10.11.08
Religious behaviorism and the pseudo-scientific study of religion
Here’s the article in Science commented on here already: The Origin and Evolution of Religious Prosociality, and a (silly) commentary,
Does Religion Make People Nicer?
Only if they think Sky Big Brother is watching
Ara Norenzayan* and Azim F. Shariff
We examine empirical evidence for religious prosociality, the hypothesis that religions facilitate costly behaviors that benefit other people. Although sociological surveys reveal an association between self-reports of religiosity and prosociality, experiments measuring religiosity and actual prosocial behavior suggest that this association emerges primarily in contexts where reputational concerns are heightened. Experimentally induced religious thoughts reduce rates of cheating and increase altruistic behavior among anonymous strangers. Experiments demonstrate an association between apparent profession of religious devotion and greater trust. Cross-cultural evidence suggests an association between the cultural presence of morally concerned deities and large group size in humans. We synthesize converging evidence from various fields for religious prosociality, address its specific boundary conditions, and point to unresolved questions and novel predictions.
Here’s the original commentary.
More stupidity on religion in Science magazine
I have not read this article, so I am commenting on general depictions. But the point is clear enough.
Fallacy #1: religion arises via natural selection
Fallacy #2: religious behaviorism is the same as ‘religion’.
The post here cited deals with the first fallacy. As to the second it is simply meaningless, except to a sociologist, to address the question of religion simply in terms of the actual behavior of believers. Religion is about the interaction of individuals and their limitations in the context of an ideal.
(Note in passing the clear distinctions in Kantian ethics on such issues)
Have the writers of this article never heard of sermons? Someone stands up and harangues a flock with a set of ‘oughts’. The actual behavior of the religious adherents is not considered worthy of religious membership, etc, etc, in all sorts of permutations and combinations.
In general the premise of a science of religion is false, and has drifted in the direction of behavior manipulation on the part of socially over-conditioned civil society groups. No account is given in the definition of religion as to history, genesis, long-range success or failure (over centuries/millennia), etc.
Everything is thrown together in one block, and called religion.
It is an extreme oversimplification.
In general, this is a kind of laziness. And a wilful desire to mechanize religion to control it, secularize it, and deny it the basis of its real existence: the human will.