What is Right and What is Wrong in the Darwinian Approach to the Study of Religion

Abstract

One of the greatest challenges for the study of cultural evolution is an explanation of processes and mechanisms of transmission of cultural traits. Darwinian approach is a promising and useful research program. However, it is worth asking in what extent Darwinian account can provide appropriate and reliable explanation for origin and transmission of religious components. In this paper we would like to discuss some benefits and weaknesses of this approach for the study of religion. It seems that Darwinian approach fails to explain transmission of acquired traits and non-random variation. We can look for biological benefits provided by religious affiliation when trying to explain it in terms of survival and reproduction. However, we assume that biological evolutionary explanation cannot explain ultimately some unique human traits like religiosity. Biological evolutionary account can explain a number of similarities between humans and nonhuman animals in some basic behavioral patterns (similarity by homology). The focal point is if this approach can provide reliable explanation for specifically human cultural phenomena that only analogically can be found among some social animals, especially social insects, like in the case of mechanism of eusociality. The key idea of our paper is that Darwinian approach to religion might explain only small part of human religiosity, and reliable explanation should combine Darwinian and cultural evolution, and cognitive account.