Lyle B. Steadman

Religion as an identifiable traditional behavior subject to natural selection

Abstract This article puts forth a definition of religion that refers only to identifiable elements. Previous definitions typically refer to beliefs in supernatural—i.e., unidentifiable—phenomena. These definitions neglect the fact that beliefs in general may be just as difficult to identify with the senses as the content of religious beliefs, i.e., alleged supernatural beings and powers. This article thus argues that the only thing identifiable that is distinctly religious is a certain type of behavior; more specifically, a certain type of talk. Further, although a statement about the existence of something supernatural is necessary for talk to be considered religious, such a claim by itself is not identifiably religious. Religious behavior can rather be defined as the communicated acceptance of a supernatural claim, a claim whose accuracy cannot be demonstrated by the senses. The accuracy of this definition can be tested by examining whether it is consistent with the way the words “religion” and “religious” are actually used. If this definition is found to be consistent with the use of these words, the study of religion becomes subject to the scientific principles used to study other forms of behavior. These principles include the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Human kinship as a descendant-leaving strategy: A solution to an evolutionary puzzle

Abstract Ethnographic examples are used to demonstrate three aspects of human kinship altruism that can be explained neither by the standard evolutionary explanations of altruism (i.e., kin selection, and reciprocal altruism) nor the controversial theory of group selection. First, humans favor closer kin over more distant kin even at genealogical distances where kin selection is essentially nonoperative. Second, this favoring of “close” distant kin over “distant” distant kin is prescribed by tradition and does not depend on the greater likelihood of reciprocal altruism from the closer kin. Finally, the favoring of “close” distant kin over “distant” distant kin does not depend on co-membership in the same social group. To explain this universal aspect of human social behavior, an alternative evolutionary explanation of altruism—referred to as the “descendant-leaving strategy model”—is presented.

Myths as Instructions from Ancestors: The Example of Oedipus

The growing interest in dual-inheritance models of human evolution as focused attention on culture as a means by which ancestors transmitted acquired phenotypic characteristics to their descendants. The ability of cultural behaviors to be repeatedly transmitted from ancestors to descendants enables individuals to influence their descendant-leaving success over many more generations than are usually considered in most analyses of inclusive fitness. This essay proposes that traditional stories, or myths, can be seen as a way in which ancestors influence their descendant-leaving success by influencing the behavior of many generations of their descendants. The myth of Oedipus is used as an example of a traditional story aimed at promoting proper behavior and cooperation among kin. This interpretation of the Oedipus myth is contrasted with Freudian and structuralist interpretations.

The human breast and the ancestral reproductive cycle

This paper, using modern Darwinian theory, proposes an explanation for the increasingly high incidence of breast cancer found among pre-and post-menopausal women living today in westernized countries. A number of factors have been said to be responsible: genetic inheritance (BRCA-1), diet (specifically the increased consumption of dietary fat), exposure to carcinogenic agents, lifetime menstrual activity, and reproductive factors. The primary aim of this paper is to demonstrate the value of a perspective based on Darwinian theory. In this paper, Darwinian theory is used to explore the possibility that the increased incidence of breast cancer is due primarily to the failure to complete in a timely manner the reproductive developmental cycle, beginning at menarche and continuing through a series of pregnancies and lactation. On the basis of comparative data, we assume that most women in ancestral populations began having children before age 20 or so and tended to remain either pregnant or nursing for most of their adult lives. If a woman did not have a child by age 25 or so, she probably would never have one. Therefore, selection would probably not have acted against deleterious traits, such as cancer, that appeared after that age, just as it does not act against such traits in old age.

Reconceptualizing the Human Social Niche: How It Came to Exist and How It Is Changing

In this paper we present a reconceptualization of the social dimension of the human niche and the evolutionary process that brought it into existence. We agree with many other evolutionary approaches that a key aspect of the human niche is a social environment consisting primarily of cooperating and altruistic individuals, not a Hobbesian social environment of “war of all against all.” However, in contrast to the conception of this social environment as consisting of individuals who, in Boyd and Richerson’s words, “cooperate with large groups of unrelated individuals,” we propose that it is more accurately described as consisting of cooperating individuals who currently are often nonkin but who, until relatively recently in human existence, were primarily, and in many cases almost exclusively, kin. In contrast to the conception of this social environment coming into existence by way of a process of selection within and between groups, we propose that it is the result of selection operating on traditions originated by ancestors and transmitted to their descendants. We use our fieldwork in three areas of the world (New Guinea, Ecuador, and Canada) to illustrate this process and how current social environments can be roughly placed on a continuum from traditional to nontraditional.

Talk and Tradition: Why the Least Interesting Components of Religion May Be the Most Evolutionarily Important

Many evolutionary explanations of religion tend to focus on the strange and exotic aspects of religion assumed to be the result of weird beliefs in things that do not exist. In contrast, we propose that religious behavior is distinguished from non-religious behavior by one of the most familiar and mundane of human behaviors: talk. Specifically, we suggest that it is the making, and communicating acceptance, of supernatural claims that distinguishes religious behavior. Given that talk is a form of communication aimed at influencing the behavior of others, we propose that proximate explanations of religion focus on the identifiable social effects of religious behavior. Given that the talk identified as religious was almost certainly transmitted from ancestors to descendants during recent human evolution, we suggest that ultimate explanations of religion focus on the consequences of traditional religious behavior transmitted through a multitude of generations. Our hypothesis is that religious traditions were perpetuated because they increased cooperation among co-descendants by communicating the willingness to accept the influence of each other and their common ancestors.