May 20 2013
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Evolutionary Psychology: Key concepts for the evolution of religion

Deutsch: Phrenologie

Bizarre though it may seem, phrenology wasn’t all that far off in one respect at least: the brain has specific domains.

The next approach to the evolution of religion under investigation is evolutionary psychology, a field that studies current psychology based on past evolution.

Adaptive lag

Evolutionary psychologists criticize behavioral ecology for confusing adaptive behavior with adaptations (Laland & Brown, 2002).  An adaptive behavior is one well-suited to its current environment, whereas an adaptation is a genetic change leading to increased fitness.

It is possible for an adaptation to become maladaptive when the environment changes.  This is due to adaptive lag, or the time it takes for genetic change to catch up with environmental change.

Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness

According to evolutionary psychologists, many human adaptations were adaptive in the environment in which they evolved, i.e. the Pleistocene era, but now we live in a different world.  It is entirely reasonable, then, for behaviors optimal in the Pleistocene to be sub-optimal in the present.  They evolved for their Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA), not for the environment of today.

Domain specificity

This critique already reveals much about the evolutionary psychology approach.  The key concepts are the adaptive behavior/adaptation distinction, adaptive lag, and the EEA.  A further key concept, which has not yet been discussed, is domain specificity.  Evolutionary psychologists hold that the mind contains modules designed to find quick and efficient solutions to certain problems of significance to our ancestors.  Basically, the mind is like a Swiss army knife, each tool of which is an adaptation suited to reproductive advantage in the Pleistocene (Laland & Brown, 2002).

This notion of domain specificity is supported by research in a parallel field of study: the cognitive science of religion.  Inspired by insights from Chomsky’s theory of transformational generative grammar (TGG), which posits that the mind’s ability to produce sentences never heard before requires an innate language device in the mind, cognitive scientists postulate mental modularity in much the same manner as evolutionary psychologists.

For example, Pascal Boyer (2002) suggests that the mind is predisposed to categorize objects into a shortlist of classes with corresponding attributes.  Objects with unexpected attributes, such as a tree that talks, are therefore surprising and memorable.  An idea such as the Old Testament’s burning bush is thus more likely to be retained in memory and passed on to others than less remarkable ideas.

In a similarly cognitive vein, Stewart Guthrie (1995) has proposed an innate human tendency to perceive agents in the environment, in order to explain anthropomorphism in religion.  These findings from the cognitive science of religion parallel the concept of domain specificity of evolutionary psychology, and expand its applications in the field of religion.

In the next post, we’ll apply these concepts to the evolution of religion.

This post continues a series investigating methods in the study of religion from an evolutionary perspective.  Various approaches will be considered in turn, and evaluated for their strengths and weaknesses.

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May 19 2013
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This week’s studies: Neolithic religion and Çatalhöyük

book open pages library books knowledge reading, by ksheltonI find myself graced by the dubious blessing of working part time, which leaves me free to pursue my academic studies in preparation for an eventual Ph.D program.

Am I making the most of that blessing?  Well, I wish I were one of those people who could study dawn to dusk, but, well… I find myself interspersing a few too many episodes of Star Trek.

To keep myself accountable, I’ll be posting my weekly readings here.  The deal is: at least one study or chapter a day, no excuses.

This will also double as a nice record of book and article references, and a trail for those interested in the topics of Evolutionary Religious Studies, Cognitive Science of Religion, and Culture and Cognition.

This week’s studies

Sunday

Eller, C.  (2000).  The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won’t Give Women a Future.  Boston: Beacon Press.

Monday

Whitehouse, H.  (2010).  “Modes of Religiosity at Çatalhöyük.”  In: Hodder, I., ed.  Religion in the Emergence of Civilization: Çatalhöyük as a Case Study.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tuesday

Hirschfeld, L. A. and Gelman, S. A.  (1994).  “Toward a Topography of Mind: An Introduction to Domain Specificity.”  In: Hirschfeld, L. A. and Gelman, S. A., eds.  Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificity in Cognition and Culture.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wednesday

Hodder, I.  (2010).  “Probing Religion at Çatalhöyük.”  In: Hodder, I., ed.  Religion in the Emergence of Civilization: Çatalhöyük as a Case Study.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Thursday

Hodder, I.  (2010).  “The Symbolism of Çatalhöyük in its Regional Context.”  In: Hodder, I., ed.  Religion in the Emergence of Civilization: Çatalhöyük as a Case Study.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Friday

Wason, P. K.  (2010).  “The Neolithic Cosmos of Çatalhöyük.”  In: Hodder, I., ed.  Religion in the Emergence of Civilization: Çatalhöyük as a Case Study.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Saturday

Sperber, D.  (1994).  “The Modularity of Thought and the Epidemiology of Representations.”  In: Hirschfeld, L. A. and Gelman, S. A., eds.  Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificity in Cognition and Culture.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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May 13 2013
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Behavioral ecology: Applications to the evolution of religion

2012 Behaviour Matrix copy

Functional models can get rather complex in behavioral ecology.

As we saw last time, the major concepts added by behavioral ecology are optimization strategies and adaptive tradeoffs.  Equipped with these tools, the procedure is to identify a behavior, analyze its reproductive advantages relative to its tradeoffs, and thereby discover the factors that make it an optimal strategy.

Applying it to the evolution of religion

Applying this method to religion, it becomes possible that religious behaviors, which may appear bizarre and suboptimal at first glance, may be optimal when all factors are taken into account.

For example, a sacrifice of oxen made to a deity may appear costly on the face of it.  However, such a lavish offering may confer status, and with it attractiveness to mates, such that the act may in fact be the optimal strategy in terms of reproductive success.  This kind of multi-factorial cost/benefit reasoning may help uncover the functions behind specific religious behaviors, leading to insights of why religions change.

Predictions

As with sociobiology, it may be predicted that changes in religious behaviors may be linked to reproductive advantage.  Behavioral ecology would add that the link can be found in ecological factors.  Specifically, it could be predicted that ecological changes affecting underlying costs and/or benefits modify the equation, thus necessitating religious change to maintain optimal advantage.  This methodology thus adds detail to our work-in-progress theory of religious change.

Criticisms

Yet behavioral ecology is not without its faults.  A major criticism is that it leaves little room for the possibility of non-optimal behaviors.  Whatever appears sub-optimal may be explained as optimal by some later discovery (Laland & Brown, 2002).  There is no clear way to decisively determine that a behavior is sub-optimal.  If one’s hypothesis is that a behavior is optimal, there must be a way to disconfirm this, else the effort must be considered scientifically invalid.  Thus, it would be a mistake to incorporate behavioral ecology into a theory of religious change unless this problem is resolved.

Another complaint is that behavioral ecology confuses adaptive behavior with adaptation.  This charge has been leveled by evolutionary psychology, the methodology discussed next.

The next post will investigate evolutionary psychology.

This post continues a series investigating methods in the study of religion from an evolutionary perspective.  Various approaches will be considered in turn, and evaluated for their strengths and weaknesses.

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May 06 2013
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Behavioral ecology: Key concepts for the evolution of religion

English: Caricature of Charles Darwin from Van...

Darwin’s theory of natural selection, ridiculed in its day, is now a mainstay of behavioral sciences

Arising from anthropologists responding to criticisms of sociobiology, behavioral ecology attempts to understand why certain behaviors become prevalent in societies.  Ethnographic records provide the main source of evidence in this endeavor.

Optimization strategies

The theoretical assumption is that behaviors may have current adaptive functions.  In any given environment, natural selection will have culled sub-optimal

behaviors, leading those that optimize exploitation of resources to predominate.  If such exploitation leads to increased lifetime reproductive success, it is reasonable to assume natural selection toward a genetic predisposition to maximize resources.  The task, then, is to look at behaviors in relation to the environment, uncover the conditions that explain why a given behavior strategy is optimal, and construct mathematical models predicting the behaviors (Laland & Brown, 2002).

Adaptive tradeoff

Such models may become quite complex, as individuals rarely deal with only one factor at a time.  For example, climbing to a certain cliff abundant with fruit

trees may maximize food intake, but this must be balanced by the risk of falling during the climb, which in turn must be balanced by the increased social status of being the one to succeed at such a bold venture.  When all these factors are considered, the optimal strategy may appear very different than at first glance.  What may appear sub-optimal with regard to one factor, may prove optimal when other factors are incorporated into the model.  This notion is called adaptive tradeoff.

In the next post, we’ll look at applications for the evolution of religion.

This post continues a series investigating methods in the study of religion from an evolutionary perspective.  Various approaches will be considered in turn, and evaluated for their strengths and weaknesses.

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Apr 29 2013
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Sociobiology: Application to the evolution of religion

Darwin thought natural selection applied to human culture as much as biology.

With the key concepts of sociobiology in their toolkit, researchers employ the following procedure: first identify a puzzling behavior, then examine it from the point of view of the gene’s single-minded interest in its own replication, whether via its host or a relative with an identical copy of the gene.  Game theory may be invoked to explain how behaviors that appear contrary to the gene’s interest at first glance may in fact be consistent with it if they form an evolutionarily stable strategy.

Applying sociobiology to the evolution of religion

These conceptual tools offer valuable insights into the problem of religious change.  The gene’s eye view suggests that the interests ultimately served by religion may not be those of the individual devotee or society, but those of the unit of selection itself, the gene (or the meme, but discussion of that will be saved till we come to memetics).  As the gene’s only interest is replication, any function served by a religion must be traced ultimately to reproduction, whether through the individual host or through kin with the same gene.  The social and psychological functions proposed by the likes of Durkheim, Malinowski, and Geertz may be mechanisms behind religious change if they affect reproduction among followers.  Therefore, a sociobiological approach to religious change would have to tie variation in religious behaviors to the reproductive advantage of genes.  It may be that religions are sets of behaviors that together form evolutionarily stable strategies enabling cooperation among followers, leading in turn to increased reproduction (a thesis similar to that proposed by David Sloan Wilson [2003]).  These strategies would become unstable if the environment to which they were adapted changed.  It could then be predicted that variations in the environment affecting reproduction lie behind changes in religions.

Controversy

While the field of sociobiology thus offers exciting new insights into religious behavior, it has recently been toppled by controversy.  Dawkins was cautious in applying insights to human behavior, but not E. O. Wilson (Laland & Brown, 2002).  Bold speculations on such controversial topics as homosexuality, sex, class, and race provoked reaction.  Critics, still haunted by the specter of Social Darwinism, accused the field of reductionism, genetic determinism, justification of the status quo, concoction of just-so stories, and dilettante speculation (Laland & Brown, 2002).  These charges, some of which may be justified, created such a storm of controversy that “sociobiology” has become something of a dirty word today.  In its stead, several new fields carry on certain of its aspects under different names, methods, and theoretical assumptions.

The next post will discuss human behavioral ecology.

This post continues a series investigating methods in the study of religion from an evolutionary perspective.  Various approaches will be considered in turn, and evaluated for their strengths and weaknesses.

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Apr 22 2013
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Sociobiology: Key concepts for the evolution of religion

Natural selection… of behavior?

In the 1960s, a number of researchers, inspired by ethologists such as Lorenz and Tinbergen, began to examine behaviors puzzling from an evolutionary perspective, such as non-reproductive and self-sacrificing behavior.  Williams, Trivers, Hamilton, and Maynard Smith contributed foundational work for an approach dubbed “sociobiology” by E. O. Wilson and popularized by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene.  While sociobiology has recently fallen from favor due to a variety of controversies analyzed by Laland and Brown (2002), many insights remain powerful for an evolutionary approach to religion.

The gene’s-eye view

The essential insight of sociobiology is the gene’s-eye view.  From the perspective of the gene, whose only “interest” is to maximize its own replication, many behaviors that were confusing from an individual or species perspective became comprehensible.  For example, menopause may seem at odds with the reproductive interests of individual women, but it makes sense from the gene’s point of view if post-menopausal women are able to help the reproductive success of the grandchildren whose genes they share.  Essentially, it doesn’t matter to a gene whether reproduction is achieved via its host individual, or via other individuals with an identical copy of the same gene.  All that matters is reproduction, period.  It follows that individuals will behave in ways that maximize the replication of their genes wherever they are found, whether in themselves or in others.  This idea is known as inclusive fitness (a.k.a. kin selection).

Altruism

Another behavior illuminated by taking a gene’s-eye view is altruism, or helping others at a net cost to oneself.  To explain this, sociobiologists point out that altruism may increase reproductive success if aid in return can be expected in the future.  Game theory models show that while cheaters who default on favors owed stand to gain the most in the short-term, those who cooperate at first and thereafter return favors tit-for-tat win out in the long-term.  The latter is an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS), meaning that if all members of a population adopt it, no other strategy can replace it.  In this way, sociobiology attempts to make sense of altruism, or rather a specific subset of such behavior called reciprocal altruism (cooperation under the principle of “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”).

Evolution of religion

In the next post, we’ll look at how these key concepts can be put to work in the study of the evolution of religion.

This post continues a series investigating methods in the study of religion from an evolutionary perspective.  Various approaches will be considered in turn, and evaluated for their strengths and weaknesses.

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Apr 15 2013
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Does religion serve a function in the evolution of religion?

Is religion a garden that grows just because it can, or does it serve an evolutionary function?

Evolutionary approaches to the study of religion suffered in the last century, due in no small part to the lingering specter of Social Darwinism (Laland & Brown, 2002).  As a result, much of the research currently available comes from the social sciences.  David Sloan Wilson (2003) considers the data from the social sciences useful, analogous to that of the naturalist field research on which Darwin based his theory of natural selection.  In this spirit, this paper will utilize a social sciences concept particularly compatible with evolutionary approaches: function, or the secular utility provided by religion to its adherents.

The social sciences and functionalism

Durkheim introduced the notion of function in 1912 by suggesting that religions “unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them” (Durkheim, 2001).  Malinowski retorted that religion’s function was not social but psychological.  He saw religions as helping humans deal with a “range of anxieties, forebodings and problems concerning human destinies and man’s place in the universe” (Malinowski, quoted in Wilson, B. C., 1998).  Navigating between these, Geertz combined social and psychological functions as follows: “[religion is] (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic” (Geertz, 1973).

Relevance to the evolution of religion

The hypothesized functions of religion, of which these are only a small sample, are fertile for evolutionary analysis: they may well be the means by which religions attract followers at the individual or societal level—the honey that attracts the bee, as it were.  On the other hand, religion may be a byproduct of evolutionary processes, serving no adaptive function in the modern context.  Thus, methodologies may be illuminated by comparing how they deal with the question of adaptive function.

This post continues a series investigating methods in the study of religion from an evolutionary perspective.  Various approaches will be considered in turn, and evaluated for their strengths and weaknesses.

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Apr 08 2013
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Evolution of religion: Why do religions change?

Religions focus on the changeless, yet Japanese Buddhism bears little resemblance to the religion founded by Siddartha Gautama. Why do religions change?

It is a paradox of history that religions, those self-proclaimed guardians of unchanging eternal truth, are themselves subject to change.

Modern Judaism bears little resemblance to the temple religion of ancient Israel, nor Japanese Buddhism to the religion founded by Siddartha Gautama in the fifth century B.C.E.  Further, a whole host of variations on these religions and others have appeared throughout history, only some of which survive.  An analogy to genetic evolution is readily apparent.

Questions

Why do some religions proliferate, while others die out?  Why do those that survive change over time?  What are the mechanisms by which religions change in a selection process akin to genetic evolution?  These are the questions at the heart of this research project.

This series seeks a methodology by which these questions may be fruitfully explored.

Approaches to the evolution of religion

This post introduces a series investigating methods in the study of religion from an evolutionary perspective.  Various approaches will be considered in turn, and evaluated for their strengths and weaknesses.

In due course, five evolutionary approaches will be explored:

  • human sociobiology
  • human behavioral ecology
  • evolutionary psychology
  • memetics
  • gene-culture coevolution

These do not exhaust the approaches available, yet they set the stage for much of the field today, and complement the Cognitive Science of Religion well.

Each methodology will be described, its essential concepts and procedures examined, and its value for the project at hand evaluated.  A conclusion is reached by measuring the approaches against the design features required by a methodology capable of addressing the problem of religious change.

References

To cut down on needless repetition, references for the entire series will be listed once only.  Please refer back to these references for future posts.

Blackmore, S. J. (2000). The meme machine. Oxford University Press.

Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J.  (1985).  Culture and the evolutionary process.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Boyer, P. (2002). Religion explained: the evolutionary origins of religious thought. Basic Books.

Brodie, R. (2009). Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme. Hay House, Inc.

Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., & Feldman, M. W. (1981). Cultural transmission and evolution: a quantitative approach. Princeton University Press.

Darwin, C. (1871). The descent of man and selection in relation to sex. London: John Murray (1st edn. Repr. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ; 1981).

Dawkins, R. (1976).  The selfish gene.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Dennett, D. C. (1993). Consciousness explained. Penguin.

Dennett, D. C. (2007). Breaking the spell: religion as a natural phenomenon. Penguin.

Durham, W. H. (1992). Coevolution: Genes, Culture, and Human Diversity. Stanford University Press.

Durkheim, É. (2001). The elementary forms of religious life (C. Cosman, Trans.).  New York: Oxford University Press.

Geertz, C. (2009). The interpretation of cultures: selected essays. New York: Basic Books.

Guthrie, S. (1995). Faces in the clouds: a new theory of religion. Oxford University Press US.

Idinopulos, T. A., & Wilson, B. C. (1998). What is religion?: Origins, definitions, and explanations. Boston: Brill.

Laland, K. N., & Brown, G. R. (2002). Sense and nonsense: Evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour. New York: Oxford University Press.

Lynch, A. (1998). Thought contagion: how belief spreads through society. Basic Books.

Orzack, S. H. & Sober, E.  (2001).  Adaptation, phylogenetic inertia, and the method of controlled comparisons.  In: Adaptationism and Optimality.  Ed. S. H. Orzack & E. Sober.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rose, S. & Lauder, G. V.  (1996).  Adaptation.  San Diego: Academic Press.

Sinervo, B. & Basalo, A. L.  (1996).  Testing adaptation using phenotypic manipulations.  In: Adaptation.  Ed. M. R. Rose and G. V. Lauder.  San Diego: Academic Press.  Pp. 149-85.

Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (1989).  Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture, part I.  Theoretical considerations.  Ethology and Sociobiology 10:29-49.

Wilson, B. C. (1998). From the lexical to the polythetic: A brief history of the definition of religion. In What is religion?: Origins, definitions, and explanations (pp. 142-162). Boston: Brill.

Wilson, D. S. (2003). Darwin’s cathedral: evolution, religion, and the nature of society.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Apr 01 2013
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This blog is being repurposed

Hagia Sophia

Like the Hagia Sophia, a basilica turned mosque turned museum, this blog is getting a new role.

They repurpose buildings, so why not blogs?

From now on, this blog will focus on my academic interests: evolutionary and cognitive approaches to the study of religion and nonreligion.

Why the change?

I’m no longer pursuing search engine optimization as a career path.  Instead, I’m working my way toward application to a Ph.D program in the Cognitive Science of Religion.

The posts on SEO will stay, but further posts will focus on my academic research.

Evolutionary and cognitive… er, what?

Evolutionary and cognitive approaches to religion and nonreligion.  It’s a mouthful, I know.  But the posts to come should make it clear enough.

If you’re interested in how religions evolved and how they appeal to our evolved minds, this is the place for you.  If you’re interested in how nonreligious institutions and movements evolve and take the place of religions, this is also the blog for you.

New topics

Specifically, topics will range across:

  • Evolutionary Religious Studies
  • Cognitive Science of Religion
  • Secularity and Nonreligion
  • Culture and Cognition
  • a variety of related issues of the mind, fundamental to the fields above
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Jan 30 2012
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What are the best article directories for SEO content writers?

London, Petrie and British Library

Free Online Library is the best!

In a previous article, we talked about using article directories to build quick and easy linkbacks.  Two of the most popular are Ezine Articles (ezinearticles.com) and Free Online Library (www.thefreelibrary.com).  Of these, which is the best to use?

There is no hard and fast way to evaluate directories, and answers will vary depending on which SEO content writer you ask.  Nevertheless, in this article, I’ll share the reasons behind my personal preference for Free Online Library.

Ezine Articles

Ezine Articles is a popular directory that publishes everything under a Creative Commons license.  Ezines was hit hard by the Google’s Panda update, when Google updated its search algorithm, but is still fairly popular and functional.  In my experience, however, Ezines has been disappointing.

For one thing, Ezine has published my work relatively slowly, as late as seven days after submission.

For another thing, my articles have been plagiarized numerous times, showing up on websites that give me no credit or linkbacks.  Part of the concept of Ezine Articles is that people can grab articles there quickly and easily and without having to contact the author for permission.  However, Ezine posts specific rules for how to do that.  If they are not followed, that’s plagiarism.  Specifically, articles are supposed to be reproduced as is, including all links.  That should include the by-line, if there is one, as well any linkbacks.  In every case I’ve discovered so far, both by-line and linkback have been neglected.  Since Ezine assumes no responsibility for handling such cases of plagiarism, it’s left up to you to resolve.

For another thing, Ezine Articles’ Page Rank is 6, which isn’t bad, but it is less than that of Free Online Library.  The higher the PR, the better the linkback, and that’s the name of the game.

Free Online Library

After explaining the issues with Ezine Articles, it won’t take much to praise the virtues of Free Online Library.  A simple bullet-point list will suffice:

  • Publication is fast, within two days in my experience.
  • I haven’t experienced any cases of plagiarism, though I’m sure it can still occur.
  • Free Online Library has a higher Page Rank at PR 7 instead of Ezine’s PR 6.

Add to that the concept of Free Online Library: an archive of information.  Rather than the blatantly commercial model of Ezine Articles, Free Online Library just feels more egalitarian and worth supporting.  Of course, that also places a certain responsibility on yourself to avoid abusing it.  Submit quality content only, and good sites like this will be able to stick around (okay, soapbox speech finished!)

Which is better for SEO content writers?

Yep, it’s Free Online Library all the way.  I’m sure you can find plenty who disagree, but based on my experience the one to go with is Free Online Library.

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