Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society

by David Sloan Wilson

One of the great intellectual battles of modern times is between evolution and religion. Until now, they have been considered completely irreconcilable theories of origin and existence. David Sloan Wilson's Darwin's Cathedral takes the radical step of joining the two, in the process proposing an evolutionary theory of religion that shakes both evolutionary biology and social theory at their foundations.

The key, argues Wilson, is to think of society as an organism, an old idea that has received new life based on recent developments in evolutionary biology. If society is an organism, can we then think of morality and religion as biologically and culturally evolved adaptations that enable human groups to function as single units rather than mere collections of individuals? Wilson brings a variety of evidence to bear on this question, from both the biological and social sciences. From Calvinism in sixteenth-century Geneva to Balinese water temples, from hunter-gatherer societies to urban America, Wilson demonstrates how religions have enabled people to achieve by collective action what they never could do alone. He also includes a chapter considering forgiveness from an evolutionary perspective and concludes by discussing how all social organizations, including science, could benefit by incorporating elements of religion.

Religious believers often compare their communities to single organisms and even to insect colonies. Astoundingly, Wilson shows that they might be literally correct. Intended for any educated reader, Darwin's Cathedral will change forever the way we view the relations among evolution, religion, and human society.

Genres: Science, Religion, Evolution, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Biology, Psychology

268 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

David Sloan Wilson has been a professor of evolutionary biology at Binghamton University for more than twenty years. He has written three academic books on evolution, authored hundreds of papers, some with E.O. Wilson, and his first book for a general audience was Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think.

Reviews

[Nebuchadnezzar · Rating 2 out of 5]

David Sloan Wilson has made an interesting, if ultimately flawed, attempt to apply multi-level group selection to the study of human evolution and religion. Perhaps it's because the standards of this genre seem to have become non-existent in recent times, but I almost feel bad ragging on Wilson here. Quite unlike your average evolutionary psychology tract, Wilson's work is very much informed by the scholarship in religious studies and anthropology. There's much more to be had in this than many of the science/evolution/religion books on the market.

Wilson's thesis, however, not only lacks strong empirical backing, but is so conceptually muddled as to be flat-out wrong in principle. Attempting to apply group selection to humans, Wilson defines religions as "superorganisms." This reifies "religion" into a pseudo-biological entity. Scott Atran, in In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion, dismantles Wilson's application of group selection and, in addition, exposes the biases in his ethnographic sample. The second major hole in this thesis is the conflation of religion with morality. It's simply not the case that all religions help to promote moral or social norms. Many religions in stateless societies have (or had) gods and spirits that couldn't care less about enforcing moral norms. The proliferation of the Abrahamic religions seems to have tricked even atheists into believing that religion and morality have historically always been necessarily interconnected throughout history. The promoters of the "religion as adaptation" thesis (and some of our "holy" men, no doubt) would do well to read Rodney Stark's "God, Rituals, and the Moral Order" (http://www.baylorisr.org/wp-content/u...).

There are a number of other issues as well. One not so tiny one is that the earliest uncontroversial evidence of some kind of religious or ritual behavior in the archaeological record we have is a few instances of ceremonial burial, which only date back to about 90,000 years ago. Even whether these burials represent a true belief in the afterlife or the supernatural or were simply a means of "honoring the dead" remains debated. If Wilson is correct, we should see some kind of evidence for religion much earlier in the course of human evolution. The analysis in the case studies is often interesting, but the choices (e.g., Calvinism) seem irrelevant in service of demonstrating religion as a biological adaptation. Wilson has made the classic mistake of confusing cultural evolution for biological evolution.

I'd like to say that this was a fine starting point for an argument that Wilson could refine and build on later into something really formidable. But the theoretical basis is filled with so many holes that I don't see how any of it can be salvaged.

[Clif · Rating 5 out of 5]

Upon completion of another read of this book, I am deleting my previous review, replacing it to give an increased sense of the importance of Wilson's work right now. I first read it in 2013

In today's America we have a riven society. There is hatred of Americans for other Americans and one is left wondering how our society can hold together without the mutual respect necessary for a democracy to work. Respect for authority is very low and falling. Can we keep things together?

David Wilson is out to show that a group of people can be organismic. That means a group can operate in much the same way as a biological unit, bacteria for example, protects and defends itself against the outside world.

In order to do this there must be order and established procedure within that contrasts to the chaos threatening from without. Evolution can occur as experiments that prove beneficial to the survival of the cell, or the group, keep it going against environmental challenges that can easily change.

As with the biological evolution described by Darwin, success is relative. The cell or group can have a great deal of difficulty over the generations, the only thing that matters is whether it does better than the competition. As most people know, over 95% of the species that have lived on Earth no longer are with us. Think of all the groups of people that have come and gone, most of them unrecorded by history, before modernity arrived.

Wilson chooses to analyze religious groups to demonstrate his points. He does so because such groups are relatively easy to define. He takes Judaism and early Christianity in the form of Calvinism to be examples of group survival analogous to the survival of individual organisms, hence the title of the book.

Judaism has survived over centuries against all odds given the persecution of minorities so characteristic of mankind. It has done so by way of internal cohesion. Strict order within the group, well defined rules for behavior (morality) that applies to both leaders and followers, and the expulsion of those who will not obey the rules (no free riders) are all necessary to maintain internal group strength no matter what assaults come from without. Judaism has been able to do this in spite of being almost entirely closed to membership by outsiders.

Early Christianity grew phenomenally at the expense of the non-Christian Roman world. What I wrote of Judaism just above could be repeated here. Important to the group, and to biology, was the command to be fruitful and multiply. Christianity appealed particularly to women and those who joined produced on average larger families that those who did not join. The comparison with Judaism holds. Even today, the ultra-orthodox Jews have significantly larger families than the non-orthodox.

Calvinism in Geneva brought order out of the chaotic contest between factions that compelled the city fathers to ask Calvin to set up rules for the society of the city. Wilson quite properly mentions the catechism of a religion as analogous to the DNA of a cell, providing the order necessary for survival.

Wilson provides much more support for his theory than I have provided here. He decries the contempt that can be shown toward religion by those who believe science is all we need. He explains how the stories that support religion, full of miracles and the supernatural, should never be seen as histories, but as mythology that supports the religion in the minds of followers. A powerful myth can easily be more persuasive, despite not being factual, than can a careful, fully reasonable lecture on what really happened in the past.

What is necessary, though not sufficient, for group survival is a compelling story that supports the morality of the group. Whether the story is factual is irrelevant. Wilson stresses that we are too quick to think that our rationality is superior to our feelings. Stories that were (and are) complete fantasies have long sustained groups. While science has unquestionably brought us wonders and an infinite amount of "stuff" that we enjoy, the jury is still out on whether modern society is psychologically satisfactory for people, quite apart from whether materialism will alter the planet. Wilson also addresses whether group members are even conscious, or need to be, of how our psychology is answered by behavior within the group.

And this brings me to where I started. Will the kind of logical plan thought out by America's founding fathers be sufficient to answer the needs of a country of a third of a billion people? As Wilson points out, we know that small groups of humans could thrive as they did so for many thousands of years before recorded history. But we are no longer small groups that found ways to successfully handle human psychology and acted to modify it, knowingly or not, at the same time.

In the U.S. there is fearful resistance to even the tiniest change in a 200+ year old set of rules because we have no faith in ourselves that we could improve on what was done then. That is a remarkable thing in itself because the founding fathers were fully confident, bold in fact, that they were doing the right thing as they looked back on all of human history. For all our braggadocio over what science and the reason that is its foundation have achieved, we tremble to take the future into our own hands in the bizarre belief that somehow technology will solve everything. We can't help ourselves but a creation of ours can save us?!

We see plenty of evidence of atomization, people living alone, and senseless killings by loners who don't fit in anywhere. The modern city is ice cold for those without money to spend. Too many people feel like strangers in their own land. Far from eagerly answering a knock on the door, fear is what first enters the mind. Everything is monitored on video. Fences separate neighbors whose yards once created a commons for kids to play upon. There is a strong sense of loss of a good society, a thing unheard of in the middle of the 20th century as the future looked so bright. Now thinking of what is to come brings anxiety. Dystopic books and movies abound. One can easily wonder what is holding everything together as one anonymous American denounces and curses another online.

Darwin's Cathedral will give you a solid background from which to observe and to question the way we live.

[Savyasachee · Rating 3 out of 5]

TL;DR: Treat this book as a textbook and take your time reading it. It's brilliant, but the author's thesis is new, untested, and requires a lot of validation.

This book deserves more than a 3/5. David Sloan Wilson opened my eyes to a whole new way of applying a skillset consisting of math, evolutionary biology and economics to the study of human society. Actually, that is a misnomer. I had no conception of what it takes to really study religion before I began reading this book and thus, Darwin's Cathedral is a revelation and a miracle in my eyes.

At the same time, the book is dense. The first couple of chapters try to shoehorn entire classes worth of knowledge into a few dozen pages. Had I not already known a lot of what is explained about evolutionary biology, I'm quite sure I would have been lost understanding everything. Understanding proximate and ultimate causes, group selection theory, multilevel selection theory and most importantly, the theory of functionalism in an hour is next to impossible. To truly understand the meat of this book, one would need to pick up a couple of textbooks, understand some mathematics, Darwinian Selection, and a good deal of biology, not to mention do some background reading in anthropology and religious studies.

But once one does that, the fruits of one's labour are many. Religion is a topic couched in more mysticism and myth than anything else we study. There is no unified theory which explains the formation of religion, its growth, and its function. How does one explain Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Shintoism, etc. as anything more than a collection of beliefs which seem to have arisen in different societies through serendipity? Can one call Christianity a reaction to Islam? Calvinism a reaction to Catholicism? Is it even fair to say any of this? Is it right asking these questions? Are they the correct questions to ask?

Professor Wilson takes the first step in answering these questions. He acknowledges that there is a lot more to be talked about, a lot more data to be collected, a lot more nuance to be uncovered, but his start is a promising one. He starts by outlining the methodologies he would use to do so, the theories whose principles he's operating by, and what other people have already done in this field. He puts the theories of behavioural evolution to the test by testing them on religion. Do they pass? It's too early to tell. It's difficult to conceive of religion as a purely functional social mechanism, something evolutionary theory has done in the recent past to biological subjects. On the other hand, it's easy to dismiss religion using Marx's famous "opium of the masses" quip.

The task is arduous, the path difficult, yet there is a certain elegance in understanding religion as the first kind of superorganism humanity was progressing towards making. The study itself is niche, not properly defined and not entirely built on rock-solid foundations, but it's a start. The author hopes to build a unified theory of understanding all organisations using the bedrock of evolutionary theory, be they religious or secular. It's ambitious, and the rough-cut edges show.

A definite 3.5/5, rounded down because I probably need to read even more.

[Katja · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book should come with a warning – the first two chapters are terrifically boring and can probably be safely skipped. Wilson spends the first 100 or so pages (in a 230-page book) summarising in some depth evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology. This has the frustrating effect of Wilson constantly telling you for 100 pages what he’s going to talk about but seemingly never getting there (I can hear Monty Python in my head yelling, “get on with it!”). These first two chapters are also unbelievably dry, academic and theoretical. Considering the fact that Wilson’s stated goal in writing this book was to make the evolutionary psychology of religion readable and understandable to a layperson, sadly I think he fails in this regard. Some parts of the text were so dense they had me wanting to bang my head against a wall (and I’m a PhD student!). That’s basically my only criticism of the book but it’s a big one – Wilson’s ideas are fantastic, but he’s not a great communicator. The dryness of the writing and that long stretch of theory at the start will put a lot of people off. It’s a great example of how NOT to write a book intended for the general public.

That said, when Wilson actually gets to the point (describing the adaptive nature of religion throughout history), the book gets really, REALLY good. He covers Calvinism, early Christianity, Judaism, and Balinese religions as examples of how religion has enabled people to cohere and succeed as a group. Having only heard New Atheist-type theories of religion (religion as by-product and parasite), Wilson’s ideas were pretty much completely new to me and significantly changed my outlook on religion. I’d highly recommend this book but only with a caveat – just skip the first two chapters and go straight to the good stuff!

[Leela · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most interesting takeway from this for me is the idea that rational thought should not be the benchmark against which other forms of thought should be judged, but all should be judged against their adaptive value. So, some irrational beliefs might improve your social cohesion and therefore our quality of life, and thus are of a "higher standard" than rational thought might be.

I don't agree with this entirely from a moral standpoint – the "right thing", whether rational or irrational, cannot always be explained away as adaptive, imo – but it's a nice challenge to typical views.

However, besides the above and some interesting case studies, I don't feel like I learnt much from this book. Though perhaps an adaptationist view of religion is the norm nowadays anyway.

I also have a particular gripe with chapter 6, which aims to explain Christian unconditional forgiveness (turning the other cheek) in adaptive terms. A worthy aim and one I'm sure could be achieved with proper analysis, but for some reason Wilson seems to dismiss unconditional forgiveness as an ideal and does not even discuss whether it would be adaptive if it existed; nor does he discuss any real or hypothetical examples of even near-unconditional forgiveness.

Wilson instead focuses on instances where Christians fail to forgive or only do so conditionally, and uses other examples to supposedly demonstrate a lack of forgiveness where no mention is even made of it. Claiming that someone did or did not forgive another when there is no evidence of it seems poor science at the very least. Wilson further misses the point that forgiving someone does not mean you have to become best friends with them, nor does it mean (in Christian doctrine) that the offender will be "saved" – typically repentance is required, which is not a prerequisite for forgiveness.
Silly Wilson.

[Jeremy Lyon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main thrust of David Sloan Wilson's argument in this book is that religion (and other human cultural institutions) can be meaningfully analyzed from an evolutionary perspective, that in certain circumstances it makes sense to discuss the purpose of religion as it applies to the adaptive fitness of human beings.

To make that argument he has to show that a lot of what the Academy believes about evolution, on the one hand, and social science, on the other, is either inaccurate or misguided. To those of us uninitiated in the literature, this effort can be tedious.

In the end, he presents a convincing case: he shows that adaptive explanation of religion has all the hallmarks of good science: it's predictive, it's logically consistent with what we know about evolution, and it can be clearly disproved.

What he doesn't do (and to be fair, never set out to do) is go on to perform that analysis in all but a cursory manner. I eagerly await the next installment.

[Riversue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I have read on the subject. I'm now diving through the bibliography to learn more.

[Viviana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is quite dense and an effort to read. I'm not a scientist so I don't fully understand what makes a theory strong but David Wilson's ideas resonated with me and made me look at the world a little differently, with deeper insight and empathy. This is the reason why I gave the book 5 stars.
The key ideas for me were
- humans organize in groups but what makes the group work as a unit (and benefit its members) are constructs with shared values/shared morality. These constructs work like a glue and bind. Religion is one a powerful such construct
- the most successful religions bind their members to behaviors that are in place to benefit the group (a shared sense of morality).
- in follows that most religions don't concern themselves just with explaining divinity and the world beyond, but more with organizing communities on this earth and the rules for social engagement with those within the group and outside of it
- the gospels may have been chosen as part of the new testament because they had the narative necessary to bind the communities for whom they were written (starting from Mark) and the writing had embedded moral learnings even if there are factual discrepancies from one gospel to the next. Lukas may have been part of a gentile church and John may have been part of a more radical Jewish one.
- forgiveness and vengeance are two sides of the same coin and they have evolved as response to selfish and altruistic behavior, they are deeply engrained in us and don't require much brain power to process

[Petros · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books that started out pretty "iffy" but managed to gradually win me over as it progressed. The book has two central arguments: a) it argues for the multi-level selection theory of evolution (over the gene-level selection one), and b) it approaches religion as an adaptive phenomenon (from the lens of multi-level selection). The two arguments tie into each-other and, in a way, provide support for each-other.

Now, multi-level selection is a hotly debated topic in evolutionary biology, with some prominent supporters but with the majority of the field dismissing it. The crux point is whether group-level selection is at work in parallel to (or in concert with) individual-level selection, or whether group selection is not a real thing and selection only takes place at the level of individual organisms. Current consensus supports the latter view but, as that consensus is not robust, the matter can't be considered to be settled. To get an idea of the debate, one can look up Pinker's essay from 2012 titled "The False Allure of Group Selection".

This debate may seem pedantic, relevant only to people in the relevant fields, but that is far from the case. Whether selection works at one (the individual) or multiple (the individual and also coherent groups of individuals) has important direct implications for our idea about society and human nature.

A strong argument in support of the multi-level selection thesis, is the fact that we appear to have latent mechanisms for group action that tend to increase in-group cohesiveness (in-group altruism but also in-group pressure for conformity) while, at the same time, increasing out-group aggression (Sapolsky’s “Behave” contains a very clear description of the relevant data). I agree with the traditional argument (described in detail in Dawkins' "Selfish Gene") that this condition can be explained by gene-level selection alone, but I don’t think I can see how it could have developed out of gene-level selection alone. It seems to me that, in order for these “in-group/it-group” psychological/biological mechanisms to be developed in the first place, some amount/type of group-level selection is probably required.

Furthermore, it is clear that humans also have psychological/biological mechanisms for supernatural emotions/beliefs; they are universal and, therefore, must also be accounted for. Multi-level selection explains them as adaptations, while gene-level selection explains them as artifacts (of pattern recognition and agenticity mechanisms combined with natural selection's bias for type-II over type-I errors). So, while gene-level selection could potentially explain social emotions/behaviors (via kin-selection, reciprocal altruism and so on), it views supernatural beliefs and behaviors related to religion as accidental byproducts that incur costs to the individual without returning benefits (e.g. Dawkins’ self-reproducing memetic transmission that acts on its hosts similarly to a parasite). The multi-level selection (that includes group selection as an evolutionary mechanism) predicts evolutionary benefits to the individual. Wilson presents a decent argument that religions tend to do the latter. He also offers a decent argument that religions tend to evolve according to their changing environments in order to offer those evolutionary benefits. I think it would be fair to suggest that, if someone wants to argue against group selection, they would need to address these particular points.

Upon completing the book, I think Wilson did enough to convince me of the validity of his thesis. Furthermore, the point of view he presents offers a really clear and insightful lens to understand cultural evolution and the interplay between culture and biology ("gene-culture coevolution" and so on). Also, regardless of its central argument, the book contains generally-interesting ideas; for example the distinction between ultimate causes/mechanisms (adaptive utility) versus proximate causes/mechanisms (emotions, urges, cost-benefit reasoning).

Now for the cons... I think that this book's weakest point is its writing. Especially in the earlier chapters of the book, it felt to me like the writing was all over the place. I think this is due to the fact that the subject matter is both wide and complex (it combines perspectives from basic evolutionary biology, game theory, sociology, history of religions, economics) and the author was having a hard time finding an good way to both explain all the main points and tie them together. As the book progressed, and after he had already exposed all of the above, the author seemed to find his pace and I think he finally managed to tie things together in a satisfactory way and help the reader get a good glimpse of the larger view he had in mind all along.

Another weak point is that the author often mentions things without exposing them adequately for the reader to get a good idea without having a decent prior grasp of the field or without look up the references provided. For example, when he mentions "outlaw and sheriff genes" as supporting evidence for his argument, the provides a reference but doesn't really explain what these are. This renders this book inaccessible to a beginner (I would definitely advise at least having read Dawkins' "Selfish Gene" - which, in contrast, is an example of a really well-structured and well-written book - before having a go at this one).

...but once (and if) one can move past the above issues, this book was some really deep insight to offer.

Overall, if the writing was better, this would've been a 5/5 book. As it stands, I can recommend it to people interested in the subject enough to have some prior understanding of the field and willing to plow through parts that written in a less-than-crystal-clear style. Nevertheless, I think the ideas presented in this book are valuable enough to make up for it.



Here are a few excerpts I found particularly insightful:

“Ongoing cultural evolution, unconscious psychological mechanisms at both the individual and group levels, and conscious intentional thought must all be considered as potential designing agents for a modern religious belief system”

“human moral systems have both a genetically evolved component and an open-ended cultural component. An innate psychological architecture is required to have a moral system, but the specific contents can vary and therefore adapt to recent environments. In addition, it is important to remember that moral communities larger than a few hundred individuals are “unnatural” as far as genetic evolution is concerned because to the best of our knowledge they never existed prior to the advent of agriculture. This means that culturally evolved mechanisms are absolutely required for human society to hang together above the level of face-to-face groups.”

“[...] isn’t it the ultimate in hypocrisy for a religion to simultaneously preach the Golden Rule and instruct its members to commit genocide? This double standard is indeed hypocritical from a perspective that envisions all people within the same moral circle. [This perspective] provides a poor theoretical foundation for understanding the nature of religions and other moral systems as they exist today and in the past.”

“All of these traditions [major intellectual traditions like Marxism, cultural relativism, evolutionary biology and rational choice theory] confront the same world but see different worlds based on their ideas that organize perception”

“every choice can be explained in terms of the “hard” currency of survival and reproduction, appropriately defined. The “soft” inner world of psychic costs and benefits can be ignored.
The relationship between “soft” and “hard” in this example, the “inner” world governed by psychic forces and the “outer” world governed by survival and reproduction, is identical to the distinction between “proximate” and “ultimate” in evolutionary theory [...]. Individuals of our fantasy species have an inner psychological world that actually causes their behavior in a proximate sense, but it has been so thoroughly designed by natural selection that survival and reproduction in the outer world is sufficient to predict the behavioral output of the inner world. For example, suppose that individuals survive better in groups than alone, a fact that we can readily determine by observation or experiment. Natural selection has endowed individuals with a psychological mechanism that causes them to join groups, which they experience as a warm feeling of fellowship. We would not say “the individual joins groups because it survives better and because it receives a warm feeling of fellowship,” as if these two benefits were similar in kind and can simply be added together. In proximate terms the individual joins groups only because of the warm feeling of fellowship, while in ultimate terms it joins groups only because survival is enhanced.”

“we need to begin with our own evolutionary history, much of it spent in small social groups approximately the size of modern hunter-gatherer societies. Superficially these groups do not appear favorable for group-level selection. Based on genetic variation alone, we would expect within-group selection to prevail in most cases. However, phenotypic variation within and among human groups is radically different than genetic variation and makes group selection a very strong force indeed. Remember that phenotypic variation is all that natural selection ever “sees.” Genetic evolution remains important, but to appreciate its significance we must go beyond the narrowest brand of genetic determinism, so common as a simplifying assumption in evolutionary models, in which genes code directly for behaviors. Instead we must begin to model what we know to be true: genes code for psychological traits that cause people to adopt different behaviors with great (although not unlimited) flexibility and also to alter the environment that determines what counts as adaptive.”

“Conformity eliminates certain kinds of phenotypic variation within groups, regardless of whatever genetic variation may exist. The behaviors that count as right conduct are not genetically determined but depend on open-ended psychological and cultural processes. Once again, some of the psychological processes may be genetically determined, but that is a far cry from assuming that the behaviors are genetically determined.”

“Perhaps what seems to be an adversarial relationship between believers and nonbelievers in fact represents a healthy balance between factual and practical realism that keeps social groups as a whole on an even keel.”

[Maik Civeira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Los no creyentes tendemos a considerar a la religión como una explicación errada del mundo. Las gentes primitivas buscaban explicaciones a los fenómenos naturales, y no teniendo forma de adquirir mejores conocimientos, lo atribuían todo a la magia, los espíritus y los dioses. Dios sería una hipótesis para explicar por qué el mundo existe y es tal cual lo vemos, y como hipótesis hace mucho que debía haber quedado descartada.

Pero, ¿qué tal si el fenómeno religioso es algo más que eso? En este intrigante y provocador libro, el biólogo evolucionista David Sloan Wilson plantea una teoría muy coherente de las religiones, que tiene que ver con la selección a multiniveles y con la novísima disciplina de la evolución cultural.

Sucede que la selección natural no opera solamente sobre los individuos, sino sobre los grupos completos. Los grupos con indivuos que cooperan y se ayudan mutuamente tienen más posibilidades de sobrevivir y crecer que los grupos divididos por la competencia interna. Los seres humanos tenemos mentes muy complejas y somos capaces de crear culturas. Las culturas serían respuestas adaptativas a las condiciones naturales y sociales en las que los grupos humanos se han encontrado a lo largo de la historia. Las religiones, en concreto, son fenómenos culturales que evolucionan para resolver el problema de la cooperación al interior de los grupos para adaptarlos mejor a su entorno.

Esto es, el componente más importante de la religión no es la creencia en lo sobrenatural, sino la conformación de una serie de reglas y valores que crean comunidades cohesionadas y cooperativas. Tomando ejemplos del calvinismo, el judaísmo, el cristianismo primitivo, la religión de Bali y diversas religiones tribales alrededor del mundo, Wilson muestra cómo los sistemas y organizaciones religiosas proveen a las comunidades de herramientas que les permiten resolver sus problemas prácticos.

Claro, esto tiene su lado oscuro. Las religiones aumentan la cooperación y reducen el conflicto intra-grupo, pero no extra-grupo. La hostilidad y la violencia que se censura hacia los correligionarios se permite e incluso se alienta hacia los externos. Además, para ser funcionales, las religiones deben ejercer un control casi total sobre sus creyentes y evitar toda desviación o heterodoxia. Sin embargo, teniendo en cuenta que las religiones surgieron en el contexto de comunidades pequeñas en ambientes hostiles, no debemos exigir que nos traigan la fraternidad universal: no fueron diseñadas para ello.

El libro resulta controvertido, sin duda, pero plantea una realidad que todos los no creyentes debemos tener en cuenta: que el fenómeno religioso es algo más complejo, rico y, sobre todo, más importante de lo que nos gusta admitir y haríamos bien en tratar de comprenderlo mejor en vez de simplemente desestimarlo.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but somewhat labored thesis that religions, like other human social structures develop according to an evolutionary model based on developing and nurturing characteristics that make then functionally more likely to persist. These characteristics are called group adaptive as they are played out in behaviors and actions which may not necessarily be to the advantage of the individual but are to the advantage of the group. Wilson breaks this theory down to specific characteristics which he examines from this perspective.
The thesis is interesting and thought provoking. The book is quite academic with many citations and is not the easiest read. Frankly, I was happy to get to the end of it.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN APPLICATION OF EVOLUTIONARY CONCEPTS TO RELIGIOUS GROUPS

David Sloan Wilson (born 1949) is an evolutionary biologist and a Professor of Biological Sciences and Anthropology at Binghamton University.

He wrote in the Introduction to this 2002 book, “The purpose of this book is to treat the organismic concept of religious groups as a serious scientific hypothesis, Organisms are a product of natural selection. Through countless generations of variation and selection, they acquire properties that enable them to survive and reproduce in their environments. My purpose is to see if human groups in general, and religious groups in particular, qualify as organismic in this sense… This book has been written for anyone who has wondered about the organismic nature of human society, regardless of their academic training or interest in religion per se. I also hope this book will be read by religious believers, despite its resolutely scientific approach to religion. Spirituality is in part a feeling of being connected to something larger than oneself. Religion is in part a collection of beliefs and practices that honor spirituality. A scientific theory that affirms these statements cannot be entirely hostile to religion. I frankly admire many features of religion, without denying the many horrors what have also been committed in its name. Indeed, the hypothesis presented in this book explains the mis of blessings and horrors associated with religion better than any other hypothesis, or so I claim.” (Pg. 1-3)

In the first chapter, he explains, “This book is about evolution but it is not restricted to genetic evolution. At all times throughout the world… religious systems have arisen in profusion, competing against each other and against nonreligious social organizations. Differences among religions are culturally based, but that does not prevent religious groups from succeeding or failing on the basis of their properties and for these properties to be transmitted with modification to descendant groups… Our genetically innate psychology might therefore reflect the influence of both within- and among-group selection, regardless of the kinds of groups in which we participate today.” (Pg. 11)

He states, “we should not think of religion as a purely cultural invention or as something that can be derived from a few law-like principles. Organisms of all sorts require a complex and specialized physiology to coordinate their parts in just the right way to survive and reproduce in their environments. We should think of the psychological mechanisms activated by religion as physiological in this sense… The second basic fact that we must understand from an evolutionary perspective is that moral systems include an open-ended cultural dimension in addition to an innate psychological dimension… Far from leading to the caricature of genetic determinism that limits the capacity for change, our innate psychology creates the capacity for change by setting in motion a proves of cultural evolution.” (Pg. 28)

He observes, “The word evolution means change, so it would seem that evolution and religion share much in common… When we expand our view of evolution to include all Darwinian processes, we can begin to see how religions actually can produce transformative change, even from a purely evolutionary perspective.” (Pg. 35)

He says, “Calvin’s catechism provides a blueprint for human conduct that makes sense from a group-level functional perspective. The blueprint goes beyond general prescriptions to ‘do unto others’ and is fine-tuned to its local environment. For any unit (individual or group) to function adaptively, its behavior must be highly context-sensitive… Calvin’s catechism is impressively context-sensitive for a short document…” (Pg. 98) He summarizes, “Calvin’s church included a code of behaviors adapted to the local environment, a belief system that powerfully motivated the code inside the mind of the believer, and a social organization that coordinated and enforced the code for leaders and followers alike.” (Pg. 111)

He suggests, “The seemingly irrational features of Calvinism seem gratifyingly functional from an evolutionary perspective. For all its otherworldliness, Calvinism caused its community of believers to behave adaptively in the real world, which is all that evolution can be expected to accomplish. Calvinism even provides a natural before-and-after experiment on the effect of religious belief on group-level functional organization. Before Calvin, the city of Geneva was riven by internal discord despite a strong civic government and an impelling need to pull together.” (Pg. 123)

He notes, “multilevel selection theory provides a panoramic view of Judaism as a religion that has existed in the form of highly segregated groups which have harnessed the power of cooperation to succeed at almost everything that requires coordinated action… It is incorrect to say that anti-Semitism is a reaction to unfair Jewish practices because that implies that anti-Semitic groups are moral agents in their own right. Multilevel selection predicts, and history shows, that the Jews would be targets for exploitation no matter how exemplary their conduct toward other groups because groups are not moral agents unless special conditions are met.” (Pg. 143)

He argues, “It is easy to see why religion so often appears dysfunctional, because its costs are so conspicuous. Religious folk are expected to give their time, their money, their identity, and even their lives when necessary. They are expected to forsake opportunities and adopt beliefs and practices that appear inexplicable to outsiders. These costs, however great, do no prove that religion decrease the prosperity of its members. Altruism involves sacrificing for the benefit of others. Since the benefits of the costly behaviors demanded by religion remain largely within the church, the net effect can easily increase the prosperity of the average member.” (Pg. 162)

He acknowledged, “Let me be the first to admit that the adaptationist program has not yet proven itself for the subject of religion. On the other hand, this book represents a three-year effort by one person. By comparison the literature on guppies, which demonstrates the full power of adaptationism, represents hundreds of person-years of effort. When religious groups are studied this well from an adaptationist perspective, by social scientists and religious scholars who learn about evolution in addition to evolutionists such as myself who learn about religion, the hypothesis that religious groups function as adaptive units will either self-destruct… or stand on very firm ground.” (Pg. 188)

He states, “the basic capacity to forgive is a biological adaptation found throughout the animal kingdom, at least in a rudimentary form. It cannot be understood by itself but instead must be seen as part of a constellation of traits that function as a set of if-them rules. One of the strongest links is between forgiveness and retaliation. Forgiveness is often valued and retaliation devalued in everyday thought, especially Christian thought. In the context of evolutionary models, retaliation is absolutely essential to keep the wolves of selfishness at bay. To retaliate can be divine.” (Pg. 194)
He summarizes, “Christian forgiveness [is] a complex adaptation that functions in a variety of different contexts… We must acknowledge that the exalted view of Christianity must also be tempered. Christianity and virtually all other religions fall sort when judged by the loftiest standard of universal brotherhood. They merely adapt groups to their local environments. When they lift people out of poverty and desperation, they deserve our highest admiration… For me, the failure of religion to achieve universal brotherhood is like the failure of birds to break the sound barrier.” (Pg. 217)

He concludes, “In this book I have tried to show how a theory of innate psychology can inform the study of religion and how it can clarify, rather than deny, the essential role of culture. The same theory can be applied to any other modern human social organization… There is every reason to include religion along with other modern social organizations in this emerging synthesis rather than encapsulating it with definitions that set it apart.” (Pg. 225) He adds, “much religious belief is not detached from reality if the central thesis of this book is correct. Rather, it is intimately connected to reality by motivating behaviors that are adaptive in the real world---an awesome achievement when we appreciate the complexity that it required to become connected in this practical sense.” (Pg. 228)

This book will interest some who are interested in the application of evolutionary theory to social theories.

[Dan Gorman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very solid and thought-provoking book, with major implications for the evolution of culture and the effects of group selection on how we think & behave. But as a non-biologist, I did not fully understand all of its contents. This is a book I would like to read in a seminar or book club with a few scientists participating.

[Frank Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jonathan Haidt on this book's thesis:

When opponents of evolution object that humans are not mere apes, they are correct. We are also part bee.

And I liked the thesis. But the book, as a book, not so much. Especially the first 85 pages or so were quite the slog.

[Peter Makai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Demonstrates our religious nature better than Dan Dennett. Nuff said.

[Jukka Aakula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread the book.

My review from 2006 https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...

[Jonathan Tweet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Evaluates religion from a naturalistic perspective, as a system for coordinating social behavior.

[Simon Lavoie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wilson soutient que les groupes sociaux constituent des unités adaptatives biologiques sous certaines conditions, et que les religions figurent parmi les ensembles de croyances et de comportements par lesquels les groupes satisfont de telles conditions. Elles y parviennent par la sacralisation des biens pour l'obtention desquels la collaboration est nécessaire, et par l'octroi, aux croyances et comportements collaboratifs pertinents, d'un halo de sérieux, de gravité et de prescription. Les groupes religieux, églises et monastères se décrivent eux-mêmes en recourant aux métaphores du corps ou de la ruche, et cette vision d'eux-mêmes, apprend-on, a un fondement scientifique d'après la théorie de l'évolution.

Dans la défense de cette thèse, l'auteur met à distance une période de construction de la théorie biologique, l'âge de l'individualisme (le gène égoïste, l'élimination des groupes), qu'il considère à juste titre un mauvais tournant ("a "wrong turn"). Le présent ouvrage est une contribution, non au retour à une défense axiomatique du bien collectif comme valeur adaptative, mais une contribution au juste milieu à éclaircir entre la référence à l'individu et au groupe compris biologiquement : comme des acteurs de modification du milieu, et de réponse aux pressions sélectives du milieu. Les partisans de l'individualisme ont commis une erreur, notamment en calculant la valeur moyenne du succès reproductif sans tenir compte des groupes ("the averaging fallacy"). Wilson prend soin de rétablir la procédure permettant de soutenir et de vérifier empiriquement la sélection de groupes.

Nous rencontrons plusieurs éclaircissements théoriques dont le but est de bénéficier à la défense de ce point de vue. Les mécanismes fondamentaux de l'évolution darwinienne sont mis de l'avant (diversification phénotypique, héritabilité, rétention sélective), de manière à montrer pourquoi la diversification pertinente, et la suite du processus, débordent le cadre uniquement génétique pour embrasser celui, culturel, des comportements prescrits par la coordination et la production de bénéfices collectifs.

La voie privilégiée par Darwin afin d'expliquer nos aptitudes morales est reprise et défendue sous le nom de théorie sélective multi-niveau : celle-ci permet de résoudre l'aporie présumée selon laquelle les comportements moraux, ne favorisant pas la survie et la reproduction de leurs auteurs, bénéficient au contraire aux profiteurs qui, eux, prospéreraient et verraient leurs gènes mieux se répandre de génération en génération. La théorie multi-niveau dénoue cette apparente tension de la théorie en rétablissant la distinction entre compétition interne au groupe, et compétition entre groupes. Si un comportement moral ou altruiste ne bénéficie pas à son auteur aux plans survie et reproduction au sein de son groupe, mais qu'il favorise un taux de survie et de reproduction moyenne supérieur à celui des autres groupes démunis d'agents moraux ou altruistes, le premier s'avère avantagé au plan évolutif, adaptatif.

Wilson précise que le contrôle social est une notion permettant de diminuer le coût de l'altruisme sacrificiel présumé si difficile à satisfaire, y compris dans une théorie multi-niveau : ce contrôle consiste en un bien de deuxième ordre ("causing another to perform a public good is itself a public good" p.19). Un groupe peut ainsi être richement doté en agents orientés au "service public" sans pourtant devoir encourir de lourds sacrifices au plan de leur chance reproductive.

Du code génétique à la cellule jusqu'aux sociétés en passant par les ruches et les fourmilières, l'histoire de la vie est ponctuée de 8 transitions caractérisées par un même mécanisme fondamental : la suppression de la compétition entre individus, et la relocalisation de la compétition au niveau du groupe comme méta-organisme avec d'autres groupes ("from groups of organisms to groups as organism"). Le rattachement de la thèse de l'ouvrage à cette logique de l'histoire du vivant, que Wilson considère être un nouveau paradigme, initié par Lynn Margulis, par John Maynard Smith & Eörs Szathmáry (auxquels on peut ajouter François Jacob, voir le dernier chapitre de La logique du vivant, une histoire de l'hérédité, est éclairante et stimulante. Le corollaire, dans la théorie évolutionniste du groupe, de l'émergence de la morale religieuse est l'accroissement de la rivalité intergoupes (ainsi que nombre d'auteurs, dont Joshua Greene, Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them, l'ont démontré, à la suite d'un article phare de Samuel Bowles, 2009, Did Warfar Among Ancestral Hunter-Gatherers Affect the Evolution of Human Social Behaviors).

La distinction entre causes prochaines et causes lointaines (avec leurs mécanismes correspondants) est un des autres piliers théoriques sur lesquels Wilson construit sa thèse, ainsi que sa critique des théories rivales de la religion dans une perspective de sciences sociales et de théorie de l'évolution.

La reprise et la défense de la vision durkheimienne de la religion contre les théories rivales, dont celle de l'acteur rationnel, semble devoir être située au coeur de la démarche et de la réflexion de Wilson. Lorsque celui-ci écrit : « It often seems as if the integration of biology and the social sciences is a one-way street, more a conquest by biology than a fertile interchange. Here is a case where the influence needs to flow the other way », le Here est bel et bien la théorie durkheimienne de la religion comprise comme représentation symbolique de la société, comprenant une distinction Sacrée/Profane. Les agents qui partagent un même ensemble de croyances et comportements relatifs aux entités et objets sacrés (ce qui est au-dessus d'eux et qui leur commande respect et déférence) sont dotés, en même temps que d'une représentation du groupe qu'ils forment, des guides pour la conduite de leur vie en groupe -- des guides de coordination pour l'obtention des avantages séculiers que sont les bénéfices du travail collectif, les bénéfices de la résolution des conflits et du pardon.

Les pré-requis à satisfaire afin de constituer le symbolisme (la description métaphorique de soi du groupe, c'est-à-dire sa saisie sous une forme imagée, malléable en pensée) et le sacré en objets de la science biologique ont trait à l'impact de l'un et de l'autre sur les comportements individuels - ce dont on peut convenir aisément.

Les chapitres à caractère empirique, dans lesquels Wilson veut démontrer la justesse de l'organicisme ou fonctionnalisme religieux au plan biologique (le groupe religieux comme organisme s'adaptant à un environnement de relations sociales) portent sur les avantages séculiers de (1) la réforme calvinienne, mesurés à partir d'une comparaison de la ville de Genève avant et après l'implantation des catéchismes pertinents (lesquels comprennent des prescriptions sur les relations des hommes entre eux, à chaque niveau hiérarchique, et les relations entre Dieu et hommes); les avantages séculiers - ici-bas - d'(2) une église chrétienne établie par et pour des immigrants coréens de première génération aux États-Unis contemporains, d'(3) une étude du pardon chrétien dans la temporalité de rédaction des évangiles -- de ses avantages séculiers dans l'adaptation des premières églises à des contraintes, à des ennemis, et à des destinataires spécifiques ("Context-sensitivity is the key for understanding the nature of Christian forgivenss » p. 217), et de (4) une hypothèse explicative du cycle de vie des religions (de culte, de secte à Église, puis de secte et à culte).

En plus de la mise en place de l'armature théorique, une portion significative de livre est destinée à relever le défi consistant à se mesurer à une multitude de disciplines ayant toutes porté sur la religion des regards à la fois profonds (au plan des intentions) et contrastés : anthropologie, sociologie, "science" des religions, notamment. Ainsi, nous avons droit à un éventail d'exposés détaillés sur le sacré chez les Nuer (le chef à la peau de léopard, institution de résolution des différends) et chez une tribut chrétienne nomade du Monténégro, ainsi qu'à l'exposé de la théorie d'auteurs embrassant une vision adaptative au niveau individuel, ou exaptive (un "byproduct" de la pensée calculant les coûts/bénéfice dans un marchandage avec des puissances invisibles, pour l'obtention de biens inatteignables) de la religion.

Le projet d'établissement d'un programme de recherche pour la généralisation, au-delà des sources chrétiennes, de la définition organismique avancée dans ce livre est dessiné au chapitre 5. Il faut espérer que ce projet ait continuer d'avancer. Il est constructif et il renouvelle considérablement la perspective dans laquelle la religion a été jusqu'ici théorisée dans une perspective évolutionniste/aire. Wilson procède dans un esprit, non de confrontation, mais d'admiration pour certains aspects de la religion, notamment pour son efficacité à souder des groupes coopératifs et moraux. Certains (Daniel Denett en particulier) ont durement attaqué Wilson pour ces concessions quant aux variétés de réalismes qu'il nous faudrait admettre dans notre vision du monde et notre théorie de la connaissance : réalisme pratique, réalisme factuel (voir le dernier chapitre). Cet aspect de l'ouvrage peut être le plus susceptible de déplaire mais aussi de stimuler d'autres réflexions; lesquelles gagnent à être rapprochées de celles de Scott Atran et du Center for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict (voir L'Etat islamique est une révolution), qui mettent la valeur adaptative de la religion en contexte de conflits sous un éclairage dense et puissant.

Cet ouvrage est fort recommandable par sa clarté, par la nature de son entreprise, et par l'exemplarité avec laquelle Wilson argumente sur un sujet aussi controversé que la religion et son apport en bénéfices collectifs séculiers. La soudure des actions, des croyances et de l'appartenance semble s'être constamment défaite après que celle des dieux aux hommes aient été constatées, puis déclarées, mortes ou inopérantes. Peut-on retrouver la première sans la seconde ? Cette question demeure au coeur de la modernité philosophique et politique. Puisse un ouvrage comme Darwin's Cathedral nous éclairer sur l'impuissance et l'insuccès que nous avons eu à y répondre, et sur ce qu'il convient de faire et de penser.

[Arihant Chawla · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
Very ambitious attempt at proving the hypothesis of organized religion as adaptive units of evolution. and treat the organismic concept of religious groups as a scientific hypothesis and try to explain them using multilevel Darwinistic selection theory
The author makes the claim that religious groups are Darwin Machines which are both the result of and a log in the machine of evolution and can adapt to cultural, political, environmental etc factors.

The central dichotomy revolves around ideal form and practiced form of religion. Sloan claims that religion in it's ideal form is pure group selection, tgat religious failures are not corruption and abberations but a part of religion itself. Religion as it is actually practiced with these abberations is actually explained by multilevel selection with group selection contending with but not always prevailing against other strong forces.

The major opposing hypothesis to Sloan's claims is that religion is essentially a byproduct, a spandrel (which inspired the book cover I suppose).

For what it's worth Sloan makes a compelling case for his hypothesis, although in his own words an incomplete one. If I am to pick a bone with him it would be in his own words "A good theory is one which lets you form a hypothesis that can be tested against various parameters, an even better one is one where this hypothesis passes some of these tests" - Pretty much sums up how fragile and fickle the argument is of multilevel selection theory as a good explanation of religious societies as adaptive units. Any day a better theory comes that passes more tests, this ceases to be a good theory, but I suppose that's a thing with social sciences. As a physical science student I can appreciate the decisiveness ingrained in my fields a little more after this.

Sloan spends a good part of the book comparing existing social science theories like the Rational Choice Theory by Stark and Functionalism by Durkheim to try to fit them into an evolutionary perspective. He claims that Rational Theory of Choice does not contradict adaptive functionalism because Durkheim does not actually discount the cost benefit reasoning in religious transactions that lead to a self imposed community regulated egalitarianism but rather it has adaptive functionalism in it's dna (pun intended) because it does not actually think about how the religious groups ended up this way. And the latent functions RCT ignores can be attributed using functionalism. All of this is a little suspect to be honest but I think I can live with that if I squint long enough onto what he's proposing. Then Iannaccone who calls himself a rationalist (and staunch opposer of functionalism) makes the argument that the "pointless" and arbitrary rules and regulations in religions (dress code, whatis permissible to consume, etc) are the reason for the religious societies to be adaptive (which he actually says rational, but really can you blame Sloan for arguing this is adaptive and not a byproduct of rational thought). My takeaway from this has been that Sloan makes a fine case, albiet with some ad hominems, but still a fine one for functionalism and rationalism being two sides of the same coin. (How very 'laissez-faire' of evolution). I suppose any general practitioner of evolutionary biology could appreciate the similarity. Science is filled with re-appropriations from other fields anyway.

With quite heavily rose tainted glasses that he wears in terms of evolutionary biology (and which I admit I have humbly moderate knowledge of as far as the general order of things go) the central claim of adaptive units is somewhat satisfied and even if a well versed reader finds some discrepancy or fallacy in assumption in this work, it is safe to say that the resourcefulness and research behind this cannot be discounted.

[Graham Seibert · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book whose time has come. Immensely relevant in 2019.

Amazon reviews are consistently among the best written, most intelligent commentary on the Internet. The early reviews of this book by Rob Hardy, Todd Stark and Herbert Calhoun are up to the highest standard.

I am giving the book itself a five-star recommendation, and I give these reviews an equally high recommendation. Read them to convince yourself that you need to buy it.

What can I add, 17 years after publication?

Evolutionary psychology has made immense progress in this period. Our understanding of the human genome has progressed extremely rapidly. Among the things we have learned is that somewhere on the order of 85% of our genome is dedicated to brain function, and that heritability affects human intellect and personality more than could have been imagined as this book was written.

Wilson addresses a few related themes:
(1) Fitness can be defined, and organisms can evolve as groups as well as individuals. Although genes obviously have to be passed down from individual parents to individual offspring, the genetic makeup of a larger unit of selection effects the fitness of the individuals within the group.
(2) Human beings all belong to numerous, disjoint groups, of which the church is usually one. Every group offers the individual some advantage, and demand something in return. The exchange is not made on the basis of rational considerations of quid pro quo – the thesis that Wilson goes out of his way to dismiss. Participation in groups is often unconscious, and follows rules of unconscious evolution.
(3) Human beings are not able to be fully rational in any circumstance. Even scientists, who stated objective is dispassionate objectivity, cannot manage it. To reject religion as irrational doesn't make sense. Nothing we do makes total, abstract sense. Though Wilson doesn't make the case, the most basic measure of fitness – number of children – itself is irrational. Having children is simply not a rational decision. It is not irrational – it is beyond rationality. So is religion.

Wilson's unique contribution is to apply the tools of evolutionary biology to the evolution of religion, as a group phenomenon involving in itself, and as a manifestation of religiosity among individual people.

The book is worth reading simply for the beautiful examples he uses to illustrate his point: the Nuer a tribe of tall warriors in South Sudan, the Balinese water Temple system and guppy populations of South American streams and rivers.

Wilson mentions in passing the fact that many belief systems other than religion are held with the same unexamined tenacity as religion. In this day and age, I would number among them climate change and the denial in the face of overwhelming evidence of the genetic differences among human populations. In short, diversity.

Religion is coming back in fashion among evolutionary psychologists. This book was recommended by Dr. Edward Dutton via his YouTube channel "The Jolly Heretic." A look at Dutton's work will convince the reader of how absolutely relevant Wilson has become. A five-star effort all around.

[Stephan Naro · Rating 1 out of 5]

"[Nazism] is in part a feeling of being connected to something larger than oneself. [] A scientific theory that affirms th[i]s[] statement[] cannot be entirely hostile to [nazism]." [Paraphrased from page 3.] What in Hull is the point of being a scientist if your "thinking" consists of such unclarity?

Non-religious pyramid scams ALSO evolve. (eg Bernie Madoff adapted to the computer and SEC age.) So what!

That many recruiters to non-religious pyramid scams, and that many who pass on forged banknotes, think that the opportunities and banknotes are genuine, doesn't void the fraud / forgery. Calvin and Luther may well have genuinely believed that Goddledegook was necessary in order to achieve something or other, but that doesn't mean that christianity didn't emerge as a blatant faith-healing scam.

How long would a religion survive among normal, decent (ie non-religious) people if it taught "Deceive whomever you please, however you please!" Go and look at non-religious pyramid scams and see how meticulously they present an image of honesty and reliability - precisely in order to hide that teeny little bit that they don't want you to worry yourself about. And it is especially important to the higher leadership that the lower leadership not have any opportunities for siphoning money from the collection plate or drinking or gambling tithes away. Whereas non-religious pyramid scams (almost) exclusively reward in monetary terms (leaders may get a kick out of messing with people), religion provides substantial immaterial rewards, eg "moral", "purpose", "accomplishment", and I suspect there's quite the kick to be had from observing all those asses in the air at prayer.

There are other issues. Fire with fire: When fighting someone claiming divine right it may seem advisable to match, even raise, the bet. Cold turkey: People who are addicted to religion may need "Methadone" mixed in with vocational training when their old drug becomes unavailable. Disaster management: When religious adherence is on the decline, priests can become inventive in rekindling religion.

Wilson picks bits and pieces as examples from various religions, but I'm not going to try to address all of them - frankly it seems a thin soup. Regarding early christianity, I find myself wondering if more people lived due to christian ministerings to the plague-sick than died in martyrdom, the latter being a slightly more obvious effect of afterlife-beliefs. Wilson doesn't mention martyrdom, and I am left wondering if Stark sees fit to speculate. Aaaand there are even other apsects to this issue that I could like to investigate.

I dislike more of the book, but I'm sparing you.

[Leonardo]

Reading Wilsons Darwins Cathedral is like taking a journey to Spaceland. You can look down on the vast tapestry of human cultures and see why things are woven in the way that they are. Wilson says his own private hell would be to be locked forever into a room full of people discussing the hypocrisies of religion, for example, that many religions preach love, compassion, and virtue yet sometimes cause war, hatred, and terrorism. From Wilsons higher perspective, there is no contradiction. Group selection erentes interlocking genetic and cultural adaptations that enhance peace, harmony and cooperation within the group for the express purpose of increasing the groups ability to compete with other groups. Group selection does not end conflict; it just pushes it up to the next level of social organization. Atrocities committed in the name of religion are almost always committed against out-group members, or against the most dangerous people of all: apostates (who try to leave the group) and traitors (who undermine the group).

A second puzzle that Wilson can solve is why mysticism, everywhere and always, is about transcending the self and merging with something larger than the self. When William James analyzed mysticism, he focused on the psychological state of “cosmic consciousness” and on the techniques developed in all the major religions to attain it. Hindus and Buddhists use meditation and yoga to attain the state of samadhi, in which “the subject object distinction and ones sense of an individual self disappear in a state usually described as one of supreme peace, bliss, and illumination.” James found much the same goal in Christian and Muslim mysticism, often attained through repetitive prayer.

The Happiness Hypothesis Pág.235-236

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brave and practical case made for the evolutionary value of religion.

I felt hints of Spenglerian thought in his story, although less fatalistic.

Favourite quotes:

"I have already commented that religious injunctions such as the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule are clearly adaptive at the group level. It is almost embarrassingly obvious that groups who obey these rules will function well as adaptive units, compared to groups that do not. The more one learns about Judaism, the more this impression is confirmed. The Ten Commandments are the tip of an iceberg of commandments that, at least in their intent, regulate the behavior of group members in minute detail. It should come as no surprise that Durkheim, as the son of a rabbi, should emphasize the secular utility of religion"

"Thus, the extreme forgiveness that allowed anyone to enter the church was also extended to church members, but not in a way that allowed exploitation to occur within the church. This kind of conditional forgiveness is required for any human group to function as an adaptive unit."

"First, science emerges as an unnatural act. The human mind is probably far better at subordinating factual to practical realism than the reverse. The ideal of the true scientist, who weighs only the facts without regard to the practical consequences, is about as attainable as the ideal of Jesus, Muhammad, or Buddha. The best that science can do as a social organization is to implement a system of beliefs and practices that steers people toward the ideal. Of course, we know that scientific culture is packed with sacred symbols, self-glorifying statements, and reasonably effective social control mechanisms. It might seem that I am disparaging science by comparing it to religion in this way. On the contrary, I think that science might profit by becoming more religious along certain dimensions, as long as it remains nonreligious with respect to its stated goal of increasing factual knowledge."

[Silvio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Religion as something special

It was a hard read for me, maybe a little bit above my "paygrade". David Wilson have done a nice work trying to apply evolutionary science based hypothesis to the study of religion. One is group theory, which is not mainstream supported by other evolutionary biologists (my understanding and I could be wrong). Also he uses some of the conclusions to defend religions in general against the position of new atheists: this is a low point for me at least. However he notes that religion can be similar to other needed belief systems like patriotism still is unique and should be studied separately or as a special case. Which is not clear for me: there are many things that emerge from our symbolic brains, and each of them builds on lower structures of thought, patriotism, religion, are in the higher level, but they are not special cases. Ironically he recognizes that religious people will not like his thesis, which is based on evolutionary thinking! And reduces religion as a group mechanism to increase its fitness.

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I'm fascinated by the subject, Wilson's presentation of it was not enjoyable. This is perhaps the dullest book I've ever read on evolution. There are too many instances of extended quotes, examples, and tangents that don't progress the narrative. There is no deep dive into the actual evolution of religion itself either. It's almost as if humans didn't have religion, magically received it, and religion evolved from there.

[Iulian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author changed my mind on the importance of multi level selection and within it the group selection. The author brings great critiques to the existing theories of religions. However, his thesis still needs mlre work and more debates from peers.

[Kevin Wallior · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dense fascinating book about religion and evolution. David Sloan Wilson envisions society as an organism and theorizes that religion and morality are group level adaptations of that organismic view of society.

[Bertalan Thuroczy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and interdipsciplinary approach of the human evolution and the evolution of religion, spirituality and the meaning of life.

If you are seeking for great books in this niche, I would recommend this one among the bests!

[Ed Miracle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Explains Much, Invites Further Inquiry

David Sloan Wilson has given me a welcome new view of religion as an evolutionary group adaptation that used its supernatural beliefs in response to many basicl human needs. Thanks, Dave. I needed that!

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dry, academic.