Analogues of Religion in Non-Human Animals

[MonDie]

In itself that's fine. If a majority of people had heart failure, we'd still call them sick. However, this is slightly different. If everyone had sickle cell disease, would we still call them sick? No, it'd be a norm, something we just grew up with (as a species), but lowers our chance of catching malaria, i.e. an evolutionary trait. We have evolved to believe in god, whether it be by genes or memes (now that'd be an interesting discussion). For better or worse it's a human trait, for now. It was, and still is, the norm. Broken suggests deviation from this norm. Broken suggests we once had reason, then lost it.

 

But it seems that reasoning predates religion in our evolutionary history. There is no clear evidence of religion in apes, although some people speculate (e.g. "Chuck Blanchard"), and you might find some inter-specific (across species) examples of religion if you bend the definition. In contrast, we now know that apes can reason and have some surprising mental skills (e.g. chimp eidetic memory), and it's obvious that these mental skills, including reasoning, were advantageous. Thus, it seems obvious that, when reasoning and religion conflict, we should follow reason.

In conclusion, religion shouldn't impede reasoning because, whatever adaptive functionality religion had or has, reasoning clearly has more adaptive functionality.

Edited June 1, 2012 by Mondays Assignment: Die

[MonDie]

Interesting. I guess this is where the gene/meme admixture makes things complicated. A couple of objections though. It is unclear whether apes will go on to develop human-level intelligence, and if they do what their 'beliefs', if any, would be. If they do, just because apes followed one evolutionary path to this end, it does not follow that humans followed the same path. And (sorry to any anthropologists), this type of research cannot be as tightly controlled as the physical sciences, and so will never have the same level of accuracy. It can only ever be suggestive, rarely reaching firm conclusions from which predictions can be made.

 

I agree, when reasoning and religion conflict, we should follow reason. I'm not a religious apologist. But what is at issue here is what is, not what should be.

 

Did I say "early examples of religion?" Ehh, I meant examples of religion in our relatives. I'm having a brain malfunction day.

 

I was thinking about comparing Relative Brain Size of neanderthals and chimps since the former might have had some form of religion, but the prospect looks perilous already. I might come back to this argument if I learn anything applicable.

Edited June 1, 2012 by Mondays Assignment: Die

[iNow]

Not that it's thread relevant, but brain size isn't always the best indicator because it ignores brain structure, convolution, fissuring, and function (maybe another thread).

 

I do suspect strongly, however, that there are rather significant analogs to religion to be found in non-human primates, and even elsewhere in the animal kingdom.

[Moontanman]

Not that it's thread relevant, but brain size isn't always the best indicator because it ignores brain structure, convolution, fissuring, and function (maybe another thread).

 

I do suspect strongly, however, that there are rather significant analogs to religion to be found in non-human primates, and even elsewhere in the animal kingdom.

 

 

I would have to agree, elephants are the first species to come to mind. They do have some sense of their own mortality even going as far as identifying the bones of not just other elephants but those they knew as friends and or members of their own family groups. They have a language and communicate to each other using infra sound as well as sound within the range of human hearing. .

 

http://www.elephantvoices.org/elephant-communication/acoustic-communication.html

[MonDie]

Can you give some examples and describe what aspects of religion they're analogous to?

 

EDIT: Typed before Moontanman's post.

 

 

 

EDIT: Cannibalism, which was suspected to be religious, was/is present in chimps and a particular Hominin. I'll have to review the evidence since I wasn't as focused on school when I took Anthropology 101.

Edited June 1, 2012 by Mondays Assignment: Die

[iNow]

I've asked that these posts be split...

[Moontanman]

Can you give some examples and describe what aspects of religion they're analogous to?

 

EDIT: Typed before Moontanman's post.

 

 

More on that

 

http://animal.discovery.com/news/briefs/20051031/elephant.html

 

I've asked that these posts be split...

 

 

Sorry , no intent to go off topic.

[imatfaal]

!

Moderator Note

This topic was split off from the people who believe in God are broken thread

Please note that Prometheus' post no 993 deals with this issue and is, in part a response to post no. 1 of this thread

I was unwilling to cut that out of the other thread (and I don't know how/if I would be able to copy it) - you can read it here

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/65651-people-who-believe-in-god-are-broken/page__view__findpost__p__681481

[dimreepr]

More on that

 

http://animal.discov...1/elephant.html

 

 

 

 

Sorry , no intent to go off topic.

 

 

Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner#Superstition_in_the_pigeon after all tell me the difference between religion and superstition.

 

 

[Prometheus]

Also http://en.wikipedia....n_in_the_pigeon after all tell me the difference between religion and superstition.

 

 

 

To my mind this experiment suggests that reason and superstition would develop together. I imagine that as humans began to reason about things, they came to an understanding that when something happens, something caused it to happen. Without the reasoning abilities of a modern human though, the causes were 'river god made the river swell' (after all they knew nothing of the melting glacier miles away) and such. Religion, in this context and as an extension of superstition, could be seen as an early attempt to identify causes.

 

Funny, when Derren Brown recreated this experiment (for entertainment, not actual science) for humans, they fell into the same pigeon thinking.

 

 

[dimreepr]

To my mind this experiment suggests that reason and superstition would develop together. I imagine that as humans began to reason about things, they came to an understanding that when something happens, something caused it to happen. Without the reasoning abilities of a modern human though, the causes were 'river god made the river swell' (after all they knew nothing of the melting glacier miles away) and such. Religion, in this context and as an extension of superstition, could be seen as an early attempt to identify causes.

 

Funny, when Derren Brown recreated this experiment (for entertainment, not actual science) for humans, they fell into the same pigeon thinking.

 

 

 

For me it goes deeper still, in that, the Elders saw a way to use these observations (that all agree on) to manipulate the thinking of the tribe in general. Wisdom of the aged, in a simple society, goes a long way.

 

Herd behaviour is exploitable as long as the “herd” is unaware of the scrutiny.

 

 

[MonDie]

Not that it's thread relevant, but brain size isn't always the best indicator because it ignores brain structure, convolution, fissuring, and function (maybe another thread).

I don't have any clue about how all the different factors come together, and you already seem to know more about the nature of brain folding than I do. All I know is that relative brain size is accurate enough to place humans and dolphins at the top, although I'm assuming that the idea of dolphins holding second place wasn't based on their relative brain size in the first place. Because relative brain size is accurate enough in its placement of humans and dolphins, I thought it would be accurate enough for the argument.

 

EDIT: Also relevant to my argument:

The brain sizes of early human ancestors [...] also fall along the brain-to-body size curve of other primates until about 2-3 million years ago, when [Homo] brain sizes begin to deviate from the primate pattern by becoming larger, relative to their body size, than those of other primates (Strier 40).

 

Strier, Karen. Primate Behavioral Ecology. 3rd ed. Allyn and Bacon, 2007. Print.

According to Wikipedia, neanderthals lived 0.6-0.03 mya, so they [ED: probably] would have possessed this unusually large brain.

 

---

 

More on that

 

http://animal.discov...1/elephant.html

 

 

 

 

Sorry , no intent to go off topic.

According to the article, they cannot identify the bones of relatives, although they can distinguish an elephant's skull from the skull of another animal. Also, I interpreted those behaviors as sentimental rather than religious.

EDIT: Although sentimentality probably wouldn't drive them to examine remains because the remains are nothing like the living elephant was.

 

Also, I misread iNow's first response as "Not Now that it's thread relevant."

Edited June 1, 2012 by Mondays Assignment: Die

[john5746]

To my mind this experiment suggests that reason and superstition would develop together. I imagine that as humans began to reason about things, they came to an understanding that when something happens, something caused it to happen. Without the reasoning abilities of a modern human though, the causes were 'river god made the river swell' (after all they knew nothing of the melting glacier miles away) and such. Religion, in this context and as an extension of superstition, could be seen as an early attempt to identify causes.

 

Funny, when Derren Brown recreated this experiment (for entertainment, not actual science) for humans, they fell into the same pigeon thinking.

 

Not just identify causes, but control them. I once worked in manufacturing and we had two shifts. Each shift was religious about certain settings for the oven, carts, etc. I disabled one of the controls, yet they both continued to dial it in, insisting it was necessary. Nothing is more stressful then having no control, but being held responsible for an outcome.

[MonDie]

The Skinner experiment might be a good contribution to the thread that this thread was split from, although I don't have a problem with it being here, and it is relevant here.

 

EDIT: Also, I don't know the meaning of "adventitious reinforcement" as it is used in the Wikipedia article.

Edited June 1, 2012 by Mondays Assignment: Die