Human brain wired for belief?
Perhaps since the time of Galileo, science and religion have had a gentleman’s agreement: You stay out of my business, and I’ll stay out of yours.
Not any longer. A cadre of scientists, including anthropologist Pascal Boyer of Washington University in St. Louis, are trying to explain why, in almost every human culture, people choose belief in God over unbelief – why, it seems, the human brain is wired for belief.
And the scientists are finding something that would please Charles Darwin himself: Religion may have evolved through the same rules that led to big brains and opposable thumbs. From an evolutionary standpoint, they have found, belief can be useful.
“Supernatural beliefs are, in general, very easy extensions from beliefs that are useful in everyday life,” Boyer says.
A flurry of recent books written by such atheist scientists as Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have described faith as if it were a mental flaw, the functioning of a particularly illogical part of the brain.
But Boyer, who predated them with books such as “Religion Explained” (2001) and “The Naturalness of Religious Ideas” (1994), says that religion isn’t necessarily irrational if it arises from normal brain functions that help the human species survive.
Boyer, himself an atheist, says he’s not out to debunk or defend God, only to present his research. Besides, he says, belief is so solidly engraved in human minds that it’s probably not possible to eliminate: “It’s a bit like saying life would be better without gravitation.”
Biologists who study evolution try to explain traits by measuring physical changes over generations and showing how they helped the species survive.
It’s more difficult to talk about the evolutionary value of a mental state like a belief in God, because religiosity is difficult to measure. But there are correlations between religion and health.
For example, the men of Cache County, Utah, mostly devout Mormons, have the highest life expectancy in the country. Studies have shown that religiosity is associated with lower rates of cirrhosis, emphysema, suicide and heart disease.
Of course, much of this health effect could come from religion’s conventional taboos on smoking, alcohol, drugs and sex – which can all lead to disease.
Boyer has continued to conduct experiments and gather empirical evidence to support his theories. But his work hasn’t garnered the best-selling attention of the other atheists’ books. And academia hasn’t taken too much notice, either – only about a dozen or so scientists labor in this field.
“Religion is very striking, it’s dramatic,” Boyer says. “And people want a dramatic striking explanation for it. So if you say, no, it’s based on 10 not-very-dramatic cognitive processes that happen in normal minds, they’re a bit disappointed.”