Lyle Steadman - Supernatural and Natural Selection: Religion and Evolutionary Success

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THE SUPERNATURAL AND NATURAL SELECTION

Studies in Comparative Social Science

A series edited by Stephen K. Sanderson

Titles Available

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The Supernatural and Natural Selection: The Evolution of Religion, Lyle B. Steadman and Craig T. Palmer (2008)

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Forthcoming

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The Supernatural and Natural Selection

THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION

Lyle B. Steadman
Craig T. Palmer

First published 2008 by Paradigm Publishers

Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 2008, Taylor & Francis.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Steadman, Lyle B.
The supernatural and natural selection: The evolution of religion / Lyle B. Steadman, Craig T. Palmer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59451-565-1 (hardcover: alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59451-566-8 (paperback: alk. paper)
1. Religion. 2. Psychology, Religious. 3. Supernatural. I. Palmer, Craig. II. Title.
BL51.S628 2008
200dc22

2008005983

Designed and Typeset in Adobe Garamond by Straight Creek Bookmakers.

ISBN 13: 978-1-59451-565-1 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-1-59451-566-8 (pbk)

For Marc, Caroline, Craig , and Dane
and
Fran and Amber

Contents

THE ORIGIN OF THE ARGUMENTS in this book can be found in a cold-blooded murder that was observed forty years ago by Lyle Steadman while doing fieldwork among the Hewa of Papua New Guinea. That occurrence, recounted at the start of , made two facts painfully clear: (1) religion remains a puzzle to those attempting to explain it, and (2) understanding religion can be a matter of life and death. In this book, we propose an original and testable hypothesis to answer the questions of what defines religion and why religion has persisted for thousands of years. It will be argued, with evidence presented, that:

1. Religion is distinguished, and hence is definable, by the communicated acceptance by individuals of another individual's "supernatural" claim, a claim whose accuracy is not verifiable by the senses. The distinctive property of such acceptance is that it communicates a willingness to accept the influence of the speaker nonskeptically. While supernatural claims are not demonstrably true, they are asserted to be true. They can be shown to be metaphorical, but metaphors of a special type: Their status as metaphor is denied by the acceptors.

2. The most important immediate effect of religion (an effect identifiable both to the participants and outside observers) is that the explicit acceptance of a supernatural claim regularly creates cooperation like that between a parent and child and, consequently, siblinglike cooperation between coacceptors. Close kinship terms, such as father, mother, brother, sister, and child, are regularly used in religious behavior to foster these relationships.

3. Ultimately, the most important effect of religious behavior, the effect that continuously influences its frequency through time, is that it has increased the number of descendants of the religious participants.

The premise underlying this book is that an important effect of any behavior (and therefore religious behavior), the effect that continuously influences its frequency in succeeding generations, is its impact on the descendant-leaving success of those exhibiting it. Because behavior always involves some inheritable elements, it is continuously being influenced by natural selection. Behavior that promotes descendant-leaving success tends to increase in frequency in succeeding generations; when it does not promote such success, it tends to die out. This was Darwin's great insight. To emphasize the fact that Darwin realized the importance of inheritable elements without knowledge of genes, we will use the term "Darwinian selection" to emphasize that any inheritable and replicable element (including both genes and traditions) will be subject to the form of natural selection Darwin envisioned.

Religious behavior itself is a significant force. It is influential, and its most important and identifiable effect is in its creation of enduring family-like cooperation between nonfamily members. Religion tends to be traditional, meaning that it tends to be passed from ancestor to descendant. Because of this, it has influenced its own frequency through time in its descendant-leaving influence on participants. We shall argue that the fundamental and continuing source of both traditions and human nature is neither the hedonistic psyche of individuals nor any group to which they belong. Instead, it is individual ancestors (including parents) and their influence on their descendants, particularly through that which is inheritable, including traditions, and this influence responds to selection. Thus, our explanation differs markedly from both traditional social science explanations of religion and recent explanations of religion based on evolutionary psychology.

To make these arguments, we rely heavily on ethnographic descriptions of traditional kinship-based religious activities rather than on behavior from modern world religions. Most of the influential explanations of religion that have been produced over the last few centuries have focused on these traditional religions, and hence, our evaluation of them must also have this focus. More important, traditional kinship-based religions not only predate world religions but were the only form of religion for most of the time that religious behavior has existed. Thus, explanations must be able to account for this behavior, as well as the behavior observed in modern religions.

More people than we can possibly acknowledge have contributed to the creation of this book, but we would like to thank Reed Wadley, Scott Wright, Jen nice Wright, Jesse McMinn, Robert Daly, Jon Lannian, and Joshua Crabtree.

We would like especially to thank those who have worked mightily on various drafts of this book: Kathryn Kyle, Patricia Kontak, Amber Palmer, Chris Cassidy, Donald Brown, and particularly Melissa Johnson, who contributed to many chapters but in particular to the chapter on divination.

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