Homo Mysterious: Evolutionary Puzzles of Human Nature (41 page)

Of course, every species is unique. That’s how we are able to identify each as a distinct species! Human beings aren’t unique when it comes to enforcing social cooperation via punishment of noncooperators. Thus, dominant meerkat females attack and may even kill subordinates who attempt to breed
¹²
; among the brilliantly colored superb fairy wrens of Australia, males punish “helpers” who flag in their helping
¹³
; honeybee workers destroy eggs laid by other workers (by doing so, they police their siblings who would produce offspring to which they are less closely related than they are to the queen’s direct offspring)
¹⁴
; cleaner fish that nip the fins or gills of those they are supposed to be cleaning are punished by their clients
¹⁵
; and something equivalent even occurs among plants: Soy beans cut off the flow of nutrients to root nodule bacteria that fail to supply the host plant with the nitrogen-based protein normally associated with such microorganisms.
¹⁶

Nonetheless, human beings are still unusual in the degree to which they are able to enforce their sociocultural traditions. Far more than other animals, among which cooperation typically occurs at a limited one-to-one scale, people have long been obliged to partake in distinctly group-oriented and group-sustaining behaviors as a result of which selection might have been able to operate at the level of such groups, free of the self-directed undermining that would occur if individuals were permitted to opt out.

If so, then the various group-oriented benefits suggested for religion just might have been selected for after all. Certainly, religion is among the more prominent behaviors that are enforced at the group level. Those who deviate from its rules, obligations, and precepts—the heretics, apostates, and plain old-fashioned shirkers—have long been punished, often severely. According to Verse 9:74 of the Qu’aran, Allah will allot to apostates grievous penalty both “in this life and in the Hereafter,” and indeed, defecting from Islam (apostasy) is a capital crime in many Muslim countries.

Nor is Islam unusual in coming down hard on any who deviate from religion’s expectations—which of course is precisely what we would expect if religion (whatever its benefits to the group) is enforced via social sanctions powerful enough to generate group-level selection on its behalf. Ostracism, for instance, is enforced by
nearly every religion, as punishment for leaving the fold. Renouncing the Mormon faith results in complete isolation from friends and family, a devastating experience even now in the 21st century, and something that must have been yet more severe for early human beings who were, if anything, more isolated and dependent on their immediate social network.

There is direct biblical support for ridiculing and isolating non-believers … and for much more. Psalm 14, for example, begins, “The fool hath said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they do abominable works, there is none that doeth good.” In Numbers 15:32–36, we are given an account of someone discovered picking up sticks on the Sabbath, whereupon Moses, after consulting with God, commanded that the guilty party should be stoned to death.

Skipping church on Sunday was a crime in Shakespearean England, punishable by a fine of 20 pounds sterling (approximately 1 year’s salary), while frequent offenders risked being hanged, drawn and quartered. And a country that prides itself in promoting freedom of religion was notably reluctant to institute freedom
from
it. Thus, in the late 18th century, many states and local jurisdictions in the United States passed blasphemy laws that carried severe punishments for religious dissenters. First offenders could have a hole bored in their tongue, while repeat offenders risked execution. And even today, anyone aspiring to high political office is well advised to keep his or her atheism under wraps.

In short, a strong case can be made that religions conform to many—perhaps all—of the requirements for group selection. David Sloan Wilson is a biologist who has long championed the general theory of group selection, and although his perspective (some might say his fervent ideology) has not been embraced by most evolutionists, there is growing, grudging acknowledgment that group selection might have been significant in human evolution in general, and in the evolution and maintenance of religion in particular. To summarize the argument: Group selection might have been important in human evolution, in part because of the strong sociocultural pressure for sticking to social norms—which in turn would have worked against the tendency to be a selfish nonaltruist (read: nonfollower of the group’s religion).

In addition, there could well have been substantial competition among early proto-human groups, manifested via primitive warfare. Under such conditions, more organized and cohesive groups could well have been more successful, while at the same time, individuals within such groups who were resistant to cohesive norms—such as religion—would have had a difficult time prospering or even, perhaps, surviving.

The objective truth or falsity of religious claims may thus be less important than the impact they have—whether they induce their followers to do things that are, on balance, in their interest. “Clearly,” writes Wilson,

I need to accurately perceive the location of a rabbit to hit it with my throwing stick. However, there are many, many other situations in which it can be adaptive to distort reality. … Even massively fictitious beliefs can be adaptive, as long as they motivate behaviors that are adaptive in the real world.”
¹⁷

Such as cooperating.

For Wilson, “Religions exist primarily for people to achieve together what they cannot achieve alone.” He suggests, accordingly, that there has been group selection for religions, with various forms coming into existence, competing with each other, some replicating themselves more successfully than others and some going extinct, not unlike what happens among individuals and genes.
¹⁸
Science writer Nicholas Wade is similarly persuaded, pointing out that religion “can unite people who may share neither common kinship, nor ethnicity nor even language.” If religion evolved in the context of group selection, the drama must have played out over tens of thousands of years (or more), among groups of pretechnological, early human beings living in small social units, within which individuals likely knew each other very well, and who would certainly have shared kinship, ethnicity, and language.

Wade’s argument suggests not only that religion initially evolved in the context of group selection but also that it continues to offer survival benefits even in a world of huge nation-states: “When nations feel their existence is at stake, they often define their cause by religion, whether in Europe’s long wars with Islam, or Elizabethan England’s defiance of Catholic Spain, or the Puritans’
emigration to New England, or the foundation of Israel.” Overlooked here is that these and so many other conflicts, in which religion supposedly provides a protective function, would not arise if the various religions in question weren’t being practiced. Thus, much of the Israeli–Arab conflict is generated by the fact that overwhelmingly, Israelis are Jewish and Arabs are Muslim. Can we say that religion unified and thus protected the Puritans against persecution in Europe—given that if they weren’t self-identified as Puritans, they wouldn’t have been persecuted in the first place?

Maybe we can, since once the labels Puritan, Anglican, Jew, or Muslim have been affixed, they might indeed help rally the troops and induce them to remain committed to the larger social unit. Although “mega-group selection” (as with nation-states) doesn’t answer the fundamental question of how religion could have been adaptive in the first place, there seems little doubt that it could contribute to the success of groups already designated as consisting of one religious affiliation or another. Moreover, as we have seen, group selection in its more intimate and biologically relevant context could well have been instrumental in the initial evolution of religion.

Group selection remains controversial among evolutionary biologists. It has been invoked, in the past, when attempting to account for seemingly altruistic behaviors, actions that impose a cost on individual participants, while possibly conveying a compensating benefit to the larger group. When it comes to the evolution of religion, group selection also appears an attractive explanation, and for the same reason. (In the extreme case, after all, people literally sacrifice themselves for their religion.) This, in turn, leads to yet another debate, one that is even more fraught than that over group selection itself, and which goes beyond technical disputes among biologists: the extent to which religion equals morality. After all, altruism is often considered a cornerstone of morality, and many people consider that religion is a prerequisite for moral behavior more generally.

This book is not the right venue to examine this dispute. Suffice it to note there is no evidence that religious people are any more moral or law abiding than are agnostics or atheists. On the other hand, it is probably significant that every major religion takes some responsibility for teaching morality. Of these pedagogic efforts,
the Ten Commandments are best known to Westerners, but certainly not unique. Note, however, that in most tribal societies, moral precepts do not come from religion; more often, they derive independently from interpersonal patterns and social expectations. But even in such cases, religion may yet be ethically consequential when it comes to the important function of achieving peace among strangers from within the same society, a need that arises when populations become so large that people encounter same-society members who were not previously known. Under such circumstances in the nonbiological “evolution” of societies, religions probably contributed adaptively by proclaiming that killing a fellow tribe member, for example, is offensive to the gods or to God.

But isn’t this unnecessary, since we have laws that mandate what we should and shouldn’t do?

Bear in mind, first, that secular legal institutions are likely to be very recent developments in the human evolutionary experience. And second, the “long arm of the law” isn’t necessarily all that long, whereas religious requirements and prohibitions, insofar as they are incorporated into the subjective belief systems of each participant, are much harder to sidestep. “Unlike secular authority,” writes biologist Kenneth Kardong,

supernatural authority is always watchful, a daily and nightly spiritual judge of private personal conduct. Indoctrinated early with myths, legends, and worship of supernatural beings, the individual comes to regard the supernatural not as fanciful concoctions of imagination but as organic, vital, actual forces in everyday life. From the watchful eye of spiritual forces there is no hiding, no escape. Private actions and intimate thoughts lie open to spiritual inspection. Commit a sin, and a local god soon knows it. A temptation arises and the conscience begins to squirm. With a god watching over the sinner’s shoulder, fortitude is more likely found to resist.

Civil authority may be foiled but demands by supernatural beings are not easily ignored. For the sinner with an active conscience, natural misfortunes are easily found to apparently punish the misdeed. Everywhere lies evidence of divine displeasure. Compelling reasons
for the sinner to return to pious behavior abound—crop failure, death of an infant, disease, plague, injury, lightning, floods, drought, fire, storms, or thunder. All these misfortunes can be spiritually sobering. A culture embeds the authority of these spiritual inquisitors in an individual through regular and frequent worship, sacrifice, and prayers. Religious practices impress upon an individual the power of intangible spirits to inspect private behavior and enforce acceptable codes of conduct. The result is an internalized judicial system. It is called a conscience.
¹⁹

There are other respects in which the purported connection between morality and religion is relevant to the question of religion’s adaptive significance. Here the key word is “purported.” Thus, although it is unlikely that religion actually makes people act more ethically, its crucial contribution might well be that it gives rise to an
expectation
of such behavior.

Among the orthodox Jews who predominate in the diamond market in Manhattan, for example, exchanges involving large amounts of money are often based on a simple handshake. And even though departures from intrareligious solidarity certainly occur—for example, Ponzi scheme investment crook Bernard Madoff was described as an observant Jew, and most of his victims were also Jewish—there is little doubt that members of a religious community are especially likely to trust others from within that same community. Indeed, many commentators on the Madoff scandal noted particular outrage caused by the fact that Mr. Madoff had taken advantage of “his own people,” thereby deviating from the expectation of intrareligious ethical solidarity.

The following proposition has not been tested empirically, but seems likely: Interpersonal trust within a given religion will be greater in proportion as the religion imposes onerous costs upon its members. When Groucho Marx famously quipped that he wouldn’t want to join any club that would accept him as a member, this was presumably because its standards would necessarily be too low! An influential article by economist Lawrence Iannacocone, titled “Why Strict Churches Are Strong,” argued similarly that the more onerous the rules, the more committed the membership.
²⁰
Iannacocone found that when it is easy for members to opt out, levels of benefits are lower, to which we add that the confidence of each participant in the degree to which her coreligionists are
committed is also likely to be higher. If you don’t know whom to trust, it is generally a good bet to rely on those who have gone through demanding initiations and paid substantial dues, like yourself.