Jeffrey P. Schloss

Evolutionary accounts of belief in supernatural punishment: a critical review

Although largely unaddressed by evolutionary theory for more than a century after Darwin, over the last decade a wide range of adaptationist, byproduct, and memetic explanations have emerged for various recurrent features of religious belief and practice. One feature that has figured prominently in adaptationist accounts of religion is belief in the reality of moralizing, punishing supernatural agents. However, there is at present no unified theory of what fitness-relevant feature of the selective environment to which this cognitive predisposition is adapted. We distinguish two divergent and often conflated approaches to supernatural punishment theory which hypothesize the adaptive character of such beliefs arise from the fact that they increase cooperation or decrease the cost of incurring punishment for norm violations. We evaluate these, and group and individual selectionist versions, in view of game theoretic models, experimental studies, and ethnographic data in light of which each proposal is plausible but with which none is fully concordant.

The Elephant in the Room: Do Evolutionary Accounts of Religion Entail the Falsity of Religious Belief?

Recent evolutionary accounts seek to explain religious belief and behavior in terms of native cognitive dispositions and culturally transmitted innovations that have persisted because they have adaptive value. Despite the often vitriolic evolutionreligion debate, new evolutionary theories typically avoid challenging the truth of religious beliefs. In this paper we do three things. (1) We describe five new developments in evolutionary theory that have potential relevance to whether religious beliefs are truth-tracking or not: adaptive misbeliefs, error management theory, selfdeception, signaling, and imitation. (2) We assess both their posited application to religious cognition and their possible entailments for the truth or warrant of religious beliefs. (3) We explore whether and under what conditions scientific explanations of religious belief should (a) remain neutral to the truth status of those beliefs or (b) render judgment about a belief’s falsity – or truth – as important aspects of the phenomenon to be explained.

Evolution, design, and genomic suboptimality: Does science “save theology”?

In a recent issue of PNAS, Avise (1) presents a helpful survey of suboptimal features of the human genome that are best understood as products of evolution, but in venturing to offer theological commentary on intelligent design (ID) and religious belief in general, he errs on three counts. First, the central claims of ID have been abundantly critiqued on strict empirical grounds (2), leaving no need for recourse to his theological objection that imperfections … 2To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: schloss{at}westmont.edu.

Where one stops the car: on the importance of what one takes “religion” to be

Sterelny’s evolutionary account of religion views its emergence not in terms of crossing an innate cognitive threshold but as the progressive elaboration of “social technologies” that develop as benefits and challenges of social cooperation become more complex. I agree with the import and plausibility of extending to religion his earlier accounts of norms and signaling, which posit the importance of “mindshaping, not just mindreading” as human social structure transitioned from direct mutualism to delayed and indirect reciprocation (Sterelny, 2014, 2015, p. 549). His current proposal might be made more useful by nuancing or clarification in the following ways.

Explaining and Explaining Away Religious Belief: Van Till's Criticisms of Barrett

Abstract Justin Barretts consideration of some challenges for religious belief raised by evolutionary and cognitive theories of religion was criticized by Howard Van Till for overstating tensions, mischaracterizing the most important epistemological issues, and proposing a solution that perpetuates war on evolution. We argue that each of these claims is untrue, and is not conducive to dialogue that constructively engages and attempts to resolve tensions between science and religion where they do exist.

You can't always get what you want: Evolution and true beliefs

McKay & Dennett (MD maladaptive misbeliefs may routinely elude selective pruning; reproductively neutral misbeliefs may abound; and adaptively grounded beliefs may reliably covary with but not truthfully represent reality.