Talk:Evolutionary psychology of religion

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[edit] Interesting misconceptions

It's very interesting how subtle misconceptions creep into this discussion. Consider for example the views attributed to Gould (before I edited them) "He believed that religion was an exaptation or a Spandrel. That is religion evolved as byproduct of psychological mechanisms that were designed for other purposes." This demonstrates the point Justin Barrett makes, that some atheists tend to deify Natural Selection. Gould certainly did not believe that evolutionary mechanisms were "designed" at all! Furthermore pretty well everything that evolves comes about because of mechanisms that evolved for other reasons. The eye is a classic example. The point that Gould and co want to make - in the teeth of all the available evidence and in defiance of the obvious logic of natural selection which is that if something is widespread and pretty well ubiquitous it almost certainly does confer an evolutionary benefit - is that religious belief does not confer any evolutionary benefit. NBeale (talk) 16:00, 16 February 2008 (UTC)