Re: Origin of Religion

From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Wed 25 Dec 2002 - 09:26:04 GMT

  • Next message: Van oost Kenneth: "Re: The Origin of Religions, From a Distinctly Darwinian View"

      ----- Original Message -----
      From: Sabrina Marr
      "effective form of camouflage - Dr. Wilson sees religion as the product of group selection at work."

      Group selection has got some heavy evidence against it... interesting that a 'highly regarded' evolutionist should consider it helpful to his argument.
       
      "A. Religious believers often compare their groups to an organism, or a beehive. One of the keys to the success of religion is its emphasis on the moral equality of those in the community. You might be rich, and I might be poor, but in some sense you're no better than me. This guarded egalitarianism may be fundamental to the willingness of people to cooperate with others, including those who are unrelated to them, and to become the primate equivalent of a eusocial species like bees or ants."

      In a beehive and ant colony, all of the members are related and thus have a genetic advantage to being kind to the others. It's not about group selection, it's individual genetic satisfaction.
      Most people have a tendency to immediately disbelieve anyone using group selection as evidence in their theories... I am happily one of them. Wilson seems to touch on memetics but doesn't really use it.

      _Individualism is a kind of hobby- horse to me, so it seems strange to me despite the

      fact that according to you everyone seems to dismiss groupselection that individualism

      don 't win ground everywhere !?

       Where does than that supposingly disbelieve comes from, in the understanding that

      according to many books written about the subject, groupsbounding etc are primer

      elements to our social intercourse....

      Please eloborate,

      Thanks,

      Kenneth

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