Behavioral Ecology Blog

In an interesting story titled “Breeding for God” UK church-goes Erik Kaufmann claims:

Natural selection is selecting for genetic variations that favor religious belief because religious believers are more inclined to put having children above having higher living standards. In the process of selecting for more fertile humans natural selection is also selecting for more religious humans.

Kaufmann uses the Mormon’s as an example, citing their rapid population growth- specifically in Utah, where they now compromise more that 70% of the total population. While convincing, and quite logical, Kaufmann’s ideas are bunk. Lets review the 4 requisites of selection.

1. Variation- we yes, there is variation in religious belief…
2. This variation must be heritable… (hmmm, last time I checked, belief systems were not heritable)
3. The Malthusian parameter
4. Differential reproductive success- well yes, if people of religion X are breeding at a relatively quicker rate than non-religious folks, then yes, there is differential reproductive success

A quote form FuturePundit:

An important recent article in the American Journal of Sociology by Michael Hout, Andrew Greeley and Melissa Wilde examines trends in American religious denominational growth in the 20th century. The authors find that conservative Protestant denominations increased their share of all white Protestants from one third among those born in 1900 to two thirds for those born in 1975. Three quarters of the growth of white conservative Protestant denominations is demographic, since they have maintained a fertility advantage over more liberal denominations for many decades.

OK, OK, uncle- yes, there does seem to be an increase in the relative percent of people believing in “god:, this does not mean that such belief is as a result of natural selection… that is unless somebody can show that religious belief is heritable..