Darwin's God - NYT Magazine

[ewmayer]

Interesting article on the emerging science of the evolutionary aspects of religious belief among humans in the latest issue of New York Times Magazine.

(I've also created a stripped-down HTML-only version of the page for my future reference, and by way of providing a kind of permalink to the above article.)

The possible group-selection aspects of this whole issue are interesting to me - I can conceive of no other way in which an innate tendency towards religiosity could possibly be evolutionarily advantageous. Of course Richard Dawkins, who considers even the slightest whiff of talk about possible GS as evolutionary apostasy, is not too keen on this, as expressed in his usual understated way: “sheer, wanton, head-in-bag perversity.”

However, given the number of non-apology apologies in later editions of The Selfish Gene, it's clear that with RD, there appears to be little or no correlation between the vehemence of his objections and their eventual veracity. But he certainly is a master of the "now go away, or I shall have to taunt you a second time" school of debate.

Enjoy,
-E