The Religion Meme and Prof Ramachandran

The Guardian has a weekly supplement devoted to the Life Sciences. This week it has an interesting article about why people have religious faith – suggesting that it may be a survival mechanism. Being atheist myself, I’ve long been intrigued by the religion meme.

The article mentions Professor VS Ramachandran, who is director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego, and adjunct professor of biology at the Salk Institute. The good professor is one of those people who can convey complex scientific concepts with clarity – a trait that is not as common as I would wish. He also is a natural wit, and does irony beautifully. An example: he was featured in a recent Horizon programme on synaesthesia (Derek Tastes of Earwax), and talking of the origins of language, with a completely deadpan face, he came out with: "How do you start with the grunts and groans and howls of our ape-like ancestors and then evolve all the sophistication of a Shakespeare or a George Bush?"