To: Angry Professor
Subject: Dr. Angry Professor; This is not spam: Academic inquiry from I. Amateur
Dr. Angry Professor;
Because of your insightful research into [areas I have never researched], I am hoping that you will respond to the following.
Promoters of the evolutionary viewpoint regarding theism do not yet quite have a causal foundation for their views. They merely state that religion is a part of natural selection. They do not state why. This opinion of mine was confirmed in The New Yorker's Atheists with Attitude article (May 21, 2007). It states that the natural selection argument for religion is "thin stuff." I'm hoping to fatten it up a little... Dopamine activation in the striatal and mesolimbic pathways is the thickening agent for my theory here.
May I suggest a possible evolutionary foundation for religion and superstition?
I widely read that evolutionary psychologists and anthropologists get confused by the enigma that religion poses. They often cite "fitness costs" such as burial goods, celibacy and other forms of resource allocation that do not give back in practical ways. As a leading academic paper on the subject concludes, "...these costs are not outweighed by any obvious benefits"(1). In other words, religious people offer their time, money and resources into a system that does not provide an obvious adaptive advantage. Except in one way: satisfaction from a necessary delusion. That means dopamine activation. Dopamine is our evolved natural reward. To feel ascendant through reward dopamine means to feel more assertive, confident and even dominant over obstacles. May I remind you that all of animal life is reward-based - from yeast to humans. We are dopamine machines. It even explains consciousness. Most professors and researchers who examine the issue of consciousness rely of the principle of neural rewards to explain its evolution. The smoking gun for the evolution of religion is that it rewards believers. And nature rewards adaptive behavior for a reason.
University of Colorado at Colorado Springs psychologist Tom Pyszcynski advocates in his "terror management theory" that we need to delude ourselves to survive. Delusion is adaptive. Psychologist Cordelia Fine in her A Mind of its Own: How Your Mind Distorts and Deceives (W.W. Norton, 2006) is another case in point: her term for this behavior is our "deluded brain." Thus magical thinking is a necessary delusion. Children display this tendency more so than adults. They talk to their toys and animate them, for example. Talking to an invisible deity is no different. Would a doll be so interesting to a child if he or she realized it was only stuffed cloth sewn together? In the wider perspective, to face an otherwise difficult and cruel life is just too real for most to face. Yet such magical thinking is also a impetus for creative - as well as superstitious - behavior. Religion is therefore satisfying. To not know is less gratifying than to know about something - even if the knowledge is wrong.
Religion is therefore dopaminergic. It seems to be an extended evolved ability using our dopamine neural pathway. "Speaking in tongues," trances, exorcisms and the like appear to be a form of insanity to non-believers. Interestingly enough, schizophrenia with its audio and visual hallucinations (positive symptoms) is linked to excessive dopamine in the brain's striatum (2).
Novelty generates dopamine in us, too, just like intoxicants do (3). The "mysterious revelations" of religion have novel implications and manifestations. We prefer novelty over the expected when given the choice. Yet we enjoy predictability too because we can feel comfortable and in control. Religion provides both of these two variables.
Furthermore, combine the need for delusion with our need to worship the dominant/heroes. A study published in Current Biology describes how primates will "pay" a cherry juice reward in order to view female specie members' behinds (primate pornography). They will also pay to view images of dominant specie members, too (4). This appears to be a form of hero worship. The satisfaction of reward is clearly evident simply through the viewing of these images of the dominant members. This study helps us to understand humans' propensity to worship celebrities like religious figures. It also strengthens the concept that hero worship is rewarding - therefore dopaminergic.
Added to this is our psychological drive to be acknowledged. For example, to feel well acknowledged activates reward dopamine. A study out of Wake Forest University that was widely published in media reports demonstrates how dominant monkeys have more dopamine that subordinates (5). We live for the thrill of positive recognition. Even second president John Adams, like many other thoughtful people past and present, thought so. "A desire to be observed, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as one of the keenest dispositions of man." We are acknowledgment machines. Living cells are so, too. The only thing cells do non-stop is seek feedback from their environment through their lipid bi-layer membrane. Even the molecules that form those cells, too, are feedback machines. "Bigger," "faster," and "heavier" are all terms to explain the complexity of atomic development. These are all comparative adjectives. Only by getting feedback from markers in an environment does an atomic structure "know" or sense that a change has taken place. Not surprisingly, even our future will be dictated by this principle of recognition: Norbert Weiner, the founder of cybernetics, stated that artificial intelligence is based on feedback. So whether it concerns real or fake intelligence, feedback/acknowledgment is the key to understanding it.
Consequently, since we are so imbued with desire to be recognized and need to receive feedback, then nature overly emphasizes that ability in us. Just as an elk can grow its antlers to excess and create a "fitness cost" due to decreased mobility, so too the peacock and other species can get too much of a good thing. So can humans, as well. As a Nature article reports, this overly equipping with ability is even found in dinosaurs. Guanlong Wucaii, a fossil from China, sports a disk appendage rising from its snout. That "would have surely hampered the beast in its quest for food." Yet this sacrifice most likely evolved because it made the dinosaur more dominant (6). A more extreme case is the female hyena. This is the most dominant of female mammals in existence. Yet its fake phallus birthing channel causes harm and death to both mother and cubs often. Nature emphasizes acknowledgment through dominance even at the expense of health! Such feedback from being recognized in a positive way controls us. For example, isolated children regularly have brain atrophy as their brains decay from a lack of feedback (7). Dopamine from dominance often reigns supreme. And nature accentuates its quest for complexity by overly equipping existing abilities and thus forming new ones as a result. Religion seems to be just one more heightened behavior.
Furthermore, how ironic is it that we humans view other species' adaptations as being strange yet we regard our own behavior as normal?! Still, people often regard foreign religions as being strange, yet not their own. The truth is, religious/superstitious behavior is simply one more odd adaptation like the elk's antlers, Guanlong Wucaii's disk, or how a female hyena is more male than her male counterparts are. Yet all these adaptations allow for more dopamine through feeling dominant.
Combining all the above into a relatively neat package, humans' need to escape reality developed as higher-order consciousness and awareness evolved. The mechanism for this relief from reality derived from people's most used psychological function: the need to influence others and be recognized. Thus these needs evolved into an expanded survival instinct: the necessary delusion of religion. After all, religion is simply acknowledging/influencing an assumed Something or Someone in the expectation of being recognized/influenced by this Force in return. Research demonstrates that expectation is more dopaminergic than actually receiving the thing desired (8). As Tom Pyszcynski stated, to realize that "we humans are merely transient animals groping to survive in a meaningless universe, destined only to decay and die," is far too negative for most of us (9). Therefore, the mesolimbic/striatal dopamine pathways evolved a solution.
Thus the mechanism for religion that I propose is simply this: life is tough. To be rewarded through a delusion of grandeur is beneficial. Our heightened acknowledgment capacity provides that ability to happen. To feel confident is to activate serotonin and dopamine. Thus people get rewarded to be deluded.
Of course, these delusions vary profoundly between groups of people the world over. Therefore they are divisive. Western nations (except for America and Ireland) drop religious fervor as they progress socially, technologically and politically. Nature has only one modus operandi: cause and effect. This global village we all live in can only be united by that one general principle of nature. Belief in a supernatural might unite small groups, but overall it divides as it is based solely on conjecture. And as Socrates' Euthyphro dilemma reveals, a thing is good because of causal sense making it so. Revelation is merely an opinion. And opinions can vary constantly.
Accordingly, the solution to overcoming this vestigial evolved ability of religious delusion involves dopamine. Through making believers feel cheated by their irrational beliefs (these beliefs do not conform to causal reality) then they will be less dopaminergic and rewarding. Evolutionary psychology suggests we have an innate way of measuring things: through our mental "cheater detection mechanism" (10). In other words, people feel cheated about generally the same things anywhere in the world. This is our strongest weapon against non-causal beliefs. People do not want to believe in things that can be demonstrated to be false. Holding wrong opinions makes a person subordinate to those who are more correct in theirs. It is embarrassing to be proven wrong. As was stated previous, the subordinate are not rewarded: they are scientifically demonstrated to have less dopamine than the more dominant have. Consequently, the conundrum lies in this: theists do not believe that the tenets of their faiths are wrong. Every religion has their apologists who attempt to shield believers from doubt. Of course, their arguments are faulty. Unfortunately, due to society protecting "motherhood issues" such as religion, the media and public school educators are reluctant to confront theists in general. Yet it is only through such confrontation that theists will feel cheated. To reduce their dopamine activation is to win the war against subscribers of non-causal beliefs.
In summary, 1. The necessary delusion of religion is dopaminergic. This corresponds with terror management theory and magical thinking. 2. Novelty dopamine and dopamine through feeling dominant create gratification in us. 3. Primal "hero worship" in animals and humans is dopaminergic. 4. The role of personal recognition is our most common avenue to gratification and serotonin. This gets expanded through evolution as a newer ability: acknowledging the unseen and the imagined (magical thinking). 5. The solution to end this vestigial ability of non-causal religious thinking involves activating the "cheater detection mechanisms" of believers.
I am an instructor in creative development for corporate groups and university students. As a result, I have to keep up on various research papers on how the brain works. Further, I like to combine my creative mind with my academic reasoning. I believe that I have original and innovative contributions to make in scientific exploration.
Please feel free to email me in order to discuss this matter further.
Thank You and Have a Good Day,
Iman Amateur.
Footnotes
(1) Jan Beck and Wolfgang Forstmeier, Superstition and Belief as Inevitable By-products of an Adaptive Learning Strategy, Human Nature, Volume 18, Number 1/2007, p.35-46.
(2) A. Abi-Dargham, J. Rodenhiser, D. Printz, Y. Zea Ponze, R. Gil, L.S. Kegeles, R. Weiss, T.B. Cooper, J.J. Mann, R.L. van Heertum, J.M. Gorman and M. Laruelle, Increased Baseline Occupancy of D2 Receptors by Dopamine in Schizophrenia, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), July 5, 2000, vol. 97, no. 14, 8104-8109.
(3) Robert Mathias, Novelty Seekers and Drug Abusers tap same Brain Reward System, Animal Studies show, National Institute on Drug Abuse Notes, Volume 10, Number 4, July/August 1995.
(4) S.V Shepherd, R.O. Deaner and M.L. Platt, 2006, Social Status Gates Social Attention in Monkeys, Current Biology 16(4):119-20.
(5) P.W. Czoty, Ciara McCabe and M.A. Nader, Behavioral Pharmacology: Assessment of the Relative Reinforcing Strength of Cocaine in Socially Housed Monkeys using a Choice Procedure, Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics: Fast Forward, August 30, 2004.
(6) Scientists dig up T. rex Precursor, AFP/AP/Taipei Times, February 9, 2006. The original story appeared in Nature, February 2006.
(7) Bruce D. Perry, Childhood Experience and the Expression of Genetic Potential: What Childhood Neglect tells us about Nature and Nurture, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Netherlands, 2002. As reprinted in Brain and Mind, Vol. 3, No. 1, April 2002, pp.79-100.
(8) Matthew Herper, Happiness is Mostly Genetic, Forbes, September 23, 2004.
(9) Brian Bethune, Why you think you're Wonderful, Macleans, October 9, 2006.
(10) J.H. Barkow (editor), L. Cosmides (editor), J. Tooby (editor), The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, Oxford University Press, New York NY, 1992, pp. 202 & 581.
10 comments:
"May I suggest a possible evolutionary foundation for religion and superstition?"
Ummm....no.
Faith: (def) belief that is not based on proof.
There's a reason it's called Faith. I'm a scientist, and I love explanations, but at the end of the day, there are some things that science CANNOT explain.
You can't dissect faith. Either you have or not. That's what makes it so very hard.
Yeast is a fungus not an animal.
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/09/14_theta.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schumann_resonance
A good sense of causality and self awareness will prevent you from participating in global neural events.
Faith is the ability to believe in something without a reason.
Or, in other words, to have thoughts and actions that are not checked by causality. To be willing to accept thoughts without making sure they are something you could believe without compromising your rationality.
Most of the self conflicting doctrines in exoteric faiths exist just to break down this sense of causality, not for the sake of the beliefs themselves, but for the sake of those who use the believers.
Angry Professor; I noticed that you made an ad hominem attack on the author’s name and avoided addressing the logic and reasoning involved in the essay. You identify with the word “angry” as well. Did you know that anger is highly rewarding? That means anger is highly dopaminergic, like sex, religion and drugs are! You are unintentionally promoting the author’s thesis.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080114103723.htm
Anger is an attempt at expressing dominance, therefore it involves the subordination of others. It can easily become a lifestyle; a crutch, like drugs and religion can be. It is the antithesis of the Golden Rule, which involves sharing satisfaction, not stealing it from others.
Of course, you may end up rationalizing this as a personal attack. So too do the highly religious/drug addicted rationalize their behavior/beliefs in order to re-activate reward sensation.
Stick to the facts.
Cheers.
Ian
Anonymous has made the only worthwhile comment, which involves atmospheric resonances/brain waves functioning at about 8 hertz each. Her point falls apart, though, by associating "global neural events" with "faith." Anon is making some major assumptions that probably involve magical thinking and supernaturalism (Anon's point is not clearly developed enuf to decipher altogether, tho. Because there is no evidence for any "supernatural" event, only gibberish can follow, naturally).
Nature evolved the comforting delusion of religious sentiment for a reason: to aid us against pessimism and futility as consciousness emerged in the Pleistocene. “Anticipation of our own demise is the price we pay for a highly developed frontal lobe,” states behavioral neuroscience professor Michael Persinger concerning our brain’s evolution. “In many ways, [a God experience is] a brilliant adaptation. It's a built-in pacifier (Time, Is God in Our Genes? October 25, 2004).” Unfortunately, this same coping mechanism leads to a satisfying "need for closure," "over-adjust" and "jump to conclusions" style of reasoning. Studies involving the clinically deluded (they often manifest the "jump to conclusions" style of reasoning) add weight to my religion-as-a-Paleolithic-delusion idea.
Einstein said: "The only real valuable thing is intuition." Intuition, which we all use daily, is often intangible yet works wonders to guide us. Nonetheless, it can often lead us astray, too.
By analyzing the mystical we have a better chance at getting things right in the end. To assume blind faith has answers leads to magical thinking, faulty causal sense and repressed human potential. And, yes... quick emotional comfort too. Does the Schumann resonance have intentions? Is it a guide? I'm sure the Schumann resonance will be demystified in due time, like how animal magnetism was, Babylonian batteries used to generate an electric shock in believers was, and how comets/eclipses foretold of grave events to come was as well. We often end up with better explanations in due time: Mesmerism became the power of suggestion; religious shock eventually became electricity; astrology became astronomy. Needless to say, our current standard of living is based on such better answers.
We are a delusional species. Our need for certainty aids us, yet can also make us "jump to conclusions" to get that reward from surety.
Iman Amateur (yet I still clear the field).
Having a wife with Parkinson's Disease and a Schizophrenic sister-in-law (wife's sister) along with a desire to understand why people are religious I came to similar conclusions as expressed in this article myself. I was therefore gratified to find my conclusions corroborated and eloquently expressed. I still find it cynical that the religious leaders should have latched on to the human desire for pleasure and gratification to build their own empires of domination and control
Excellent analysis of the dopamine- religeon connection.
Often quoted is the definition for faith - belief in a construct lacking proof. It occurred to me there is a good reason for faith, aside from a suspected evolutionary advantage.
We often require faith where there is an absence of enough information to make an informed decision. Lack of data is a common condition we all face everyday.
The problem is, as we progress, and gather more data, we have fewer reasons to need faith. An excellent example is the extensive research done recently on the value of prayer. We now have convincing proof that there is no real statistical advantage to using prayer. Now that we have the data, we can stop relying on faith in that area.
This is hilarious -- and quite informative -- I stumbled onto this blog while Googling for answers about my quite normal-seeming Yankee in-laws. They are Catholic religious fanatics, constantly fixated on a love-each-other and love-God hype among themselves that is quite endearing and charming ... until you get a look at their Dark Side. Their Dark Side would be contradicting any part of their belief system or -- and this is weird -- not engaging in their sugar-heavy, starch-heavy comfort food lifestyle.
It seems that I've outraged the in-laws by eating health food and rejecting their comfort food addicted lifestyle dominated by my mother-in-law who pushes candy, cookies, cakes, etc. like a dope dealer. I've been a little weirded out by the level of anger and disrespect I've garnered for rejecting their diet.
Then, I started trying to describe their behavior in clinical medical terms, and what I keep coming up with is a dopamine-focused food lifestyle and dopamine-focused social schema in the family.
From their unending religious fixations to their stuffing sugar and refined carbohydrates into their mouths day and night, they are feel-good neurotransmitter junkies.
I love this "Iman Amateur" letter. It describes them very well, and fits their dopamine-junkie lifestyles!
A very stimulating article. Dare I say, I got a dopamine hit from it? :-)
Thanks much
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