Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T00:40:06.767Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

God would be a costly accident: Supernatural beliefs as adaptive

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2010

Dominic D. P. Johnson
Dominic D. P. Johnson
Affiliation:
Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9LD Scotland, United Kingdom. [email protected]://dominicdpjohnson.com/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I take up the challenge of why false beliefs are better than “cautious action policies” (target article, sect. 9) in navigating adaptive problems with asymmetric errors. I then suggest that there are interactions between supernatural beliefs, self-deception, and positive illusions, rendering elements of all such misbeliefs adaptive. Finally, I argue that supernatural beliefs cannot be rejected as adaptive simply because recent experiments are inconclusive. The great costs of religion betray its even greater adaptive benefits – we just have not yet nailed down exactly what they are.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 32 , Issue 6 , December 2009 , pp. 523 - 524
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bering, J. M. & Johnson, D. D. P. (2005) “O Lord … you perceive my thoughts from afar”: Recursiveness and the evolution of supernatural agency. Journal of Cognition and Culture 5(1/2):118–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cronk, L. (1994) Evolutionary theories of morality and the manipulative use of signals. Zygon 4:117–35.Google Scholar
Haselton, M. G. & Buss, D. M. (2000) Error Management Theory: A new perspective on biases in cross-sex mind reading. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78(1):81–91.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haselton, M. G. & Nettle, D. (2006) The paranoid optimist: An integrative evolutionary model of cognitive biases. Personality and Social Psychology Review 10(1):47–66.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnson, D. D. P. (2004) Overconfidence and war: The havoc and glory of positive illusions. Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, D. D. P. (2008) Gods of war: The adaptive logic of religious conflict. In: The evolution of religion: Studies, theories, and critiques, ed. Bulbulia, J., Sosis, R., Genet, C., Genet, R., Harris, E. & Wyman, K., pp. 111–117. Collins Foundation Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, D. D. P. (2009) The error of God: Error management theory, religion, and the evolution of cooperation. In: Games, groups, and the global good, ed. Levin, S. A., pp. 169–180. Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, D. D. P. & Bering, J. M. (2006) Hand of God, mind of man: Punishment and cognition in the evolution of cooperation. Evolutionary Psychology 4:219–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, D. D. P. & Krüger, O. (2004) The good of wrath: Supernatural punishment and the evolution of cooperation. Political Theology 5(2):159–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nettle, D. (2004) Adaptive illusions: Optimism, control and human rationality. In: Emotion, evolution and rationality, ed. Evans, D. & Cruse, P., pp. 193–208. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norenzayan, A. & Shariff, A. F. (2008) The origin and evolution of religious prosociality. Science 322:58–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rappaport, R. A. (1999) Ritual and religion in the making of humanity. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shariff, A. F. & Norenzayan, A. (2007) God is watching you: Priming God concepts increases prosocial behavior in an anonymous economic game. Psychological Science 18(9):803–809.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shea, C. (2004) The power of positive illusions. The Boston Globe, September 26, 2004.Google Scholar
Sosis, R. & Alcorta, C. (2003) Signaling, solidarity, and the sacred: The evolution of religious behavior. Evolutionary Anthropology 12:264–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sosis, R. & Bressler, E. R. (2003) Cooperation and commune longevity: A test of the costly signaling theory of religion. Cross-Cultural Research 37(2):211–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trivers, R. L. (2000) The elements of a scientific theory of self-deception. In: Evolutionary perspectives on human reproductive behavior. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 907, ed. LeCroy, D. & Moller, P., pp. 114–31. New York Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar
Wilson, D. S. (2002) Darwin's cathedral: Evolution, religion and the nature of society. University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wrangham, R. W. (1999) Is military incompetence adaptive? Evolution and Human Behaviour 20:3–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar