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  • Religion and evolution mix like water and oil-covered cats; they just don’t seem to

  • get along. But is it possible we evolved to have religion?

  • Hey believers and skeptics, Julian here for DNews. Recently a study published in the journal

  • Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience examined how a certain part of the brain is

  • linked to belief in God. The study used 39 college undergraduates who were all religious

  • and politically moderate. They were split into two groups, the first group had their

  • posterior medial frontal cortex, or pMFC, temporarily inhibited with pulses from a transcranial

  • magnet, and the second group got a similar treatment but with the magnet turned down

  • so it didn’t actually affect how their brain worked.

  • The participants were first primed with a discussion on death and then asked whether

  • they believed in various aspects of a religion: the devil, hell, God, heaven. Those who had

  • their brain inhibited reported believing in all that almost a third less often than the

  • students in the uninhibited group. The conclusion the researchers drew is religion could be

  • a method for overcoming an ideological problem.

  • You see, according to the researchers the pMFC they were tinkering with is used for

  • solving concrete problems, like figuring out the best way to climb over a fallen log. It

  • perceives a problem, determines the threat, and decides a course of action. So the scientists

  • from the University of York and UCLA wanted to see if the same hardware was implemented

  • when a person is confronted with the knotty problem of death. Death is scary and inevitable,

  • so our brains need a way to cope with that.

  • This echoes what some other scientists believe about religion. In 2008 the prominent atheist

  • Richard Dawkins was asked if religion must give humans some evolutionary advantage, considering

  • how ubiquitous it is across culture and history. Dawkins responded that he did indeed believe

  • that humans had evolved to believe in God, but that it was the byproduct of mental machinery

  • that was advantageous in some other way. He compared it to a moth’s tendency to fly

  • into a candle flame because they evolved to use bright but distant light sources like

  • the moon to navigate, and a candle confused what had been useful for their survival for

  • millions of years before artificial light.

  • Self immolation is clearly a bad survival strategy for a moth, so it’s easy to write

  • that off as some other biological function being coopted. But it’s possible believing

  • in a higher power helps our species. In a 2006 study published in the journal of Developmental

  • Psychology,Psychologist Jesse Bering devised an experiment where he challenged children

  • to play a game that was impossible to win without cheating. For a third of the children,

  • each child played by themselves with no supervision. For another third a researcher stayed in the

  • room with them. And the last group were told that there was a magical invisible princess

  • who would be there watching them play.

  • The result was the unsupervised children cheated way more. And the ones who believed a presence

  • was there cheated about as often as when an actual adult was sitting right behind them.

  • Bering repeated the experiment with adults, although presumably he didn’t tell them

  • a magic princess was there, and the results were about the same. The thinking goes that

  • if we believe were being watched and judged, we all benefit. Professor Domenic Johnson

  • of the University of Edinburgh liked it to riding the subway: in order for the subway

  • to function, we all have to pay. If one person cheats and doesn’t pay, sure they have given

  • themselves a little advantage. But if too many people do it, the whole system collapses.

  • It’s possible there are other explanations for why dialing down the posterior medial

  • frontal cortex made participants say they were less religiously inclined. The same study

  • also found that those with their brains inhibited were more accepting of immigrants criticizing

  • their country. A 2011 study in the Journal of Neuroscience found that similarly inhibited

  • participants conformed to social norms less, and another study in the journal from earlier

  • this year showed that the pMFC keeps us making choices that are consistent with ones made

  • in the past. So maybe this part of the brain, along with helping us solve problems, preserves

  • how weve learned to solve them before and so keeps religious beliefs rigid. To quote

  • the researchers of the original study themselves, “more research is needed.”

  • Like it or not, religion is an essential part of the human story. Youve got your own

  • story too, and no domain extension will help you tell it like a DOT COM or DOT NET domain

  • name from Domain Dot Com. And because you watch DNews, you can get 15% off Domain Dot

  • Com’s names and web hosting by using the code DNews when you check out.

  • The topic of God and science is a great one, there’s so much to talk about we couldn’t

  • possibly do it in one episode. So Trace devoted an entire week to discussing it over on Test

  • Tube Plus. Check it out right here.

  • This is normally the part where I’d say something to get you involved and talking,

  • but I know for this episode I don’t have to. Just remember to keep it civil, even if

  • you believe there’s no higher power watching. Were all human beings people, let’s work

  • together for the benefit of the species. Subscribe for more, and I’ll see you next time on

  • DNews.

Religion and evolution mix like water and oil-covered cats; they just don’t seem to

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B1 中級 美國腔

我們是否進化到相信上帝? (Did We Evolve To Believe In God?)

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    噹噹 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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