BWE
Posts: 1902
Joined: Jan. 2006
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Does anyone see the same funny thing in this that I see? A survey of hypotheses?link
| Quote | This is most interesting: Wilson titles his book “Evolution for Everyone,” but how would “everyone” feel about the leading evolutionary hypotheses he describes that are put forward to explain an evolutionary origin of religion? According to Wilson, religious persons can select from any one of five evolutionary hypotheses to explain why their religion, and religion in general, exists:
# Religious “groups are a product of cultural group selection and are indeed like bodies and beehives.” (pg. 237)
# Religion is “exposed as a scam operation, with the leaders fleecing rather than leading their flocks.” (pg. 238)
# Religion is “like disease epidemics that leave everyone worse off than before, leaders and followers alike.” (pg. 238)
# Religion is “like obesity, something that we do because we can’t help it, even though it is no longer good for us.” (pg. 238)
# Religion is “like mad monkeys and a dog’s curly tail, which have no function and persist only by virtue of a connection to something else that does.” (pg. 238)
So if evolution is truly “for everyone,” then religious persons can apparently choose to view their religion as one of the following: a “scam operation,” a “disease epidemic,” useless “obesity,” a “mad monkey” with “no function,” —or they can view religion like “bodies and beehives.”
Obviously the final option would likely be the least offensive to religious persons, and indeed it coheres with the description of that some religions give about themselves (for example, Christianity sometimes compares the Christian church to a body with many parts that contribute to benefit the whole). The "beehive" analogy is the explanation preferred by Wilson, although of course Wilson views “bodies and beehives” as undesigned objects that arose via unguided evolutionary processes. |
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Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
Look what it's done so far
The Daily Wingnut
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