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Religion: Accident or Design Evolution of Religion Conference, January 2007

2007. Religion: Accident or Design?. 2. What about physics?. Why would a physicist be interested in theories about the evolution of religion?Not if narrowly focused on physics.But many physicists are interested in a big picture. Face claims of nonphysical realities: psychic powers, souls, intellig

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Religion: Accident or Design Evolution of Religion Conference, January 2007

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    1. Religion: Accident or Design? –– Evolution of Religion Conference, January 2007 –– Taner Edis Truman State University (middle of nowhere, Missouri) www2.truman.edu/~edis

    2. 2007 Religion: Accident or Design? 2 What about physics? Why would a physicist be interested in theories about the evolution of religion? Not if narrowly focused on physics. But many physicists are interested in a big picture. Face claims of nonphysical realities: psychic powers, souls, intelligent design, gods. Top-down conception of reality widespread … religion.

    3. 2007 Religion: Accident or Design? 3 Ambition Physics is both fundamental and very powerful. Wide scope. Could everything be physically realized? Even life and mind? Many (not all) physicists like to think so.

    4. 2007 Religion: Accident or Design? 4 Sloth Physicists are lazy. Fundamental particles and interactions, and general principles of complex many-body systems. That sets stage; other scientists do the actual work.

    5. 2007 Religion: Accident or Design? 5 No intelligent design

    6. 2007 Religion: Accident or Design? 6 No quantum mysticism

    7. 2007 Religion: Accident or Design? 7 Rules and Dice

    8. 2007 Religion: Accident or Design? 8 Does it break down? Ask freshmen class. Physics fails at: Life (life force, creationism). Mind (emotions vs. cold mechanisms). Miracles (incl. paranormal phenomena). Very often all three come together: students claim that natural science (extended physics) cannot explain religious phenomena, religious experience, existence of religion.

    9. 2007 Religion: Accident or Design? 9 Does it break down? Ask intellectuals. Physics fails at: Life (ID, remnants of vitalism). Mind (ID, residual dualism). Miracles (parapsychology). Religion defended by Philosophical gamesmanship. Religious experience. Explicit failures of physics (as above).

    10. 2007 Religion: Accident or Design? 10 Need to explain religion If supernatural agents are not literally real, why do the vast majority believe in them? Religion needs explanation, just as before Darwin, life and complexity needed explanation. Materialists: something like evolution had to be true.

    11. 2007 Religion: Accident or Design? 11 Current theories of religion Physicalist (ambitious, lazy) expectation: Something like the current science-based theories of religion has to be true. Explain human tendency to supernatural belief and religious experience in a way continuous with the rest of natural science (ambition) and without revision to basic physics (sloth). Explain religion without gods and ghosts.

    12. 2007 Religion: Accident or Design? 12 Current work is promising Better than earlier handwaving about comfort, social control, protoscience etc. Makes contact with experiments, cognitive neuroscience, evolutionary biology. Some surprising proposals and results that are not obvious from the armchair. Not hostile to religion: supernatural beliefs not entirely true, but perhaps adaptive, socially useful, culturally valuable.

    13. 2007 Religion: Accident or Design? 13 Making progress Details may be wrong; can’t say what weight various approaches will carry (~ genetic basis for schizophrenia? Artifacts of cognitive modules?) But making progress. Attract attention of outsiders.

    14. 2007 Religion: Accident or Design? 14 Challenges? Liberal theology? Too accommodating. “God arranged evolution/brains to make us perceive divinity”––dubious at best. Religious studies? Easy to ignore “religion must be understood from inside” and anti-reductionism as long as making progress. Something like ID? At least it’s substantial opposition. Wrong, but better than “not even wrong” opposition.

    15. 2007 Religion: Accident or Design? 15 ID’s box of challenges ID claims relevant to religion: Chance and necessity cannot create information Mind and culture non-Darwinian, non-material realms. Dualism concerning minds; religion and morality not within nature. Evolution dubious; extensions of evolution such as evolutionary psychology doubly so. If current research on religion continues to attract interest, ID-like opposition will arise.

    16. 2007 Religion: Accident or Design? 16 Ambition and sloth again The effort to explain religion within nature is connected to the broader physicalist project, and therefore also to the broader debate over the truth of supernatural religion. So far, no challenge to physicalism, but plenty to keep ambitious and lazy physicists happy. Religion looks like an accident rather than a divine design.

    17. 2007 Religion: Accident or Design? 17 Books, books!

    18. 2007 Religion: Accident or Design? 18 Thanks for listening! Any questions?

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