The Science of Sociobiology Critiques the Truth-Claims of Religion
E.O.Wilson has written:
...we have come to the crucial stage
in the history of biology when religion itself is subject to the explanations
of the natural sciences...sociobiology can account for the very origin of
mythology by the principle of natural selection acting on the genetically
evolving material structure of the human brain.
If this interpretation is correct,
the final decisive edge enjoyed by scientific naturalism will come from its
capacity to explain traditional religion, its chief competitor, as a wholly material
phenomenon. Theology is not likely to survive as an independent intellectual
discipline. But religion itself will endure for a long time as a vital force in
society.
(For background see Richard
Dawkins and E.O.Wilson against the possibility of the truth of religion.)
Dawkins regards religion as one of many ‘viruses of the
mind,’something which has pervaded human affairs, but, having no truth-content,
should be done away with. Wilson does see religion’s utility, although he
regards it as nothing more than a survival-strategy which has become embedded
in our genes.
The first, trite rebuttal to this is to point out that if
some of our beliefs about reality are to be described as Darwinian
gene-schemes, then others are not exempt. Neo-Darwinism itself could be
regarded not as a fact about reality, but as an evolved survival-strategy. If
we doubt humans’ capacity to derive truths, as opposed to following
evolutionary strategies, then the ‘fact’ that Darwinism has, according to
Wilson, ‘point for point in zones of conflict, defeated traditional religion,’does not make Darwinism any the more true. If this defeat were a fact, it would only show that at a particular juncture
Darwinism was more adaptive than
religious belief.
It is much more reasonable to suppose that humans do have the power to elicit conclusions
about their environment largely independent of their genetic inheritance
(though quite strongly influenced by their culture). This brings us to the
second point, which is that the sociobiological case for very strong control of
genes over culture simply cannot be sustained for humans. The
proportion of the human genome which separates us from the early
savannah-dwelling H.Sapiens is 0.01%, (see the paradox of the development of modern
humans) and we know next to nothing of how so
few genes could exert such an enormous effect on culture as to programme us to
be modern humans. Moreover our present experience of the rate of cultural
change suggests that gene changes could not possibly account for the pace at
which human culture changes, or respond at an adequate rate. John Bowker has
made a very careful analysis of the claims of sociobiology in respect of
religion, and
concludes that critical realism is sustainable both for science and religion.
We can make inferences about the
universe as it happens to be, and about its God, beyond what is programmed in
our genes.
Email
link | Feedback | Contributed by: Dr. Christopher Southgate and Dr. Michael Robert Negus
Source: God, Humanity and the Cosmos (T&T Clark, 1999)
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