Genetic Models, Religion, and Society

[crossfire]

Model predicts 'religiosity gene' will dominate society
Rowthorn has developed a model that shows that the genetic components that predispose a person toward religion are currently “hitchhiking” on the back of the religious cultural practice of high fertility rates. Even if some of the people who are born to religious parents defect from religion

Comments

[shuraiya]

Wow, that is so weird!

[unsentimentalf]

So many assumptions that I remain totally unconvinced. The first being that the average Amish person carries higher than average "religious" genes at all and is not just responding to their cultural upbringing. If you're looking for unusually "religious" genes I think you would have to start looking among people who find religion despite their upbringing rather than people brought up that way.

You have to bear in mind that a couple of hundred years ago pretty much everyone was religious. In some parts of the world they still are. The change to secularism (and in which communities that change takes place) has, I suspect, had very little to do with genetics.

[crossfire]

Excellent points, all. I wasn't buying the gross oversimplification either. Like I said, I found the implications interesting even if the hypothesis was totally questionable.

[thelilyqueen]

WRT the Amish, I think there's a reason they looked at that population... first, it's been around for several generations and relatively few people convert in maintaining a small genetic pool, the religious involvement required is high (no church-on-Christmas-only types) and always has been compared to the general trend, and teens/young adults are given the opportunity to leave weeding out those who are not so religious.

Not to say there aren't still issues with the study, but I'd guess that's their reasoning.

hee

[bec_87rb]

That is ridiculous on about three different axes.

The most obvious is that society is traditionally religious, as in, societies in general have religious components, so religiousity is not some dangerous one-gene proposition that is gradually overtaking us like hemophilia amongst royalty. On average, having some religious belief is the norm for human beings, and belief is the (often non-lifetime-stable) result of complex social and personality interactions.

Okay, yeah, he's right, what am I thinking? Let's go kill the Amish before they outbreed us. *sigh*

[vickyblueeyez]

um, whut?

[diamond_dust06]

Until the author can actually provide evidence for specific genes which wire the brain for religiosity, he can stfu. The model is worthless without actual genetic data to support it.

[diamond_dust06]

I mean, seriously. Here's the beginning of the discussion: "This paper assumes that there exist genetic differences between individuals that affect their predisposition towards religion" (emphasis mine). I guess you can say anything if you assume the premises to be true even in the absence of evidence! Ugh, and his reference list is a mess; 56 citations and dozens of them are articles or books, not the peer-reviewed literature. Goddamn, Royal Society, I thought you were better than this.