'Religiosity gene' and the future of secularism

Gregor Samsa

Interesting article about a model which predicts that, as religious people tend to have more children than non-religious, that a 'religiosity gene' will come to dominate, which inclines people more towards religious observance, conservatism and obedience - and that even if cultural influences trend people with such a predisposition to "defect" to a secular lifestyle, that these traits will carry into and influence the secular population.

Rowthorn has developed a model that shows that the genetic components that predispose a person toward religion are currently “hitchhiking” on the back of the religious cultural practice of high fertility rates. Even if some of the people who are born to religious parents defect from religion and become secular, the religious genes they carry (which encompass other personality traits, such as obedience and conservativism) will still spread throughout society, according to the model’s numerical simulations.

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-religiosity-gene-dominate-society.html

Now, it must be noted that this 'religiosity gene' seems to be purely speculative. Also, it does not take into account the reasons for increased fertility among observent religious people - the economic factors involved in the poorer people of the world tending towards more children seem to have been ignored.

But it's an interesting counter to the common assumption (among many of us secularists) that the world is trending towards secularism - and with it a higher degree of liberalism, freedom, democracy, etc. If this model is correct (which I'm not convinced it is), it we could be facing secular future that encompasses many of the traits of religion - ritual, obedience, orthodoxy.

Dades

Knee-jerk response to the article here... Surely if there was such a thing as a "religiosity gene" why isn't already dominating? i.e. Why are their countries still becoming increasingly secular?

To ignore the correlations between poverty/number of children/religiosity is ridiculous.

Gregor Samsa

Dades wrote: »

To ignore the correlations between poverty/number of children/religiosity is ridiculous.

Yeah, I'm very surprised at that, given that yer man Rowthorn is an (Emeritus) Professor of Economics.

Waking-Dreams

Perhaps, it’s because he’s just a professor in Economics that he’s punching above his weight when it comes to discussing aspects of evolutionary biology and genetics, etc.

This all reminds me of the following article:

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/572194-atheists-a-dying-breed-as-nature-favours-faithful#page1

What we do know is that humans have a predisposition to accept whatever their parents or elders tell them, as well as mankind’s fondness of looking for easy answers that explain the world (think primitive man inventing gods as the reason behind thunder or lightning for example). This is all the breeding ground religion has ever needed to take hold. But there is no religious gene itself.

Zillah

So, it won't be Mad Max or Star Trek. We'll just slowly slide back into the dark ages.

Zombrex

Zillah wrote: »

So, it won't be Mad Max or Star Trek. We'll just slowly slide back into the dark ages.

Don't get me started ....