The extended religious phenotype and the adaptive coupling of ritual and belief

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the idea that religion is a transsomatic adaptation. At the genic level, the religious system constitutes an extended phenotype that has been fashioned by natural selection to overcome socioecological challenges inherent in human sociality, primarily problems of cooperation and coordination. At the collective level, the religious system constitutes a cognitive niche. We begin our discussion focusing on the former and concentrate our attention on the “sacred coupling” of supernatural agency and ritual behavior. We detail the complex connections between genes, cognitive faculties, and their expression in religious contexts, followed by a discussion of how religious ritual functions to maintain relative social order. We conclude with a discussion about the relevance of niche construction theory for understanding the adaptive nature of religious systems.

Keywords:

• cognition
• extended phenotype
• niche construction
• religion
• ritual

Acknowledgements

Purzycki thanks the SSHRC-funded Cultural Evolution of Religion Research Consortium (CERC) for support during the preparation of this work. Sosis thanks and acknowledges support from a CTI Fellowship (Evolution and Human Nature) and an ESRC Large Grant (REF RES-060-25-0085) entitled “Ritual, Community, and Conflict.” The authors thank Leon Loveridge, John Shaver, and the reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Notes

1. The question will likely arise as to whether or not the view of religion as a transsomatic adaptation is one which endorses the idea that religious groups are somehow a unit of selection or that selection operates at various levels (see Pinker 2012; Wilson 2002). To illustrate why we do not need to appeal to multilevel selection, we may return to the example of lake size and beavers. As Dawkins notes,

beyond a certain size of beaver lakes, it would become hard to regard further increases in size as adaptations. The reason is that, beyond a certain size, other beavers than the builders of the dam are just as likely to benefit from each increase in size as the dam-builders themselves. A big lake benefits all the beavers in the area, whether they created it or whether they just found it and exploited it (1982, p. 234).

Note that in this case, freeriding may in turn overrun such a system to the point where genes for the big-lake phenotype become outcompeted. As we discuss below, religious ritual functions to prevent such exploitation by imposing costs upon participants as a means to keep freeriding at bay.

However, if it is the case that under particular external conditions, religious systems provide advantages for individual agents when their constituent parts, both internal and external to the individual, converge in a particular way, then the question of whether or not natural selection also “operates” at an emergent level is an important one. So, while genes are the foundational replicators of the evolutionary process, it may be that emergent properties of human social systems – when their components “lock into place” – may provide benefits for individuals which would otherwise be unobtainable. But the benefits are only reaped when this convergence of units consists of a particular logic and that logic must exist within a compatible socioecological context. In other words, selection may favor the expression of specific kinds of religious systems, a possibility that lies beyond the scope of strictly cognitive approaches to religion (see Malley 1995, 1997; Sørensen 2004; Purzycki et al. in press).

2. Dawkins’ hostility toward religion is well-known, but his characterization of religion as a maladaptive by-product is notably odd in light of his other work. Of course, he knows the distinctions between “adaptive”, “good”, and “accurate.” He also understands how flimsy “byproduct” arguments can be:

A geneticist colleague has argued that there are virtually no behaviour-genetic traits, because all those so-far discovered have turned about to be ‘byproducts’ of more fundamental morphological or physiological effects. But what on earth does he think any genetic trait is, morphological, physiological or behavioural, if not a ‘byproduct’ of something more fundamental? If we think the matter through we find that all genetic effects are ‘byproducts’ except protein molecules (1982, p. 197).

Presumably, Dawkins’ primary concerns are with religions in contemporary state-level societies rather than smaller, traditional societies. As such, it is perfectly conceivable that under contemporary conditions, religion may be maladaptive, but research suggests that religious people in state societies are doing remarkably well on the reproductive front (Frejka & Westoff 2008; Blume 2009, 2010; Kaufmann 2010).

3. This number was taken from http://www.adherents.com/ on 22 April 2013.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Benjamin G. Purzycki

Benjamin Purzycki is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of British Columbia's Centre for Human Evolution, Cognition, and Culture. He is a sociocultural anthropologist who conducts fieldwork in the Tyva Republic. He investigates the evolution of religious systems with a particular emphasis on how people represent gods' minds.

Richard Sosis

Richard Sosis is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Evolution, Cognition, and Culture Program at the University of Connecticut. His work has focused on the evolution of cooperation and the adaptive significance of religious behavior, with particular interest in the relationship between ritual and intra-group cooperation. To explore these issues, he has conducted fieldwork with remote cooperative fishers in the Federated States of Micronesia and with various communities throughout Israel. He is co-founder and co-editor of the journal Religion, Brain & Behavior, which publishes research on the biological study of religion.