[log in to unmask] wrote: > If they find God - make the jerk apologise ! > > Quoting rayilynlee <[log in to unmask]>: > > >> I selected this article because there is a paragraph about Parkinson's >> disease and religiosity. A study showed people with PD were more secular >> than healthy people. >> Ray >> Where angels no longer fear to tread >> Mar 19th 2008 >> From The Economist print edition >> Science and religion have often been at loggerheads. Now the former has >> decided to resolve the problem by trying to explain the existence of the >> latter >> BY THE standards of European scientific collaboration, ?2m ($3.1m) is not a >> huge sum. But it might be the start of something that will challenge human >> perceptions of reality at least as much as the billions being spent by the >> European particle-physics laboratory (CERN) at Geneva. The first task of >> CERN's new machine, the Large Hadron Collider, which is due to open later >> this year, will be to search for the Higgs boson-an object that has been >> dubbed, with a certain amount of hyperbole, the God particle. The ?2m, by >> contrast, will be spent on the search for God Himself-or, rather, for the >> biological reasons why so many people believe in God, gods and religion in >> general. >> "Explaining Religion", as the project is known, is the largest-ever >> scientific study of the subject. It began last September, will run for three >> >> years, and involves scholars from 14 universities and a range of disciplines >> >> from psychology to economics. And it is merely the latest manifestation of a >> >> growing tendency for science to poke its nose into the God business. >> Religion cries out for a biological explanation. It is a ubiquitous >> phenomenon-arguably one of the species markers of Homo sapiens-but a >> puzzling one. It has none of the obvious benefits of that other marker of >> humanity, language. Nevertheless, it consumes huge amounts of resources. >> Moreover, unlike language, it is the subject of violent disagreements. >> Science has, however, made significant progress in understanding the biology >> >> of language, from where it is processed in the brain to exactly how it >> communicates meaning. Time, therefore, to put religion under the microscope >> as well. >> I have no need of that hypothesis >> Explaining Religion is an ambitious attempt to do this. The experiments it >> will sponsor are designed to look at the mental mechanisms needed to >> represent an omniscient deity, whether (and how) belief in such a >> "surveillance-camera" God might improve reproductive success to an >> individual's Darwinian advantage, and whether religion enhances a person's >> reputation-for instance, do people think that those who believe in God are >> more trustworthy than those who do not? The researchers will also seek to >> establish whether different religions foster different levels of >> co-operation, for what reasons, and whether such co-operation brings >> collective benefits, both to the religious community and to those outside >> it. >> >> *This is it: >> It is an ambitious shopping list. Fortunately, other researchers have blazed >> >> a trail. Patrick McNamara, for example, is the head of the Evolutionary >> Neurobehaviour Laboratory at Boston University's School of Medicine. He >> works with people who suffer from Parkinson's disease. This illness is >> caused by low levels of a messenger molecule called dopamine in certain >> parts of the brain. In a preliminary study, Dr McNamara discovered that >> those with Parkinson's had lower levels of religiosity than healthy >> individuals, and that the difference seemed to correlate with the disease's >> severity. He therefore suspects a link with dopamine levels and is now >> conducting a follow-up involving some patients who are taking >> dopamine-boosting medicine and some of whom are not. >> >> Such neurochemical work, though preliminary, may tie in with scanning >> studies conducted to try to find out which parts of the brain are involved >> in religious experience. Nina Azari, a neuroscientist at the University of >> Hawaii at Hilo who also has a doctorate in theology, has looked at the >> brains of religious people. She used positron emission tomography (PET) to >> measure brain activity in six fundamentalist Christians and six >> non-religious (though not atheist) controls. The Christians all said that >> reciting the first verse of the 23rd psalm helped them enter a religious >> state of mind, so both groups were scanned in six different sets of >> circumstances: while reading the first verse of the 23rd psalm, while >> reciting it out loud, while reading a happy story (a well-known German >> children's rhyme), while reciting that story out loud, while reading a >> neutral text (how to use a calling card) and while at rest. >> Dr Azari was expecting to see activity in the limbic systems of the >> Christians when they recited the psalm. Previous research had suggested that >> >> this part of the brain (which regulates emotion) is an important centre of >> religious activity. In fact what happened was increased activity in three >> areas of the frontal and parietal cortex, some of which are better known for >> >> their involvement in rational thought. The control group did not show >> activity in these parts of their brains when listening to the psalm. And, >> intriguingly, the only thing that triggered limbic activity in either group >> was reading the happy story. >> Dr Azari's PET study, together with one by Andrew Newberg of the University >> of Pennsylvania, which used single-photon emission computed tomography done >> on Buddhist monks, and another by Mario Beauregard of the University of >> Montreal, which put Carmelite nuns in a magnetic-resonance-imaging machine, >> all suggest that religious activity is spread across many parts of the >> brain. That conflicts not only with the limbic-system theory but also with >> earlier reports of a so-called God Spot that derived partly from work >> conducted on epileptics. These reports suggested that religiosity originates >> >> specifically in the brain's temporal lobe, and that religious visions are >> the result of epileptic seizures that affect this part of the brain. >> Though there is clearly still a long way to go, this sort of imaging should >> eventually tie down the circuitry of religious experience and that, combined >> >> with work on messenger molecules of the sort that Dr McNamara is doing, will >> >> illuminate how the brain generates and processes religious experiences. Dr >> Azari, however, is sceptical that such work will say much about religion's >> evolution and function. For this, other methods are needed. >> Dr McNamara, for example, plans to analyse a database called the >> Ethnographic Atlas to see if he can find any correlations between the amount >> >> of cultural co-operation found in a society and the intensity of its >> religious rituals. And Richard Sosis, an anthropologist at the University of >> >> Connecticut, has already done some research which suggests that the >> long-term co-operative benefits of religion outweigh the short-term costs it >> >> imposes in the form of praying many times a day, avoiding certain foods, >> fasting and so on. >> Leviticus's children >> On the face of things, it is puzzling that such costly behaviour should >> persist. Some scholars, however, draw an analogy with sexual selection. The >> splendour of a peacock's tail and the throaty roar of a stag really do show >> which males are fittest, and thus help females choose. Similarly, signs of >> religious commitment that are hard to fake provide a costly and reliable >> signal to others in a group that anyone engaging in them is committed to >> that group. Free-riders, in other words, would not be able to gain the >> advantages of group membership. >> To test whether religion might have emerged as a way of improving group >> co-operation while reducing the need to keep an eye out for free-riders, Dr >> Sosis drew on a catalogue of 19th-century American communes published in >> 1988 by Yaacov Oved of Tel Aviv University. Dr Sosis picked 200 of these for >> >> his analysis; 88 were religious and 112 were secular. Dr Oved's data include >> >> the span of each commune's existence and Dr Sosis found that communes whose >> ideology was secular were up to four times as likely as religious ones to >> dissolve in any given year. >> A follow-up study that Dr Sosis conducted in collaboration with Eric >> Bressler of McMaster University in Canada focused on 83 of these communes >> (30 religious, 53 secular) to see if the amount of time they survived >> correlated with the strictures and expectations they imposed on the >> behaviour of their members. The two researchers examined things like food >> consumption, attitudes to material possessions, rules about communication, >> rituals and taboos, and rules about marriage and sexual relationships. >> As they expected, they found that the more constraints a religious commune >> placed on its members, the longer it lasted (one is still going, at the >> grand old age of 149). But the same did not hold true of secular communes, >> where the oldest was 40. Dr Sosis therefore concludes that ritual >> constraints are not by themselves enough to sustain co-operation in a >> community-what is needed in addition is a belief that those constraints are >> sanctified. >> Dr Sosis has also studied modern secular and religious kibbutzim in Israel. >> Because a kibbutz, by its nature, depends on group co-operation, the >> principal difference between the two is the use of religious ritual. Within >> religious communities, men are expected to pray three times daily in groups >> of at least ten, while women are not. It should, therefore, be possible to >> observe whether group rituals do improve co-operation, based on the >> behaviour of men and women. >> To do so, Dr Sosis teamed up with Bradley Ruffle, an economist at Ben-Gurion >> >> University, in Israel. They devised a game to be played by two members of a >> kibbutz. This was a variant of what is known to economists as the >> common-pool-resource dilemma, which involves two people trying to divide a >> pot of money without knowing how much the other is asking for. In the >> version of the game devised by Dr Sosis and Dr Ruffle, each participant was >> told that there was an envelope with 100 shekels in it (between 1/6th and >> 1/8th of normal monthly income). Both players could request money from the >> envelope, but if the sum of their requests exceeded its contents, neither >> got any cash. If, however, their request equalled, or was less than, the 100 >> >> shekels, not only did they keep the money, but the amount left was increased >> >> by 50% and split between them. >> Dr Sosis and Dr Ruffle picked the common-pool-resource dilemma because the >> communal lives of kibbutz members mean they often face similar dilemmas over >> >> things such as communal food, power and cars. The researchers' hypothesis >> was that in religious kibbutzim men would be better collaborators (and thus >> would take less) than women, while in secular kibbutzim men and women would >> take about the same. And that was exactly what happened. >> Big father is watching you >> Dr Sosis is not the only researcher to employ economic games to investigate >> the nature and possible advantages of religion. Ara Norenzayan, an >> experimental psychologist at the University of British Columbia, in >> Vancouver, has conducted experiments using what is known as the dictator >> game. This, too, is a well-established test used to gauge altruistic >> behaviour. Participants receive a sum of money-Dr Norenzayan set it at >> $10-and are asked if they would like to share it with another player. The >> dictator game thus differs from another familiar economic game in which one >> person divides the money and the other decides whether to accept or reject >> that division. >> As might be expected, in the simple version of the dictator game most people >> >> take most or all of the money. However, Dr Norenzayan and his graduate >> student Azim Shariff tried to tweak the game by introducing the idea of God. >> >> They did this by priming half of their volunteers to think about religion by >> >> getting them to unscramble sentences containing religious words such as God, >> >> spirit, divine, sacred and prophet. Those thus primed left an average of >> $4.22, while the unprimed left $1.84. >> Exactly what Dr Norenzayan has discovered here is not clear. A follow-up >> experiment which primed people with secular words that might, nevertheless, >> have prompted them to behave in an altruistic manner (civic, jury, court, >> police and contract) had similar effects, so it may be that he has touched >> on a general question of morality, rather than a specific one of religion. >> However, an experiment carried out by Jesse Bering, of Queen's University in >> >> Belfast, showed quite specifically that the perceived presence of a >> supernatural being can affect a person's behaviour-although in this case the >> >> being was not God, but the ghost of a dead person. >> Dr Bering, too, likes the hypothesis that religion promotes fitness by >> promoting collaboration within groups. One way that might work would be to >> rely not just on other individuals to detect cheats by noticing things like >> slacking on the prayers or eating during fasts, but for cheats to detect and >> >> police themselves as well. In that case a sense of being watched by a >> supernatural being might be useful. Dr Bering thus proposes that belief in >> such beings would prevent what he called "dangerous risk miscalculations" >> that would lead to social deviance and reduced fitness. >> One of the experiments he did to test this idea was to subject a bunch of >> undergraduates to a quiz. His volunteers were told that the best performer >> among them would receive a $50 prize. They were also told that the computer >> program that presented the questions had a bug in it, which sometimes caused >> >> the answer to appear on the screen before the question. The volunteers were >> therefore instructed to hit the space bar immediately if the word "Answer" >> appeared on the screen. That would remove the answer and ensure the test >> results were fair. >> The volunteers were then divided into three groups. Two began by reading a >> note dedicating the test to a recently deceased graduate student. One did >> not see the note. Of the two groups shown the note, one was told by the >> experimenter that the student's ghost had sometimes been seen in the room. >> The other group was not given this suggestion. >> The so-called glitch occurred five times for each student. Dr Bering >> measured the amount of time it took to press the space bar on each occasion. >> >> He discarded the first result as likely to be unreliable and then averaged >> the other four. He found that those who had been told the ghost story were >> much quicker to press the space bar than those who had not. They did so in >> an average of 4.3 seconds. That compared with 6.3 seconds for those who had >> only read the note about the student's death and 7.2 for those who had not >> heard any of the story concerning the dead student. In short, awareness of a >> >> ghost-a supernatural agent-made people less likely to cheat. >> Who is my neighbour? >> It all sounds very Darwinian. But there is a catch. The American communes, >> the kibbutzim, the students of the University of British Columbia and even >> the supernatural self-censorship observed by Dr Bering all seem to involve >> behaviour that promotes the group over the individual. That is the opposite >> of Darwinism as conventionally understood. But it might be explained by an >> idea that most Darwinians dropped in the 1960s-group selection. >> The idea that evolution can work by the differential survival of entire >> groups of organisms, rather than just of individuals, was rejected because >> it is mathematically implausible. But it has been revived recently, in >> particular by David Sloan Wilson of Binghamton University, in New York, as a >> >> way of explaining the evolution of human morality in the context of >> inter-tribal warfare. Such warfare can be so murderous that groups whose >> members fail to collaborate in an individually self-sacrificial way may be >> wiped out entirely. This negates the benefits of selfish behaviour within a >> group. Morality and religion are often closely connected, of course (as Dr >> Norenzayan's work confirms), so what holds for the one might be expected to >> hold for the other, too. >> Dr Wilson himself has studied the relationship between social insecurity and >> >> religious fervour, and discovered that, regardless of the religion in >> question, it is the least secure societies that tend to be most >> fundamentalist. That would make sense if adherence to the rules is a >> condition for the security which comes from membership of a group. He is >> also interested in what some religions hold out as the ultimate reward for >> good behaviour-life after death. That can promote any amount of >> self-sacrifice in a believer, up to and including suicidal behaviour-as >> recent events in the Islamic world have emphasised. However, belief in an >> afterlife is not equally well developed in all religions, and he suspects >> the differences may be illuminating. >> That does not mean there are no explanations for religion that are based on >> individual selection. For example, Jason Slone, a professor of religious >> studies at Webster University in St Louis, argues that people who are >> religious will be seen as more likely to be faithful and to help in >> parenting than those who are not. That makes them desirable as mates. He >> plans to conduct experiments designed to find out whether this is so. And, >> slightly tongue in cheek, Dr Wilson quips that "secularism is very >> maladaptive biologically. We're the ones who at best are having only two >> kids. Religious people are the ones who aren't smoking and drinking, and are >> >> living longer and having the health benefits." >> That quip, though, makes an intriguing point. Evolutionary biologists tend >> to be atheists, and most would be surprised if the scientific investigation >> of religion did not end up supporting their point of view. But if a >> propensity to religious behaviour really is an evolved trait, then they have >> >> talked themselves into a position where they cannot benefit from it, much as >> >> a sceptic cannot benefit from the placebo effect of homeopathy. Maybe, >> therefore, it is God who will have the last laugh after all-whether He >> actually exists or not. >> >> >> >> Ray: When the believers quit makeing up "science" ie "intelegant design", then may be the free thinkers can quit inventing meaningless studies like this? Ned ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn