The rise of religion might be all about sex

[rug]

A study suggests religion might have arisen to protect certain reproductive strategies, like long-term partnership

Thursday, Nov 7, 2013 10:52 AM EST
Tracy Clark-Flory

Casual sex, homosexuality, birth control, abortion — this isn’t just a list of topics to avoid bringing up over Thanksgiving dinner. A new study suggests that a person’s views on these subjects predict their religious beliefs. Jason Weeden and Robert Kurzban from the University of Pennsylvania found that conservative views on sex and reproductive rights are associated with greater religiosity.

It’s not too surprising that a dude who thinks abortion is evil would express stronger religious convictions than a man who supports reproductive rights. Nor is it shocking that a woman who finds casual sex immoral would identify as more religious than a lady who is down with one-night stands. What’s most interesting here is that more conservative views about sex were far more predictive of religiosity than even attitudes against anti-social behaviors like lying, cheating and stealing.

As the paper puts it, “these findings run counter to the view that religiosity has a fundamental connection with cooperative morals” (i.e., beliefs about not screwing over thy neighbor). The dominant evolutionary theory regarding religion is that it thrived because “beliefs in invisible, rule-enforcing agents” — whether it’s a bearded white guy in the sky or a bevy of power-sharing gods — “increase believers’ compliance with cooperative norms, that this compliance provides an advantage to groups or individuals, and that these advantages have been crucial for the evolution and current ubiquity of religiosity and large-scale cooperation.”

This study raises the possibility that religion’s rise is more accurately attributed to its support of certain reproductive strategies. For those pursuing “committed partnerships, higher fertility, and cooperative parenting, both sexes’ interests are threatened by promiscuous sexual activity — for men, arising primarily from the risk of cuckoldry and, for women, arising primarily from the risk of mate abandonment.” (Is it just me or is evolutionary psychology super-depressing?) Thus, beliefs that reduce these threats also “advance the reproductive interests of” commitment- and baby-minded folks. On the other hand, those “pursuing a more promiscuous reproductive strategy” benefit when sleeping around carries little stigma or social costs. The report puts it this way:

If you live a lifestyle where a stable marriage and lots of children is important to you, belonging to a church mitigates some of the risks that go along with that lifestyle, making religion an attractive tool. But if you’re, say, a college student who likes to party and isn’t planning to get married or have kids for a long time, all you’re getting from a religion is a bunch of hassles.

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/07/the_rise_of_religion_might_be_all_about_sex/

Abstract below. ($31.50 (!) to read the full report.)

http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(13)00090-1/abstract

[Jim__]

1. "... natural selection should punish systems that give rise to false beliefs about ...

supernatural punishment ..."

That quote is form a blog by Kuzban discussing the paper referred to in the OP. This entry doesn't give me a lot of confidence in his conclusions. From the current blog entry:

This is not to say, of course, that various aspects of religion might not have evolved because of their role in facilitating cooperation. I myself am skeptical of such accounts for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that, for reasons I’ve discussed before, natural selection should punish systems that give rise to false beliefs about supernatural punishment in favor of systems that give rise to true beliefs. Still, these patterns of data suggest to us that people might be joining religion because of religion’s role in facilitating their favored reproductive strategy.

The reasons he has discussed before -- at least in the reference that he gives -- deal with a single hypothetical case of a mouse jumping across a ditch to retrieve a piece of cheese:

To get at these issues, I’ll use a simple example, a mouse seeing a piece of cheese, separated from her by a potentially dangerous trench. Should she risk the jump across the chasm to get the cheese or not? I frame the decision problem like any other: the potential benefit, B, is the value in the cheese, which depends on its size. The potential cost, C, is the damage from the fall if she doesn’t make it all the way across, which depends on, say, the depth of the trench. The probability of getting the cheese, p, depends on the size of the chasm, with the probability getting smaller as the trench gets larger.

Then, based on nothing, he universalizes this single hypothetical case, completely ignoring the potential case that multi-level selection might choose groups with individuals willing to risk death for the benefit of the group, whether or not that willingness is based on a false belief.

[rug]

2. You just saved me $31.50.

[dimbear]

3. At first I was sceptical, remembering that America's Bible Belt is also its most divorce prone

region, and that atheist couples tend to divorce less than religious ones, but then on ripe reflection I recalled Joseph Smith and his driving impetus and began to agree.

That was all about sex.