God Is A Spandrel – Part II

The last time I read an article by Michael Brooks, I found it rather odd. I’ve just read another article by him, and this one I found to be rather interesting – perhaps because he is fully in science journalism mode, rather than offering up his own speculations.

 

It’s an article in New Scientist entitled Born Believers: How Your Brain Creates God. Like an article in the NYT, which I pointed out a couple of years back, it explores the scientific debate on whether religious beliefs are the result of an evolutionary adaptation or arise as a by-product of some other adaptation. Now, just as then, it seems to me that the evidence points to religious belief being a spandrel – a by-product of other evolutionary adaptations.

 

(hat tip to Epiphenom for the link to the NS article)