if you understand the psychology of the
Big Mac meal you understand the
psychology of religion we evolved
adaptations for things that were crucial
and rare sugars of ripe fruit fat of
lean game meat of salt
those were crucial adaptations in our
past and the modern world creates a
novel form of it that comes from those
adaptations but hi Jackson was
supernormal stimuli okay not ripe fruit
but a coca-cola not lean game meat but
you know a fat hamburger french fries
soaked in in meat juice and it creates
these supernormal stimuli but they're
based on ancient adaptations let me just
take you now on a little bit of a tour
of some of these cognitive mechanisms
the first is decoupled cognition now
this is a fancy word for we can decouple
our cognition in time since I have been
talking I will guarantee you that
everybody in this room has thought of
while you're listening to me and paying
close attention you have thought of a
conversation you have had with somebody
in the past or you are thinking about a
conversation you're going to have with
somebody later on today as I'm talking
right now every one of us in this room
can imagine and conduct in our heads
a conversation with President Obama okay
it is as you can see it's extraordinary
and it's crucial for memory for planning
absolutely one of the essences of our
humanity it allows us these complex
interactions with unseen others complex
social interactions with unseen others
you can see that it's just one little
step to you know communicating with a
dead ancestor I don't know about you but
I'm getting to the age where a lot of
those near and dear to me have died and
I catch myself still talking to them
it's one step further to communicating
to a
god or gods hyperactive agency detection
all of us will mistake a shadow for a
burglar
we will never mistake a burglar for a
shadow we have these hyperactive agency
detection mechanisms if we were to hear
a loud bang right now we would all
startle and we would assume it was not
an accident it was agency and probably
human agency
now you may reasonably ask well okay how
does decoupled cognition interacting
with another how does hyperactive agency
how does that lead to supernatural
figures though I mean - you know
supernatural burglars okay how do you
get the the next level up from human to
supernatural this your minds fill in
there's no there are no lines there but
your minds see that Square and fill in
the lines
it's called intuitive reasoning and it
underlines the essence of religious
ideas which are minimally counter
intuitive worlds MC eyes now what is
what is this it's an optimal compromise
between the interesting and the expected
and it gives us attention arresting and
memorable things let me illustrate if I
tell you that that big tree out in front
of the conference center will do your
taxes wash your laundry you know
reprogram your computer you're simply
not going to believe me but if I tell
you that tree on the night of a full
moon will hear your wishes and grant
them you might be vulnerable to
believing that not this audience but
many people
but you might you might be vulnerable to
it because there's just one slight twist
but everything you know about trees is
intuitively in there and you fill in the
blanks
now think of think of the
judeo-christian God okay
he's everywhere there's a little twist
of physics but it's just a guy and you
fill in the blanks you don't even think
about it you fill in the blanks there's
no violation of basic human assumptions
he's a guy he can understand my southern
and accented English you know all the
all the assumptions about humanists are
filled in there's just one little twist
and all religious ideas have these
supernatural templates they have a
counterintuitive physical property like
you know God is everywhere a
counterintuitive may have a
counterintuitive piece of biology the
virgin birth but Mary is otherwise just
a girl counterintuitive psychology you
know God knows what I'm thinking but if
he knows what I'm thinking why do I
still have to pray to him why do I still
have to talk to him because again those
basic assumptions about humanists are
all still intact that's why we believe
it that's why we'll we'll start to
accept it and that's why it sticks in
our heads we see this most clearly some
of these vulnerabilities in children and
I mean we're all children grown-up
children from very early on or common
sense
dualists what does this mean means you
can take a five-month-old and you can
have a box you can arrange for a box to
move jump start like a person and a
five-month-old will startle you know a
five-month-old doesn't start off when a
human being moves in exactly the same
way so very early on you start to see
that we have systems that are designed
for dealing with agents with intentions
and goals and physical objects you know
children know more than they learn we
come into the world with these systems
already in place
it is natural from very early on to
think of disembodied minds now you can
flip it around and you can understand
why this is crucial if I required a body
to think about that person's mind that's
a real liability it's burdensome I need
to be able to think about somebody and
think about what's going on in them and
what their intentions or goals might be
without them present Jesse barian in
Island did some fascinating experiments
a puppet show in which an alligator eats
a mouse and then the children are asked
well does the mouse still need to eat or
drink and the children say no the mouse
still moving around no does the mouse
think certain things does the mouse want
certain things and children say yes you
start to see that division half of
four-year-olds if you interview them
have imaginary friends so that we see
that the belief in some life separate
from what is actually experienced in the
body is the default setting of the human
mind
another thing about children is that
they are causal determinants what does
this mean well any mind that is oriented
towards seeing intentions and desires
and goals is going to over-read purpose
if you ask a child what are birds for
you know to to sing what are rivers for
for boats to float on what are rocks for
and for animals to scratch themselves
okay we over read causality way over
read causality and purpose children will
spontaneously invent the concept of God
what you start to see are these
mechanisms that were born with make us
all very vulnerable to religious ideas
religious ideas are much easier its
disbelief it's truly understanding say
something like natural selection that is
cognitively of
a bit harder decoupled cognition
hyperactive agency minimally an
intuitive world promiscuous teleology
starting to build this this list of
cognitive mechanisms now we'll turn to
the attachment mechanism the attachment
mechanism in humans was laid out by
psychiatrist John Bowlby in England and
Mary Ainsworth the psychologist here and
the attachment system is the fundamental
caretaking system in mammals and think
about religions you're in distress what
do you do you've turned to a caretaker
you turn to an attachment figure Alan
Walker the great paleoanthropologist has
this absolutely haunting story in his
book about the Turkana boy and they
found this 1.7 million year old fossil
of an adult woman an adult Homo erectus
woman 1.7 million years old and she had
died of severe vitamin A poisoning which
would have meant that she was
hemorrhaging into her joints pain
couldn't move it's a terrible way to die
but a closer inspection they noticed
that there was a new bone growth and it
immediately caught him they suddenly
realized that this woman 1.7 million
years ago had lived for months and that
it meant that somebody was taking care
of her bringing her food and water
protecting her from predators you know
sitting with her through the long dark
dangerous nights in the savannas so you
see this attachment system you know in
our species or in our ancestors 1.7
million years ago the attachment system
is both crucial to belief but what I
want to show you is the attachment
system is one of the things that makes
it very hard to give up belief and we
see this illustrated in Darwin's life
remember Darwin went on the voyage of
the Beagle 1831 to 1836 he comes home
and his eyes his ideas are starting to
gel John Gould tells him his finches are
you know species that have never been
seen before
and he's realizes that species are not
immutable he starts to think about
evolution opens his notebooks this was
his original a tree of life and sees
that man may arise from animals and
there is no need for any deity remember
he went on the voyage of the Beagle as a
creationist this is what he writes in
his notebook in 1837 he's engaged to
Emma Wedgwood his first cousin he
realizes his species change they evolve
but he doesn't have a mechanism and in
September of 1838 he reads malthus's
essay and he gets his idea he sees the
mechanism the struggle for existence at
September 1838 somewhere in that fault
he told his fiancee in November he gets
the first of these kind of letters she
was distressed and she said this kind of
thinking might cause a painful void
between us they're married in January of
1839 in February of 1839 she writes him
another letter after his death this
letter was discovered and on the bottom
in his own hand is written you don't
know how many times I have cried over
this by the 1840s Darwin is walking Emma
and the children to the church on Sunday
mornings stopping at the gate they go
into church he goes off on a walk and it
is reasonable to think that it is the
the concern about his wife's reaction
the potential rupture of that bond
that's one of the things that led Darwin
to sit on his idea for twenty years and
we see this fear of loss of attachment
even in one of the modern apologists
Karl Giberson the Nazarene College
physicist who is constantly talking
about reconciling evolution and and and
religion and he states it quite
explicitly if he were to give up his
faith he
lose his parents his wife his children
fear of loss of attachment the rupture
of that bond so we see that the
attachment system is both crucial to
religion it's one of the barriers to
giving it up thanks for watching if you
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