The Magic Darwin Fairies.

Another science fiction writer, John C. Wright, points to more scientific "just so" stories:

Likewise, believing in the Steady State Theory could be due to a genetic predisposition of being able to imagine an infinite amount of time, and being able to contemplate eternity is a survival characteristic because hunter gatherers would get bored counting passing hours during long night watches in the Ice Age; and believing in the Big Bang theory could be due to a genetic predisposition to fear loud noises, a survival characteristic because loud noises often signal danger.

In other words, thanks to what I call “Magic Darwin Fairies” any characteristic of mind, body or soul can be said to be (1) an inheritable characteristic and (2) aid in the survival and reproduction of the species.

The second basic criticism is that the theory neither fits nor explains the facts. A man fighting his genetic predisposition to mate with young and nubile females, whether he decides to be as chaste as Galahad or as unchaste as Lancelot, is still aware of the allure of the female of the species. An atheist is not always trying and failing to pull his eyes away from the allure of Buddhist prayer wheels and Catholic rosaries. He does not hide a copy of the Bible in his sock drawer, sneaking it out when he parents are out of the house, yearning toward what his reason tells him is wrong, and ripping up the Bible in fury and self-disgust afterward. The atheists I know despise the things of religion, and are repelled by the mere mention. The impulse that drives men toward theism, at least at first glance, does not seem to be like the sexual impulse, or aggressive impulses, or selfish impulses, or anything else that arguably comes from a genetic predisposition. (Indeed, the religions of the world by and large are dead set against the natural impulses which might otherwise lead men to adultery and murder and theft, lust and wrath and covetousness.)

The third basic characteristic is that religion in and of itself is not a trait leading to the survival of the fittest and the spread of one’s genes through many offspring. Titus Livy speaks of a time in ancient Rome when the son of an aristocrat, in order to placate the gods of the underworld, in full armor and on horseback leaped into a pit of sulfur; Vestal Virgins were stoned to death if they had sex; the Carthaginians sacrificed their own children to the burning and brazen idols of Moloch — the argument that suicide, sexual abstinence, and the slaughter of offspring are characteristics tending to spread the selfish gene involved are, to say the least, counter-intuitive. If we admit that arguments about “unselfish Uncles” are valid, then any characteristic or habit, including things that directly end life, prevent reproduction, and destroy offspring can be said by such arguments to tend (somehow, thanks to Magic Darwin Fairies) to allow the group to out perform and out-breed any rival group that eschews these practices. Any argument that can just as easily prove itself as prove its opposite is not a valid argument: it is an arbitrary assertion.

The only conclusion legitimately reached giving the just-so story given above is that reason is an inheritable characteristic, and that there are uses and abuses of reason that are endemic to human nature.

And:

The superstitious link between prayer and ritual and favorable outcomes is indeed one that is explicitly condemned in the Book of Job, which some scholars opine to be the first book written in the Old Testament, which places it among the very oldest of surviving written works of mankind.


No matter what one’s opinion of religion, the link between religion and superstition is not a simple equivalence–which means that even if there were a gene or a genetic predisposition toward superstition or toward this particular informal logical error of post hoc ergo propter hoc on this one topic, or a genetic predisposition toward anthropomorphism, this would not allow us to conclude that that predisposition is the cause of religion.

I can also speak from personal experience. My faith in God is very much against my inclinations and predispositions. No one eschewed religion as entirely as did I before my conversion; and I can hardly be called superstitious. I am not one of those atheists who secretly carried around a rabbits foot. Nor was my conversion for the sake of obtaining some promised good, like a good harvest or a good hunt, nor health nor well-being.

Thus, even if we become convinced that evolution prompts certain paleolithic hunter gatherers to make post hoc ergo propter hoc errors that incline them (and therefore the human race) toward anthropomorphism, some other explanation is needed to explain religious experiences.

Myself, I have never heard the “religion is a mental error that (thanks to Magic Darwin Fairies) is (1) inheritable and (2) creates an advantage in survival and reproductive strategies” theory advanced for any other purpose than to hold faith up to scorn: it is a theory too simplistic to account for the thing being described, albeit, of course, not too simplistic to mock the thing being described.

I am reminded of a line from a book on archeology by L. Sprague de Camp. Even though it had nothing to do with the topic of the book, he paused to give what i thought was a potent argument touching the Problem of Pain (if a perfect and benevolent God designed Man, and man is evil, either this is what God intended, in which case He is not benevolent, or His design is imperfect, in which case He is not perfect). He then went on to speculate that the original of all religion was from certain paleolithic men, unable to tell the difference between dreams and reality, had dreams of dead loved ones, and therefore falsely concluded that the dead are still alive in a spirit world. The contrast between the sharp logic in the first case, and the naivety in the second cannot be over-emphasized. L. Sprague de Camp is a perfectly intelligent and rational man, yet somehow he ascribes the entire religious life and tradition of all mankind to dream misinterpretation, and the assumption that primitive men are remarkably stupider than L. Sprague de Camp.

Great argument!