(I´ll have to read Darwin´s Cathedral to get more of the group selection explanation of religion which I was introduced to in Jonathan Haidt´s book The Righteous Mind. )
The difference between accepting individual or group selection is very important for the explanation of culture, language, and religion which concern the final chapters. Take religion for instance. Explaining the evolution of religion has been tricky, for how does one explain something scientifically who's claims are either beyond science or simply factually wrong? You need a pretty good error theory to explain religion. Since what makes religion unique is at least fact-transcendent or the worse fact-free, religion must have evolved for purposes other than its truth value. If religion gave us the truth, there wouldn't be such intractable disagreement and dismissal to outright hostility to non-believers.
It is tempting to argue that religion evolved because it contributes to ingroup cohesion, and belief increased fitness because it selected those groups relative to others. Religion does bring people together as well as unite against others, which has been very advantageous in competitive and violent situations. The simplistic phrase there are no atheists in foxholes attests to this. Belief could get individuals to hate others and sacrifice themselves to their group in a way individual interest would not counsel. But if this view is true, then secular peoples/societies should be at a social disadvantage to religious groups. This is a common argument, that without religion society won't function as well. Without God, or as Dostoyevsky actually wrote immortality, everything is permitted.
But as we see secularization is associated with greater economic development and in the first world religion has been slowly retreating. It is a highly debate argument to assert the indirect adaptiveness of religion, which can break down into statistics and interpretation.
The alternative and I think right explanation of religion as well as culture is in individual psychology. It is adaptive to fool ourselves and deny reality as well as fool others. To quote George Costanza, it's not a lie if you believe it. Somehow it benefits individuals to believe in what is contrary to fact or devote themselves to what is beyond usefulness for their self interests. Only the drive of the genes could justify going against ones own reason and interest. It isn't that belief is the cause of indirect benefit to the individual, but that belief is the effect of some sort of individual advantage. Religion disguises selfishness from the individual. Many religions advocate male control of female reproduction which is certainly advantageous to the men to make sure the child is theirs. Women tend to be more religious than men, so the benefit is obvious. Religious belief also instills a confidence about the relation between actions and consequence, that one deserves what one gets.
Nietzsche and Freud formulated this repression hypothesis of religion; individuals lying to themselves to identify the value of other lives with theirs. The notion of religion's, as well as the cultural institution of marriage, role as restrictor of individual sexual activity was noted by Thomas Malthus, himself a reverend. The real question from an evolutionary perspective is how we ever came to value the truth, as our minds didn't evolve to represent reality but for own purposes. This applies to the origin of culture, which usually begins alongside religion. Group selection makes answering these questions easier and more in line with how we think of ourselves. The universal acid of Darwinism, as Daniel Dennett describes it, is that it explains natural phenomena without needing any intentional design behind it, or directly going against what design would bring. Altruistic behavior like complexity in nature does occur, but it isn't for the reasons we think it does, namely that we are consciously generous to one another by inclination.
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