some expectations held as default true of that domain
Yet specific features violate these default expecations
The roots of religion
Supernormal stimuli – success? Tinbergen – the gull and the orange spot Humans love to surround theselves with supernormal stimuli Music – rather pure sounds than noise Pure vowels – melody Pure consonants – rhythm Pure coloured pictures - art Bilateral symmetry It is only characteristic when the other faces you Sign of health! The roots of religion
„But the bogeyman under your bed is not yet religion” Non-referential names abound Cinderella Unicorns Harry Potter – sorry! Severus Snape Flying carpets Pudus
You need to believe that they exist! BELIEF
Knowledge vs belief battle - Rationality and irrationality? 4hMApoc intertwined everywhere (lucky charms, rituals [my bag]) Contradictory knowledge and belief? [ghosts] Hypertrophic social intelligence
Strategic information = theory of mind = intentional stance Homo s. obsessed with societal relationships and other minds (remember their group size!) Stories – learn about the intentions and beliefs of others = gossip A Full Access Agent? In traditions it is often ancestral figures Parents seem like that to children Freud – Father Figure mythic struggles Not necessarily omniscient – if you lost your knife vs. You left it at the crime scene (strategic information only) They became omniscient later on (Boyer) The roots of religion
Why are parents like full access agents? Precocial species less prone to epigenetic effects Altricial species Prolonged paternal care & training – extended information transmission Informational superhighways Genes is everything needed to be coded in the genome? Presupposed regularities Gravity, salinity, electromagnetic wave spectrum, composition of atmosphere Instructional pathyway imprinting The roots of religion
Coevolution of cuteness – altricial species
Humans
Dinosaurs - fossils
Mickey Mouse The roots of religion
Coevolution of honest information - teaching
It is in the best interest of parents to inform and not misinform
It is in the best interests of children to listen and be obedient Authority figures often have hypnotical powers
analgesia The roots of religion
Suppose there is a Full Access Agent – you need a link to know what he knows Divination! take away the responsability – and the acrimony of bad decisions Flip a coin – More serious rituals Numerology Astrology Clouds Cards Tea leaves Melted wax pored into water Jaynes exopsycic methods of decision making The idea of randomness is relatively new The roots of religion
Decision making and consciousness
Maybe people just need a placebo effect of support from their ancestors – (remember what we said about the consciousness of decision making!)
Skeptics are spoiling the fun The roots of religion
Shamans and rituals – it actually works
Jared Diamond – we have discovered all edible plants (even if preparation needed) and most medical plants
Ritual healing : Psychological/hypnotic effect – usually called placebo today Shamanic treatment is correlated with patient hypnotizability Childbirth! Direct connection to evolution The roots of religion
Why are we susceptible to hypnotizing effects at all?
Humphrey (2002) economic resource management Body has its own cures : fever, vomiting, pain, immune system However this is costly Stress reduces the possibility of these responses – energy is needed for immediate defense against something else Only works if there is hope of curing Hypnosis creates both!
Shamanic healing – ancient health insurance! The roots of religion
Rituals – functions
Divination
Shamanistic healing
Multilexing – creating a common memory store to preserve knowledge The more people know sg the less likely it is that it is forgotten – repeating all over Evans-Pritchard – shamans typically try to enlist people from a young age to these rituals Cultural evolution of religion
A new perspective Stewardship
Practitioners of folk religions do not go about convincing each other of the existence of the spirits – no more than we go about convincing each other of the existence of germs, atoms, oxigens or gravity How do you know? Best to rely on others about knowledge Conducting R&D is expensive Neolithic – agricultural revolution and population boom – no time to theorize Separation of proto-science and proto-religion Unable to refute Invisible- cannot Explicit instructions not to Stewardship
Of sheep and men Domestication – caused a population growth in both species Clear case of symbiosis Religion meme and its shepherds Teachers and priests keep religious and calculus memes alive The memes keep them alive Dawkins’s idea on kleptocracy the entertwining of the political and religious Threat of an Ultimate Being Richard Dawkins
Ethologist and evolutionary biologist
The Blind Watchmaker
Climbing Mount Improbable
The God Delusion – Root of all Evil 00.-1.00
The elephant called religion – the process of non- thinking called faith. The God Delusion
The book was a best-seller sold over 1,5 million copies and translated to 31 languages „If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down. What presumptuous optimism! Of course, dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads are immune to argument, their resistance built up over years of childhood indoctrination using methods that took centuries to mature (whether by evolution or design).” „But I believe there are plenty of open-minded people out there:” Conversely it raised sales of spiritual books by 50% and the sales of the Bible by 120% (amazon.com) The God hypothesis
„Curiously universal” – evolutionary „theory of religion as an accidental by-product – a misfiring of something useful”
The intentional stance
Memes The God hypothesis
Morals would you commit murder, rape or robbery if you knew that no God existed? Kant : categorical imperatives Dawkins : altruistic genes selected for by evolution creating natural empathy Strongy against the religious indoctrination of children - EoR- VoF Should all cultural practices be banned then? May Holy Reason reign above ALL
Cold-reading (vs hot reading) Mentalists, fortune tellers, psychics, mediums Communicating with the dead The Forer-effect (Bertram R. Forer) Barnum effect Personal validation fallacy – subjective validation Horoscopes EoR SS 6.05 Positive traits Authority Particularity Horoscope
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic. Vive la raison, vive le science! Mors Derrida et les monstres!
Science is wonderful The enemies of reason SS. 41.00 The Crisis of reason 1. Evidence vs experience (private feelings) Ugly post-modern relativist agenda (Mors Derrida!) Philip Tetlock: Sacred Value Protection Model Secular and sacred values – trade-offs - incommesurable Does it make a difference between science and religion?