Model Says Religiosity Gene Will Dominate Society

Hugh Pickens writes writes "PhysOrg reports on a study by Robert Rowthorn, emeritus professor at Cambridge University, that predicts that the genetic components that predispose a person toward religion are currently "hitchhiking" on the back of the religious cultural practice of high fertility rates and that provided the fertility of religious people remains on average higher than that of secular people, the genes that predispose people towards religion will spread. For example, in the past 20 years, the Amish population in the US has doubled, increasing from 123,000 in 1991 to 249,000 in 2010. The huge growth stems almost entirely from the religious culture's high fertility rate, which is about 6 children per woman, on average. Rowthorn says that while fertility is determined by culture, an individual's predisposition toward religion is likely to be influenced by genetics, in addition to their upbringing. In the model, Rowthorn uses a "religiosity gene" to represent the various genetic factors that combine to genetically predispose a person toward religion, whether remaining religious from youth or converting to religion from a secular upbringing. Rowthorn's model predicts that the religious fraction of the population will eventually stabilize at less than 100%, and there will remain a possibly large percentage of secular individuals. But nearly all of the secular population will still carry the religious allele, since high defection rates will spread the religious allele to secular society when defectors have children with a secular partner."

Comments

Re:Evolution

[robot256]

So there's an evolutionary advantage to not believing in evolution? Whoda thunk it?

Re:Religiosity gene?

[Black Parrot]

The funny thing is that I thought academics would lean towards the free will argument, but I guess sometimes they take "there must be an explanation for everything" too far and convince themselves that human behaviour is easily explained with statistical models with ridiculously weak premises.

So... how would you detect free will, if it does exist?

Sagan on religiosity gene

[gratuitous_arp]

A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.

Re:Where is there proof of a "religious" gene?

[Pharmboy]

I'm assuming the gene doesn't actually make you "religious", it just predisposes you to being suggestible and superstitious, which is pretty much the foundation of any religion. ie: People with that gene are less skeptical in general. Just my take on it.

Re:Religiosity gene?

[ElectricTurtle]

Hate to break it to you and apparently everybody else responding, but there is evidence for a genetic component to homosexual preferences. The fundamental concept is that the gene(s) which when expressed lead to an increased sexual attraction to men work the same way in both genders, so because not all men who carry the gene express it (or do so exclusively), it leads to some female children being born with higher fertility rates, which is why the gene keeps being reproduced. Women with the gene end up having more children than those without it, and their male children are not guaranteed to express the gene, so over human history the net effect has been positive.

Re:It is probably a pro-social gene if any

[plasticsquirrel]

How does that explain the people who were traditionally the most religious people of a society, the contemplative recluses and hermits? I think also if you look into the sramana traditions of India such as Jainism and Buddhism, there is a great deal of radical individualism involved in their practice. The same goes for the Daoist hermits and the Indian Yogis who lived in the mountains in order to practice meditation.

Re:It is probably a pro-social gene if any

[Requiem18th]

Simple, it's individuality and rationalism went wrong. Religion not only breeds conformity, it breeds ignorance, even an individualist person who deflects from the mainstream will run bumbling in the dark because they literally don't know any better.

That and, I'm sorry to be condescending, but besides group solidarity, religiosity is related to an ability to believe contradictory statements -mental compartmentalization- they call it, and I'm pretty sure being dumb enough to not even find the contradiction helps a lot. So a radically individualist person can still be religious, but I think the ignorance aspect plays the major part. I mean, I've personally known people who don't know a thing about evolution other than it's wrong and requires monkeys giving birth to humans, it really is that awful.

I wonder how far into science education are those Daoists and Indian Yogis and what their IQs are. I mean seriously it would be an interesting thing to know, I could of course be completely wrong.