by Salman Hameed

If you have a chance you should read at least on of the books by primatologist, Frans de Waal. I was introduced to his work with The Ape and the Sushi Master and have been a fan ever since. He works on the origins of morality and is a fantastic writer. His latest book, The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism among the Primates looks at the moral landscape today, including the debates between militant atheism and religion. From a review in Nature:

Frans de Waal's latest book, The Bonobo and the Atheist, is both an exceptionally good

read and a tour de force of scholarship. In it, de Waal states his argument for the evolution of human empathy with the sophistication of a well-grounded, risk-taking scientist who can venture into philosophy.
...
De Waal views extreme strains of atheism as getting “all worked up about the absence of something”, at one point using the fanciful device of a talking bonobo as his mouthpiece (hence the book's title). His view is that religion is undeniably in our bones — even though evidence of primate precursors seems less than substantial. This does not mean that he is pro-religion, however. The Bonobo and the Atheist is permeated with the ethos of secular humanism, using the Renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights — a vision of humanity freed from narrow moral constraints — as a touchstone for his arguments. 

In his discussion of empathy and morality, de Waal has little time for what he calls “veneer theories” that reduce altruism to 'natural' selfishness. As he shows, human altruism has analogues in a wide range of species, even though sterile ants' care for the offspring of their queen can hardly be labelled empathy. When dolphins assist humans struggling in the water, we may at least suggest some basic similarities. But when a chimpanzee, sharing more than 95% of our DNA, helps an unrelated member of its group to lick a wound it cannot reach, a type of empathy very near the human is surely coming into play. 

Many evolutionists favour chimpanzees as ancestral models. Whereas de Waal does look frequently to chimpanzees as exemplars of primate altruism, he champions the less violent bonobo — not least because its habitat, like that of our common primate ancestor, remains the tropical forest, whereas chimpanzees and humans have evolved into ecological generalists. 

De Waal looks to mothering and infant care by non-kin, a basic form of empathy discussed by primatologist Sarah Hrdy in Mothers and Others (Harvard University Press, 2011), as the foundation of human altruism and complex cooperation, and as his prime evolutionary building block for morality. He also emphasizes the importance of emotion in moral choices, citing the work of psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind (Allen Lane, 2012). Haidt's empirical investigations of subjects' disgusted reactions to incest demonstrate that when it comes to morality, raw emotions trump rationality.

Read the full review here.

Also, see Frans de Waal's TED talk, Moral Behavior in Animals:


And he recently got embroiled in a controversy when he criticized some of the New Atheists. Here is de Waal's response and this also nicely encapsulates his book:

Having heard the protests by prominent atheists against the excerpt published by salon.com (under the inflammatory banner "Has militant atheism become a religion?"), let me say that the role of religion and atheism covers only about 10% of my book. It is an important part, hence the book title, but needs to be weighed against the rest of my message. In order to discuss the biological origins of morality, which is its central theme, I need to get two groups out of the way. One is fundamentalist religion, for which morality comes from God. The other are the neo-atheists who, by labeling themselves rational and everyone else irrational, have closed the door to open and tolerant debate. Calling believers idiots can't possibly be a good discussion opener. This explains my stance against militant atheism (a label that is not mine, but Dawkins' by the way). 

My book is about how morality doesn't come from above but rather is an evolutionary product. I speak of bottom-up morality, in line with the ideas of some psychologists (Haidt), philosophers and neuroscientists (Kitcher, Churchland). The book is rooted in my research on monkeys, apes, elephants, and other animals, and my conviction that they show the beginnings of morality. I have written about this before, but now I am bringing religion into the mix. Even though I don't think religion is absolutely critical, it is also not irrelevant. The question how humans would fare without it is hard to answer for the simple reason that religion is universal. There are no societies that are not now and never were religious. 

Morality promotes cooperation. It asks us to put our personal interests on the back-burner and work for the common good. It is a complex system that religion and philosophy have tried to capture in simple rules (such as the golden rule or the ten commandments), but these rules provide only imperfect summaries. We like to think of morality as top-down, but this is merely a left-over of the story of God on the mountain top. There is no evidence that it started out as a top-down system. Science is rather coming around to the Humean view of morality guided by intuitions and passions. Looking at other primates, we recognize many of the same tendencies that underlie our morality, such as rules of reciprocity, empathy and sympathy, a sense of fairness, and the need to get along. Monkeys, for example, object to unfair distributions of resources (see the end of my TED talk), and chimpanzees do each other favors even if there is nothing in it for themselves. Bonobos are probably the most empathic animals of all, and the recent genome data places them extremely close to us.
...
Human morality goes beyond all of this, but ancient primate tendencies do play a crucial role. We have been indoctrinated that nature is "red in tooth and claw," and entirely selfish, but we are now learning about conflict resolution, cooperation, empathy, and the like, in our fellow primates. They are far more harmony-oriented than people realize. I don't necessarily call apes "moral beings," but we share with them an old psychology without which we'd never have become moral.

Atheism will need to be combined with something else, something more constructive than its opposition to religion, to be relevant to our lives. The only possibility is to embrace morality as natural to our species. Otherwise atheism will end up in the Big Black Hole that Thomas Henry Huxley created for himself in the 19th Century. He did not believe morality came from God, but also denied its possible evolution. He could not explain where it came from except for saying that we had to fight very hard against our own nature to become moral (which is of course an ancient Christian position related to original sin, and so on). In this, Huxley went against Darwin himself, who did see room for moral evolution, as explained in "The Descent of Man." To debate these important issues we all need to step back, stop shouting, and move beyond unanswerable questions about the existence of God. Atheists should be interested in this debate and I hope they will join in.

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by Salman Hameed

Last week, NPR had a thoughtful and interesting series on "nones" - people who do not affiliate with any religion - in the US. It was prompted by recent polls that show that the number of "nones" has been increasing steadily for the past few decades and that the younger people today are not only more religious unaffiliated than their elders today, but that they are more religiously unaffiliated than their younger counterparts in the past (also see an earlier post: Global Religious Landscape - Young Muslims and the Unaffiliated). This is from the Gallup poll for the US:

And here is a Pew survey that breaks the data by age:

Here are particular characteristics of this group:

• comprises atheists and agnostics as well as those who ally themselves with "nothing in particular"
• includes many who say they are spiritual or religious in some way and pray every day
• overwhelmingly says they are not looking to find an organized religion that would be right for them
• is socially liberal, with three-quarters favoring same-sex marriage and legal abortion
• Perhaps most striking is that one-third of Americans under 30 have no religious affiliation. 

I have posted below links to the full series. If you have time to listen to just one, then check out the first one at the bottom (it includes an interview with sociologist, Robert Putnam. There they talk about the possible reasons for the rise of "nones", including the idea that it is because of decreasing importance of social institutions in general. But while listening to the full series, I was wondering about the possible trends in the Muslim world. We know that the median age of Muslims in the world is 23. What kind of trends should we expect? While the importance of religion is quite high in much of the Muslim world (see this post here for plots on this), that may not tell us much about the diversity of beliefs (i.e. religion can be very important, but the way people practice it can vary a lot). Pew did ask a question about perceptions of religious orthodoxy within Islam. In particular, they asked if "there is only one interpretation of Islam" or can it be interpreted in different ways. Not surprisingly, a majority of respondents in most countries agreed with the single interpretation statement, with Morocco, Tunisia, the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon and Iraq being the exceptions, with under 50%. Interestingly, Muslims in the US are outliers on this:

Much to ponder about. Here are the links to this NPR special. If you have time, you should listen to all of these as they provide a glimpse of the complex ways people deal with religion and life.

Losing Our Religion

the two-way

As Social Issues Drive Young From Church, Leaders Try To Keep Them(466)  

January 18, 2013 Morning Edition wraps up its weeklong look at the growing number of people who say they do not identify with a religion. In the final conversation, two religious leaders describe what they do to attract young people to the church.

On Morning EditionPlaylist

Making Marriage Work When Only One Spouse Believes In God(332)  

January 17, 2013 Every couple has differences and disagreements to navigate. But what happens when the couple disagrees on the fundamental question of faith? Maria Peyer is a church-attending Lutheran; her husband, Mike Bixby, is an atheist. But they've found ways to accept and support each other's beliefs.

On Morning EditionPlaylist

On Religion, Some Young People Show Both Doubt And Respect(200)  

January 17, 2013 NPR's David Greene talks with a group of young adults who've struggled with the role of faith and religion in their lives. They do not speak of emptiness without religion, but recognize that it fills needs. They talk of having respect for religion, but say that it's not something they identify with now.

On Morning EditionPlaylist

After Tragedy, Nonbelievers Find Other Ways To Cope(372)  

January 16, 2013 Many have long turned to religion for solace in the aftermath of a tragedy, but that's not an option for the nonreligious or those whose faith is destroyed by the event. For the nonreligious, dealing with trauma and loss often requires forging one's own path.

On Morning EditionPlaylist

More Young People Are Moving Away From Religion, But Why?(1147)  

January 15, 2013 One-fifth of Americans are religiously unaffiliated, and those younger than 30 especially seem to be drifting from organized religion. Six young adults — some with Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Seventh-day Adventist backgrounds — explore their struggle with faith and religion.

On Morning EditionPlaylist

the two-way

Losing Our Religion: The Growth Of The 'Nones'(731)  

January 14, 2013 As religious as this country may be, many Americans are not religious at all. The group of religiously unaffiliated – dubbed "nones"— has been growing. One-fifth of Americans say they're nones, as are one in three under 30. They're socially liberal and aren't looking for an organized religion.

On Morning EditionPlaylist

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by Salman Hameed

Or may be all of Islam is experiential? I was thinking about this while reading an opinion piece in today's NYT by T.M. Luhrmann. She has a new book out called When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Relationship with God (it looks fantastic and it is on my reading list). The focus of her book is Vineyard church (a sub-group of Evangelical Christianity in the US) and how their members see their relationship with God. So for example, they may actually have coffee with God. Here is how she explains it:

I am an anthropologist, and in recent years I have been exploring a kind of American evangelical Christianity that seeks to enable its followers to know God intimately. These evangelicals talk about the Bible as if it is literally true, but they also use their imagination to experience the Bible as personally as possible. They talk about getting to know God by having coffee with God, or asking God what shirt they should wear in the morning. A man from Horizon Christian Fellowship in San Diego told me that “the Bible is a love story, and it is written to me.” It is a style of evangelical Christianity with many followers: perhaps a quarter of all Americans.

So that got me thinking if some Muslims have a similar relationship with Allah? I know Barelvi's in South Asia do have a belief that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is "hazir" (present) in many places - and can appear in mosques etc. But I think this would qualify as doctrinal (as is the case of Transubstantiation - the turning of the substance of blood and wine into the body and blood of Jesus - in the doctrine of the Catholic Church). There have also been instances where people (including rulers) have claimed to have a conversation with the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in their dreams  (for example, the in the dream of the 12th century Seljuk ruler of Syria, Nur ad Din-Zangi). But I can also see that this is all related to the Prophet, and an encounter with Allah may be considered blasphemous.

But what about something akin to speaking in tongues, as is the case in some Evangelical groups? Just curious see if some Muslim groups already exist that practice an experiential form of Islam and/or if some will evolve in places (like sub-Saharan Africa) where there is a constant interaction and competition  between Islam and Evangelical Christianity?

In any case, Luhrmann makes an interesting pointing about why many follow this kind of Christianity and why some oppose it:

I am no theologian and I do not think that social science can weigh in on the question of who God is or whether God is real. But I think that anthropology offers some insight into why imaginatively enriching a text taken as literally true helps some Christians to hang on to God when they are surrounded by a secular world.

First, this way of knowing God involves what social scientists would call “active learning.” These evangelical churches invite worshipers to enter Scripture with all their senses. Here, for example, Richard Foster, a popular theologian, explains how to “live the experience” of Scripture: “Smell the sea. Hear the lap of water against the shore. See the crowd. Feel the sun on your head and the hunger in your stomach. Taste the salt in the air. Touch the hem of his garment.” To Christian critics of these practices, they are a distortion of the Scripture, because they add to the text more than is actually there — your own memories of a summer by the seaside, the feel of heavy robes. To a social scientist, these practices ask that the learner engage in the most effective kind of learning: hands on and engaged. 

Second, these practices make the experience of God personally specific. Vivid, concrete details help people to get caught up in a world that is not the one they see before them — and the more particular the details, the more powerful the involvement. Richly described settings — Narnia, Middle-earth, Hogwarts — become places that people can imagine on their own. Of course someone like J. K. Rowling might be horrified that readers have written tens of thousands of stories that carry on the lives of her characters, just as some evangelicals are horrified by other evangelicals who cozy up to God over a beer and chat with him in their minds. But social science suggests that details like these do make what must be imagined feel more real. 

Which position you take depends on whether you are more worried about heresy or atheism.

Read the full article here. 

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by Salman Hameed

Jonathan Haidt is a smart guy and he's had interesting things to say in the past. I'm currently reading his new book, The Righteous Mind:Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion and Iike it so far (I'm still in the first part of the book). Here is his recent TED talk on the topic of origins of religious experiences. Below his talk I have also embedded a talk by David Sloan Wilson - again on the topic of group selection and the search for the origins of religion. That talk was one of the first talks of Hampshire College Lecture Series on Science and Religion.

But first, here is Jonathan Haidt on Religion, Evolution and the Ecstasy of Self-Transcendance (by the way, great visuals!):



And here is David Sloan Wilson on Evolution and Religion:

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by Salman Hameed

Last month I had a chance to give a talk as part of TEDx Pioneer Valley program: How Learning Happens. It was actually a fantastic experience and had a chance to sit through some fascinating talks and interact with some very interesting people. I will be posting some other talks in the coming days. In the mean time, here is the video of my talk When Evidence is Powerless... (about 19 minutes). Here is a brief description:

Millions of individuals in the United States believe in UFOs and ghosts; yet we know that there is no credible evidence for any visitation from outer space or for dead souls hanging out in abandoned houses. In contrast, there is now overwhelming evidence that humans and other species on the planet have evolved over the past 4.5 billion years; yet 40 percent of Americans reject evolution. It seems that for many there is no connection between belief and evidence. If evidence is powerless, what are some other factors that shape their beliefs, and what are the implications for science education?

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This is a weekly post by Nidhal Guessoum (see his earlier posts here). Nidhal is an astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at American University of Sharjah and is the author of Islam's Quantum Question: Reconciling Muslim Tradition and Modern Science. 

The French magazine Psychologies, not to be confused with its namesakes in the US and in the UK, while aiming for the general-public, tries to keep a reasonable standard of scientific accuracy. It also tries to remain “interesting”, that is to sell copies, so in its latest issue (February 2012), it has a cover story on why our (sexual) desire comes and goes and an interview with the captivating actress Juliette Binoche. But it also has a two-page article on the more than dubious “quantum therapies”.

But I was intrigued by the quiz it ran on the various types of spiritualities that people hold today, though they may or may not be fully aware of that aspect of their personalities/personhoods.

Now, before I give you an idea of the quiz, and even let you take a short version of it, I must point out that the concept of “spirituality” has been the object of various attempts to redefine it or at least expand its meanings. Indeed, “spirituality” comes from “spirit”, which in the “technical” sense refers to “the immaterial intelligent or sentient part of a person” (as the Webster dictionary puts it), or more simply that dimension of humans that religious people believe makes us able to connect to God and perhaps to others. But since “spirit” can also mean “temper or disposition of mind or outlook” (another definition given by Webster), and if you take this meaning and infer some “spirituality” from it, then it no longer needs to be related to religion. And that is why there is this increasing trend of people describing themselves as “spiritual, but not religious” (just Google up "spiritual, not religious").

The Psychologies quiz begins with an introduction titled “To each, their own spirituality”, where the different facets of the concept are first explained. The reader is told that spirituality can refer to: a) a state of “completeness”, when one has integrated various dualities (light and shadow, heaven and earth); b) a feeling of being in relation with something sacred, of being connected to a higher dimension of existence; c) a “life of the spirit”, representing a kind of “secular spirituality”, as has been defined by some thinkers (the magazine refers specifically to the popular French philosopher Andre Comte-Sponville). It goes on to explain that these different types of spirituality then result in different responses in the person: giving meaning to one’s life, giving comfort, developing an ethic of living together, or solving personal problems and inner conflicts.

On this basis, the magazine produced a quiz: 48 statements are offered, and the reader is asked to the select the ones that s/he agrees more with (or represent his/her personhood); each statement is given a symbol, and the reader then counts which symbol appears most in his/her selected statements; on the next page, a description of the spiritual type represented by each symbol is given, thus describing the reader’s spiritual nature.

Since I can’t reproduce the whole quiz for you (first there are copyright limitations, and second I don’t have time to translate 48 statements), I’ve selected 16 from the four categories and labeled them A, B, C, D. Select the letter that appears more in your answers and refer to the description of each category at the end.

Here’s the mini-quiz. Have fun:

• I often feel a need for protection. (A)
• We are here on Earth to learn and to improve ourselves. (B)
• As I matured, spirituality became more important for me. (B)
• I feel connected to all that lives. (C)
•  Solidarity and compassion are not a monopoly of spirituality. (D)
• I cannot bear the idea of nothingness after death. (A)
• I find meaning and values in humanistic philosophies. (D)
• I believe in miraculous healings. (A)
• I often get lightning and accurate intuitions. (C)
• I meditate to calm my mind and to open up my heart. (B)
• I ask heaven for help in difficult situations. (A)
• Spirituality should never leave the personal sphere. (D)
• To change the world, one must first change oneself. (B)
• It’s in Man that I believe, first and foremost. (D)
• Speaking to God is completely natural for me; I need no intermediary. (C)
• I am fully convinced that hardships have a meaning, and we must accept that sometimes it escapes us. (C) 

The categories:

A describes a spirituality which seeks “refuse” in something or some being, a “parent God” who protects and heals the person. Supposedly (according to the magazine), this is closer to the traditional concept of God and spirituality.

B describes the spirituality of an evolving person, one who, through practices like yoga or zen, seeks higher and more connected ways of living. Here belief in a higher being (God) is not essential, even though there is often the belief/feeling that there is some higher intelligence that we may be part of or may be able to become part of.

C refers to the mystical type of spirituality, to seek to live in communion with the Divine/Spirit or with the Universe (in a pantheistic/panentheistic worldview).

D denotes an “atheistic ethic” (the magazine’s description), one which tries to uphold truth, goodness, and beauty without any reference to or need for God.

So, there you have them: the four types of spirituality as Psychologies sees them. Perhaps there are other types or definitions or hybrid forms…

Do you recognize yourself in any of these? Do you have a different description for your own or your parents’ spirituality?

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by Salman Hameed

Here is an interesting interview with magician Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller's Bullshit! fame). He has a new book out, God, No! Signs you may already be an atheist and other magical tales. He takes the stance that there isn't much difference between atheists and religious folks when comes down to issues of morality, etc. He differs from those militant atheists who argue that primarily religion is, and has been, a source of evil in the world. Yes, there are crazies out there who act in the name of religion, but Penn believes that those are outliers, and it is a mistake to fixate on them and generalize from there. Penn takes a universalist approach to morality in humans (indeed, a huge subject...), and thinks that atheists and religious people make similar sorts of moral decisions - irrespective of what religion tells them to do - and have a lot more in common than they realize (by the way, in US the public is least likely to vote for an atheist President than any another denomination including Muslims).

This is not an academic book. Nevertheless, he is engaged with these debates at the ground-level. He understands the need and the desire to have a community, and the fact that religion fills up this niche quite nicely. In the interview there is also a nice little conversation about performing magic in the age of science, and the difference between magic and a performing a trick.

Oh - and he seems to be a local of western Massachusetts. In fact, there is even a mention of Northampton in the interview!

Listen to the full interview here (it is about 16 minutes long). 

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by Salman Hameed

I have an oped in today's Guardian titled: When Evidence is Powerless. It deals with alien abductions and evolution - two topics that I like, teach, and often talk about (if I could have brought in movies to this discussion, then that would have been perfect :) ). Here is the article:

When Evidence is Powerless

Beliefs that give meaning to life can't be dislodged by factual evidence

Millions of individuals in the UK believe in UFOs and ghosts. Yet we know that there is no credible evidence for any visitation from outer space or for some dead souls hanging out in abandoned houses. On the other hand, there is now overwhelming evidence that humans and other species on the planet have evolved over the past 4.5bn years. And yet 17% of the British population and 40% of Americans reject evolution. It seems that for many there is no connection between belief and evidence.

Some – maybe most – of the blame can be attributed to an education system that does not train people to think critically. Similarly, most people do not understand methodologies of science and the way theories get accepted. For some, scientific evidence has no role in the way they envision the world.

People who claim to have been abducted by aliens provide an interesting example. The "abductions" happen mostly in the early morning hours and, apart from psychological trauma, there is no physical evidence left behind. Some scientists have attributed these episodes to sleep paralysis – a momentary miscommunication between the brain and the body, just before going to sleep or waking up.

While abductions have most likely not taken place, the trauma experienced by the individuals may still be real. Some abductees have shown signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, and many cite this as the worst experience of their life. However, for many, "abduction" was the best thing that ever happened to them.

This is a life-changing event for the abductees. They feel a sense of uniqueness. Abduction may have been painful, but they were the ones who were picked. While the public mocks claims of alien abductions, many abductees join support groups that include others who share similar experiences. For the abductees, evidence is irrelevant. They know it happened. They experienced it. These abductions form their whole worldview and provide an explanation for the occasional paralysis at night, a sense of uniqueness and meaning in life, and a community of like-minded individuals.

I can't help but think of evolution debates taking place across the world. I have been interviewing physicians and medical students in the Muslim world, and have seen a wide range of responses. Many have no problem with biological evolution, whereas others reject it vociferously. The reasons for rejection are often religious, but then justified with misinformed ideas about evolution ("where are the missing links?", "evolution is just a theory").

For a subset of interviewees, evidence (or lack thereof) plays no role in their rejection of evolution. In their minds, an acceptance of biological evolution will lead to the abandonment of their religion. The cost of accepting evolution may simply be too high for them.

I don't want to give the impression that we should just shrug our shoulders and give up on critical thinking. But we have to realise there will always be individuals who reject evolution for reasons that have little to do with evolution. If certain beliefs are bound up with personal meaning-making, then an attack on those beliefs threatens what is meaningful for that person. An effort to move them towards more evidence-based thinking may need to untangle meaning-making from such beliefs. Even if our efforts are unsuccessful with these individuals, a deeper appreciation, understanding and sympathy for their beliefs may be essential in communicating better science.

Read the article and comments on the Guardian website.

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This can be a really interesting gathering. The International Congress on Psychology, Religion and Culture will meet in Tehran from May 14-16, 2011 (tip from PsyRel). The deadline for papers is January 7, 2011. Please let me know if any of the readers here are planning on going.

The purpose of the Congress is to contribute to the establishment of the field of Psychology, Religion and Culture, and to provide an opportunity for interreligious, intercultural and interdisciplinary conversation.

This conference is an attempt to explore the progresses and challenges concerning the studies of relations between the domains of religion, culture and psychology.

We expect creative and critical presentations and discussions and welcome scholars and students from all related scientific disciplines, religious and cultural backgrounds to participate at the congress and exchange their views.

Here is the call for papers. 

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At a recent talk, I had a slide that basic said that humans are a story-telling animal. This was just an aside as I was discussing humanity's attempts to answer questions about our origins - from earlier mythologies to modern science. During the Q&A, one person took exception to this and didn't like the fact that I had degraded humans to the level of animals. But I don't think this is a degradation as I see this as a wonderful connection with other species. Heck - our bodies are made up of similar elements and the same molecule drives life in all species on Earth - which I think is pretty cool! We all love it when it is pointed out that that we are all made of star-stuff. Well, guess what? All other animals are also made of the same star stuff - so we are all equally cool! 

I'm about to leave Istanbul, and I thought I'll leave you with an excellent and thoughtful recent article by Frans de Waal that emphasizes this connection and talks about the good in animals. I will only highlight one aspect of the article, but if you have time, you should read the whole article, Morals Without God? (also also check out the lecture by Barbara J. King, Gorillas and God):

Five centuries later, we remain embroiled in debates about the role of religion in society. As in Bosch’s days, the central theme is morality. Can we envision a world without God? Would this world be good? Don’t think for one moment that the current battle lines between biology and fundamentalist Christianity turn around evidence. One has to be pretty immune to data to doubt evolution, which is why books and documentaries aimed at convincing the skeptics are a waste of effort. They are helpful for those prepared to listen, but fail to reach their target audience. The debate is less about the truth than about how to handle it. For those who believe that morality comes straight from God the creator, acceptance of evolution would open a moral abyss.

Echoing this view, Reverend Al Sharpton opined in a recent videotaped debate: “If there is no order to the universe, and therefore some being, some force that ordered it, then who determines what is right or wrong? There is nothing immoral if there’s nothing in charge.” Similarly, I have heard people echo Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov, exclaiming that “If there is no God, I am free to rape my neighbor!”

Perhaps it is just me, but I am wary of anyone whose belief system is the only thing standing between them and repulsive behavior. Why not assume that our humanity, including the self-control needed for livable societies, is built into us? Does anyone truly believe that our ancestors lacked social norms before they had religion? Did they never assist others in need, or complain about an unfair deal? Humans must have worried about the functioning of their communities well before the current religions arose, which is only a few thousand years ago. Not that religion is irrelevant — I will get to this — but it is an add-on rather than the wellspring of morality.

...

If we consider our species without letting ourselves be blinded by the technical advances of the last few millennia, we see a creature of flesh and blood with a brain that, albeit three times larger than a chimpanzee’s, doesn’t contain any new parts. Even our vaunted prefrontal cortex turns out to be of typical size: recent neuron-counting techniques classify the human brain as a linearly scaled-up monkey brain.[2] No one doubts the superiority of our intellect, but we have no basic wants or needs that are not also present in our close relatives. I interact on a daily basis with monkeys and apes, which just like us strive for power, enjoy sex, want security and affection, kill over territory, and value trust and cooperation. Yes, we use cell phones and fly airplanes, but our psychological make-up remains that of a social primate. Even the posturing and deal-making among the alpha males in Washington is nothing out of the ordinary.

And here is the bit about animal empathy:

Even though altruistic behavior evolved for the advantages it confers, this does not make it selfishly motivated. Future benefits rarely figure in the minds of animals. For example, animals engage in sex without knowing its reproductive consequences, and even humans had to develop the morning-after pill. This is because sexual motivation is unconcerned with the reason why sex exists. The same is true for the altruistic impulse, which is unconcerned with evolutionary consequences. It is this disconnect between evolution and motivation that befuddled the Veneer Theorists, and made them reduce everything to selfishness. The most quoted line of their bleak literature says it all: “Scratch an ‘altruist,’ and watch a ‘hypocrite’ bleed.”[3]

It is not only humans who are capable of genuine altruism; other animals are, too. I see it every day. An old female, Peony, spends her days outdoors with other chimpanzees at the Yerkes Primate Center’s Field Station. On bad days, when her arthritis is flaring up, she has  trouble walking and climbing, but other females help her out. For example, Peony is huffing and puffing to get up into the climbing frame in which several apes have gathered for a grooming session. An unrelated younger female moves behind her, placing both hands on her ample behind and pushes her up with quite a bit of effort, until Peony has joined the rest.

We have also seen Peony getting up and slowly move towards the water spigot, which is at quite a distance. Younger females sometimes run ahead of her, take in some water, then return to Peony and give it to her. At first, we had no idea what was going on, since all we saw was one female placing her mouth close to Peony’s, but after a while the pattern became clear: Peony would open her mouth wide, and the younger female would spit a jet of water into it.

Such observations fit the emerging field of animal empathy, which deals not only with primates, but also with canines, elephants, even rodents. A typical example is how chimpanzees console distressed parties, hugging and kissing them, which behavior is so predictable that scientists have analyzed thousands of cases. Mammals are sensitive to each other’s emotions, and react to others in need. The whole reason people fill their homes with furry carnivores and not with, say, iguanas and turtles, is because mammals offer something no reptile ever will. They give affection, they want affection, and respond to our emotions the way we do to theirs.

And here is the religion connection, and he is referring to several studies that suggest a sense of fairness in other animals: 

Such findings have implications for human morality. According to most philosophers, we reason ourselves towards a moral position. Even if we do not invoke God, it is still a top-down process of us formulating the principles and then imposing those on human conduct. But would it be realistic to ask people to be considerate of others if we had not already a natural inclination to be so? Would it make sense to appeal to fairness and justice in the absence of powerful reactions to their absence? Imagine the cognitive burden if every decision we took needed to be vetted against handed-down principles. Instead, I am a firm believer in the Humean position that reason is the slave of the passions. We started out with moral sentiments and intuitions, which is also where we find the greatest continuity with other primates. Rather than having developed morality from scratch, we received a huge helping hand from our background as social animals.

At the same time, however, I am reluctant to call a chimpanzee a “moral being.” This is because sentiments do not suffice. We strive for a logically coherent system, and have debates about how the death penalty fits arguments for the sanctity of life, or whether an unchosen sexual orientation can be wrong. These debates are uniquely human. We have no  evidence that other animals judge the appropriateness of actions that do not affect themselves. The great pioneer of morality research, the Finn Edward Westermarck, explained what makes the moral emotions special: “Moral emotions are disconnected from one’s immediate situation: they deal with good and bad at a more abstract, disinterested level.” This is what sets human morality apart: a move towards universal standards combined with an elaborate system of justification, monitoring and punishment.

At this point, religion comes in. Think of the narrative support for compassion, such as the Parable of the Good Samaritan, or the challenge to fairness, such as the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, with its famous conclusion “The last will be first, and the first will be last.” Add to this an almost Skinnerian fondness of reward and punishment — from the virgins to be met in heaven to the hell fire that awaits sinners — and the exploitation of our desire to be “praiseworthy,” as Adam Smith called it. Humans are so sensitive to public opinion that we only need to see a picture of two eyes glued to the wall to respond with good behavior, which explains the image in some religions of an all-seeing eye to symbolize an omniscient God.

...

Other primates have of course none of these problems, but even they strive for a certain kind of society. For example, female chimpanzees have been seen to drag reluctant males towards each other to make up after a fight, removing weapons from their hands, and high-ranking males regularly act as impartial arbiters to settle disputes in the community. I take these hints of community concern as yet another sign that the building blocks of morality are older than humanity, and that we do not need God to explain how we got where we are today. On the other hand, what would happen if we were able to excise religion from society? I doubt that science and the naturalistic worldview could fill the void and become an inspiration for the good. Any framework we develop to advocate a certain moral outlook is bound to produce its own list of principles, its own prophets, and attract its own devoted followers, so that it will soon look like any old religion.

Read the full article here.

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I'm at Logan to leave for Istanbul -but I just found out that the video for our latest lecture is now ready (thanks to Thomas Ciaburri). So here it is.

Dr. Barbara J. King was our Science & Religion Lecture Series speaker at Hampshire College on September 22nd. She gave a fantastic talk on the roots of our religious (or proto-religious) beliefs. Here is the video of her talk, Gorillas and God: The Evolutionary Roots of Religion (video of Q&A and the abstract for her talk below) Enjoy!


Gorillas and God: Evolutionary Roots of Religion by Dr. Barbara J King from Hampshire TV on Vimeo.

And here is the Q&A session:


Q&A with Dr. Barbra King from Hampshire TV on Vimeo.

Abstract

Anthropologists routinely seek evidence for the primate origins of human technology, language, and culture. In this illustrated talk, anthropologist Barbara J. King reviews the findings to date from the search for an aspect of our primate past even more elusive: the deepest roots of human religiosity. Using modern African apes such as gorillas and chimpanzees as a guide, she reflects upon the earliest evolutionary manifestations of compassion, imagination, thinking beyond the here-and-now, and ritual. She traces the first evidence for spirituality in human material culture by consideration of archaeological sites such as the Chauvet and Lascaux Caves in France, and Gobekli Tepe and Catalhoyuk in Turkey. King reflects as well on how we may, via a focus on the plasticity and contingency of our becoming-human trajectory (instead of on a heavily biologized account of our past), come to grasp more fully when it means to be human.

Dr. Barbara King is a biological anthropologist and Chancellor Professor of Anthropology at The College of William & Mary. Professor King’s research interests include primate behavior, especially ape communication, culture, and cognition; hominid evolution, especially evolution of language, culture, and religion; religion and science; dynamic systems theory;. She has studied ape and monkey behavior in Gabon, Kenya, and at the Language Research Center at Georgia State University. The recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, her books include The Information Continuum: Social Information Transfer in Monkeys, Apes, and Hominids, The Dynamic Dance: Nonvocal Communication in African Great Apes, Evolving God: A Provocative View on the Origins of Religion, and Being with Animals.

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Please check out videos of earlier lectures at our Hampshire College Lecture Series on Science & Religion website.

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This is a weekly post by Nidhal Guessoum (see his earlier posts here). Nidhal is an astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at American University of Sharjah

Until recently, when psychologists conducted lab tests (most often on undergrad students acting as guinea pigs in return of some stipend), they (the psychologists) assumed that their test results were universally valid, especially when it came to such “general” issues as self-image, fairness, visual perception, temperament, anger, etc… But the suspicion that our universalist preconceptions may only betray certain cultural biases remained there, but untested – until now.

Recently, a group of psychologists in the US decided to test precisely that principle of universality of human traits: what aspects of our humanness are (or are not) independent of our specific cultures? Are the typical human subjects of psychological studies in the west (two thirds of the time undergraduate students) representative of the human species in general or not?

In a paper published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, a team from the University of British Columbia found that their student guinea pigs gave responses that are typical only of WEIRD subjects (WEIRD standing for ‘Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic’ – a nice acronym!). Behavioral scientists now emphasize the differences between WEIRD subjects and East-Asian ones, the latter – we are reminded – think “more holistically” and “see context and surroundings more than discrete objects” (see Sharon Begley’s report in Newsweek).

What was really interesting in these studies is that several cases where one would not suspect any cultural influence turned out to produce clear differences between western (WEIRD) and eastern subjects. For example, the famous arrow test (see diagram) where the subject is asked which arrow is longer (the two are of equal length): in the West, more people (by about 20 percent) will have the impression that the lower one is longer. But for people from the San tribe of the Kalahari desert, no such wrong impression is found. The difference is interpreted as being the result of growing in “an environment filled with right angles” (don’t ask me how the two issues are connected!).

A more interesting case was the testing of “the sense of fairness”. How does one test that? The game is the following: A is given $10 and told to give some of it to B; if B accepts the amount, then each keeps his/her amount, and all is fine, but if B rejects it, the two end up with nothing; so B has to decide whether s/he is better off with a small (but unjust) amount or with nothing (but punishing A). American undergrads, we are told, typically give $4 or $5 as A, and B’s reject anything below $3. But subjects from non-industrial communities (in this case in Tanzania) usually offer some $2.50 to the other subjects, and the latter do accept that.

Finally, it is reported that facial expressions related to emotions as well as the fondness for sugar are indeed human “universals”; some of these “universals” are probably due to human evolution. (I’m glad that my fondness for sweets is a typical, universal trait…)

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As part of our Science & Religion Lecture Series at Hampshire College, we will have anthropologist Barbara J. King as our speaker on September 22nd (tomorrow!). The title of her talk is Gorillas and God: The Evolutionary Roots of Religion. This promises to be a fascinating talk and you should check out her book, Evolving God: A Provocative View on the Origins of Religion. She also runs the Friday Animal Blog. 

If you are in the area, please join us tomorrow for the lecture (yes, there will be cookies too). If you can't make it, we will be posting the video of the lecture in the next couple of weeks (see this link for past lecture videos). 

Here is the full announcement with the abstract for the talk:

Hampshire College Lecture Series on Science & Religion Presents

Gorillas and God

Evolutionary Roots of Religion

by

Dr. Barbara J. King

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

5:30p.m., Franklin Patterson Hall, Main Lecture Hall

Hampshire College

Abstract:

Anthropologists routinely seek evidence for the primate origins of human technology, language, and culture. In this illustrated talk, anthropologist Barbara J. King reviews the findings to date from the search for an aspect of our primate past even more elusive: the deepest roots of human religiosity. Using modern African apes such as gorillas and chimpanzees as a guide, she reflects upon the earliest evolutionary manifestations of compassion, imagination, thinking beyond the here-and-now, and ritual. She traces the first evidence for spirituality in human material culture by consideration of archaeological sites such as the Chauvet and Lascaux Caves in France, and Gobekli Tepe and Catalhoyuk in Turkey. King reflects as well on how we may, via a focus on the plasticity and contingency of our becoming-human trajectory (instead of on a heavily biologized account of our past), come to grasp more fully when it means to be human.

Dr. Barbara King is a biological anthropologist and Chancellor Professor of Anthropology at The College of William & Mary. Professor King’s research interests include primate behavior, especially ape communication, culture, and cognition; hominid evolution, especially evolution of language, culture, and religion; religion and science; dynamic systems theory;. She has studied ape and monkey behavior in Gabon, Kenya, and at the Language Research Center at Georgia State University. The recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, her books include The Information Continuum: Social Information Transfer in Monkeys, Apes, and Hominids, The Dynamic Dance: Nonvocal Communication in African Great Apes, Evolving God: A Provocative View on the Origins of Religion, and Being with Animals.

For more information on the Lecture Series, please visit http://scienceandreligion.hampshire.edu/

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