> dkomo wrote:
>

>>It's often said that belief in supernatural agents such as those found
>>in the religions of the world is not a direct adaptation but a
>>*side-effect* of the way our minds work.
>>
>>But what exactly is a side-effect of evolution? Richard Dawkins in his
>>new book _The God Delusion_ offers a good example of such a side-effect:
>>the tendency of moths to fly in crazy patterns near a bright light
>>source at night, such as candle flames, campfires and electric lights.
>>The moth will often fly into the flame and immolate itself.
>>
>>I had a instance of this earlier this year. I was sitting at the
>>computer at night in my office last spring when a moth happened to fly
>>in and began immediately to repeatedly bounce off the ceiling and
>>overhead light fixture. This is extremely annoying when you're trying
>>to get some work done, so I started looking around for The Terminator,
>>my rolled up newspaper which I use to dispatch moths. But before I
>>could reach for it, I saw the moth fly straight into the very hot light
>>bulb overhead during one of its swoops and was killed instantly. I
>>could see it lying upside down inside the translucent light fixture.
>>
>>So what causes this idiotic moth behavior? It isn't an evolutionary
>>adaptation as it obviously doesn't improve the moth's fitness. Dawkins
>>explains it in the section "Religion as a By-Product of Something Else"
>>in Chapter 5 "The Roots of Religion".
>>
>>Dawkins speculates that moths use light sources at optical infinity at
>>night (such as the moon or distant cities) to navigate:
>>
>>"The insect nervous system is adept at setting up a temporary rule of
>>thumb of this kind: 'Steer a course such that the light rays hit your
>>eye at an angle of 30 degrees.' Since insects have compound eyes (with
>>straight tubes or light guides radiating out from the center of the eye
>>like the spines of a hedgehog), this might amount in practice to
>>smoething as simple as keeping the light in one particular tube or
>>ommatidium."
>>
>> _The God Delusion_, p. 173
>>
>>
>>Ordinarily such a navigation system serves the moth well. The system is
>>quite accurate as long as the light source is at infinity, and they can
>>use the same system with reversed sign to return home after a foray.
>>The problem arises when the moth flies past a light source that is close
>>by, with its light rays diverging like the spokes of a wheel. As the
>>moth attempts to keep a angle of 30 degrees to the light, it will have
>>to keep turning its fly path, producing a spiral which steers it into
>>the flame or electric light.
>>
>>Now Dawkins draws the analogy between religion and the moth:
>>
>>"Now, apply the by-product lesson to religious behavior in humans. We
>>observe large numbers of people -- in many areas it amounts to 100
>>percent -- who hold beliefs that flatly contradict demonstrable
>>scientific facts as well as rival religions followed by others. People
>>not only hold these beliefs with passionate certitude, but devote time
>>and resources to costly activities that flow from holding them. They
>>die for them, they kill for them. We marvel at this, just as we
>>marveled at the 'self-immolation behavior' of the moths. Baffled, we
>>ask why. But my point is that we may be asking the wrong question. The
>>religious behavior may be a misfiring, an unfortunate by-product of an
>>underlying psychological propensity which in other circumstances is or
>>once was, useful. On this view, the propensity that was naturally
>>selected in our ancestors was not religion per se; it had some other
>>benefit, and it only incidentally manifests itself as religious behavior."
>>
>> _The God Delusion_, p. 173-174
>>
>>
>>A question I have is, "is religious behavior and moth light-seeking
>>malfunction a "spandrel" as Stephen J. Gould defined it:
>>
>>"A spandrel is a phenotypic characteristic that evolved as a side effect
>>of a true adaptation."
>>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandrel_%%28biology%%29
>>
>>The article above doesn't make it clear that a spandrel, although a
>>side-effect, becomes itself an adaptation. That is, it becomes useful
>>to the organism and is subject to selection, as in the hacker's "misbug":
>>
>>"In computer programming, a misbug is an unexpected behaviour of a
>>program that turns out to be useful."
>>
>>So the moth's behavior around nearby lights is not a spandrel because it
>>is not helpful to the moth. Religious behavior is a spandrel because it
>>could be helpful to humans and itself come under selection in cultural
>>evolution.
>>
>>The original spandrel in architecture:
>>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandrel
>>
>>
>> --dkomo@cris.com

>
>
>
>
> dkomo writes:
>
> So the moth's behavior around nearby lights is not a spandrel because
> it
> is not helpful to the moth. Religious behavior is a spandrel because
> it
> could be helpful to humans and itself come under selection in cultural
> evolution.
>
>
> I haven't read that Gould's definition of a spandrel is adaptationist
> but merely the unintended consequence (side effect) of a thing or
> function.

> if so whether it constitutes adaptationism.

> of our minds we still are "adapted". Again, it gets back to the rift
> between cultural evolution and biological evolution. As a response of
> learning and science "we've" realized there is no such thing as a
> personal God..these are anthropormic. But the vast majority of people
> believe in a personal God...I would say that its biological...this need
> for religion. Or I'll say it was definitely founded when language
> developed. This belief in religion may have even applied to ancestral
> cavemen who didn't have the power of language...just grunts.I think
> biology applies to the entire organism both the brain and the mind. I
> can't prove it and I don't have any proof but I think somehow religion
> was a biological adaptation.

> religion equates with lack of complexity of the brain/mind.

> science and technology didn't really get going until the last three
> hundred years religion was useful but at the same time (many times
> actually) it was not useful. I don't care how much science and
> technology advances (and if there is any Baldwin effect going on here I
> haven't witnessed it) all that will happen is a reintroduction of the
> myths into the new science and culture. Man will never cease to believe
> in a personal anthropomorphic God until he is actually genetically
> engineered to the point where that person thinks and feels differently.
>

> Aggression was a biological adaptation chosen by natural selection and
> imprinted on our genetic code. This nobody can dispute. It is also,
> unless your a complete moron, no longer adaptable. I would have thought
> the introduction of nuclear weapons would have been an intelligent
> reason (from the point of species survival) for the human race to step
> back. But instead there are enough nuclear weapons hundreds of times
> worth of blowing the world up.
>
> The real ugly secret that most people, even those who cheer optimistic,
> is that this species will probably extinguish itself before genetic
> engineering can hope to bring about a signifigant difference.
>