The Evolution of God
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''The Evolution of God'' is a 2009 book by Robert Wright, in which the author explores the history of the concept of
God In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...
in the three
Abrahamic religions The Abrahamic religions are a group of religions centered around worship of the God of Abraham. Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch, is extensively mentioned throughout Abrahamic religious scriptures such as the Bible and the Quran. Jewish tradition ...
through a variety of means, including
archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
, history,
theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
, and
evolutionary psychology Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regards to the ancestral problems they evolv ...
. The patterns which link
Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
,
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
, and
Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
and the ways in which they have changed their concepts over time are explored as one of the central themes. One of the conclusions of the book that Wright tries to make is a reconciliation between science and religion. He also speculates on the future of the concept of God.


Evolutionary biology

Among other things, Wright discusses the role of
evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life fo ...
in the development of religion. Geneticist
Dean Hamer Dean Hamer (; born May 29, 1951) is an American geneticist. He is known for his research on the role of genetics in sexual orientation and for a series of popular books and documentaries that have changed the understanding and perceptions of hu ...
hypothesized that some people have a specific gene that makes them prone to religious belief, which he calls the
God gene The God gene hypothesis proposes that human spirituality is influenced by heredity and that a specific gene, called vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2), predisposes humans towards spiritual or mystic experiences. The idea has been proposed ...
, and that over time natural selection has favored these people because their spirituality leads to optimism. Wright, however, thinks the tendency towards religious belief is not an adaptive trait influenced by natural selection, but rather a
spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...
— a trait that happens to be supported by adaptations originally selected for other purposes. Wright states that the human brain approaches religious belief based on how it adapted to survive and reproduce in early hunter-gatherer societies. He points out four key traits of religion that align with the human brain's survival adaptations: *Its claims can be surprising, strange, and even counterintuitive. *It claims to show what causes good and bad things to happen. *It tells people that they can control these causes and increase the ratio of good to bad results. *It is hard to falsify or disprove. Humans have adapted to pay attention to surprising and confusing information because it could make the difference between life and death (for instance, if a person left the campsite and mysteriously never returned, it would be wise for the others to be on guard for a predator or some other danger). Understanding and controlling cause and effect also takes top priority in the human brain, since humans live in complex social groups where predicting and influencing the actions and thoughts of others gains them allies, status, and access to resources. As human cognitive abilities and curiosity expanded over the centuries, their investigation of cause and effect expanded from the strictly social context out into the world at large, opening the doors for religions to explain things like weather and disease. Though some of these explanations were strange and perhaps dubious, the fact that they could not be completely disproven lent them credibility; it was better to be cautious than dead. Wright uses an example from the
Haida people Haida (, hai, X̱aayda, , , ) are an indigenous group who have traditionally occupied , an archipelago just off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, for at least 12,500 years. The Haida are known for their craftsmanship, trading skills, and ...
, indigenous to the northwest coast of North America, who would try to appease killer whale deities to calm storms out at sea; they would pour fresh water into the ocean or tie tobacco or deer tallow to the end of a paddle. While some people certainly died despite these offerings, those who survived were a testament to the ritual's possible efficacy. Mysterious and unproven beliefs can also persist in a culture because human brains have adapted to agree with the group consensus even if it goes against one's better judgment or personal beliefs, since a person alienated from the group loses protection, food, and mates. Wright cites the
Asch conformity experiments In psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the b ...
and even posits that
Stockholm syndrome Stockholm syndrome is a condition in which hostages develop a psychological bond with their captors. It is supposed to result from a rather specific set of circumstances, namely the power imbalances contained in hostage-taking, kidnapping, an ...
is not so much a syndrome as a natural product of evolution, the brain's way of ensuring that a person accepts and is accepted by their new social group. In addition, beliefs can persist because once a person publicly announces a belief, social psychologists have found that he or she is inclined to focus on evidence supporting that belief while conveniently ignoring evidence contradicting it, a logical fallacy known as
cherry picking Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position while ignoring a significant portion of related and similar cases or data th ...
.


Reviews

Journalist and political commentator
Andrew Sullivan Andrew Michael Sullivan (born 10 August 1963) is a British-American author, editor, and blogger. Sullivan is a political commentator, a former editor of ''The New Republic'', and the author or editor of six books. He started a political blog, ' ...
gave the book a positive review in ''
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'', saying that the book "...gave me hope that we can avoid both the barrenness of a world without God and the horrible fusion of fundamentalism and weapons of mass destruction." ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...
'' religion editor, Lisa Miller, described ''The Evolution of God'' as a reframing of the
faith Faith, derived from Latin ''fides'' and Old French ''feid'', is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or In the context of religion, one can define faith as "belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion". Religious people often ...
vs. reason debate. Drawing a contrast to such authors as
Sam Harris Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics ...
,
Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ...
and
Christopher Hitchens Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British-American author and journalist who wrote or edited over 30 books (including five essay collections) on culture, politics, and literature. Born and educated in England, ...
, Miller gives an overall positive review of the book's approach to the examination of the concept of God. In a review for ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', Yale professor of psychology Paul Bloom said, "In his brilliant new book, “The Evolution of God,” Robert Wright tells the story of how God grew up." Bloom sums up Wright's controversial stance as, "Wright’s tone is reasoned and careful, even hesitant, throughout, and it is nice to read about issues like the morality of Christ and the meaning of jihad without getting the feeling that you are being shouted at. His views, though, are provocative and controversial. There is something here to annoy almost everyone." However, in a ''New York Times'' review that included a reply from Wright,
Nicholas Wade Nicholas Michael Landon Wade (born 17 May 1942) is a British author and journalist. He is the author of numerous books, and has served as staff writer and editor for ''Nature'', ''Science'', and the science section of ''The New York Times''. ...
, a writer for the "Science Times" section, notes the book is "a disappointment from the Darwinian perspective", because evolution "provides a simpler explanation for moral progression than the deity Wright half invokes." Wright replied to Wade's comments, saying Wade had misunderstood Wright's argument and that "The deity (if there is one–and I’m agnostic on that point) would be realizing moral progress through evolution’s creation of the human moral sense (and through the subsequent development of that moral sense via cultural evolution, particularly technological evolution)."Non-Evolution of God, Part 2
a July 2009 blog post from the ''New York Times'' website
Wade replied that "evolution seems to me a sufficient explanation for the moral progress that Mr. Wright correctly discerns in the human condition, so there seemed no compelling need to invoke a deity."


Promotional appearances

To promote the book, Wright did a variety of interviews, including with the ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', ''
Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...
'', and ''
Bill Moyers Journal ''Bill Moyers Journal'' was an American television current affairs program that covered an array of current affairs and human issues, including economics, history, literature, religion, philosophy, science, and most frequently politics. Bill Mo ...
''. He also did a series of videos on
Bloggingheads.tv Bloggingheads.tv (sometimes abbreviated "bhtv") is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast onl ...
, a website he co-founded with
Mickey Kaus Robert Michael "Mickey" Kaus (; born July 6, 1951) is an American journalist, pundit, and author, known for writing Kausfiles, a "mostly political" blog which was featured on ''Slate'' until 2010. Kaus is the author of ''The End of Equality'' and ...
. Wright also appeared on ''
The Colbert Report ''The Colbert Report'' ( ) is an American late-night talk and news satire television program hosted by Stephen Colbert that aired four days a week on Comedy Central from October 17, 2005, to December 18, 2014, for 1,447 episodes. The show focuse ...
'' on August 18, 2009.Wright on The Colbert Report
/ref>


See also

*'' Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society'' by
David Sloan Wilson David Sloan Wilson (born 1949) is an American evolutionary biologist and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences and Anthropology at Binghamton University. He is a son of author Sloan Wilson, and co-founder of the Evolution ...
, published in 2002. *'' Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon'' by
Daniel Dennett Daniel Clement Dennett III (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relat ...
, published in 2006.


References


External links


EvolutionOfGod.net
- Official website of the book, ''The Evolution of God''.
MeaningOfLife.tv
- Website in which Wright explores religious themes through interviews with famous religious personalities.
Video (and mp3) of talk by Wright on the subject of the book, "The Evolution of God"
(57:59), at The
New America Foundation New America, formerly the New America Foundation, is a think tank in the United States founded in 1999. It focuses on a range of public policy issues, including national security studies, technology, asset building, health, gender, energy, educa ...

Audio of radio interview with Wright about "The Evolution of God"
on KPCC 89.3 AirTalk with Larry Mantle
Audio of radio interview with Wright about the book
on
KCRW KCRW (89.9 MHz FM) is a National Public Radio member station broadcasting from the campus of Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California, where the station is licensed. KCRW airs original news and music programming in addition to programm ...
by
Mickey Kaus Robert Michael "Mickey" Kaus (; born July 6, 1951) is an American journalist, pundit, and author, known for writing Kausfiles, a "mostly political" blog which was featured on ''Slate'' until 2010. Kaus is the author of ''The End of Equality'' and ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Evolution of God, The 2009 non-fiction books 2009 in religion Books about ideologies Books about religion Books by Robert Wright (journalist) Evolution