Firstly, I’d like to point out the great irony of this. Atheists, whose worldview depends most heavily on Evolution, who talk a lot about the selfish gene and biological fitness, focusing all of their thought and efforts on the preset, physical world, are themselves unfit in it. Theists, who don’t seem to care much about fitness or genes (and in some cases, actively reject evolutionary notions), focus instead on non-physical places like Heaven and spiritual beings like God; they are the ones who turn out to be the more fit in the physical world. Faith in “Iron Age fairy tales” (as Sam Harris puts it) turns out to be more effective in producing fitness than faith in Science (with a capital ‘S’). Perhaps we have, as a species, finally discovered our origins, and are now being destroyed by the forbidden knowledge.
Now it’s time for that ever-dangerous and often wrong practice called extrapolation! Now that we have, in strict biological terms, determine the meme of Atheism to be a parasite, let us turn our attention to what this will mean for the meme and its host.
One of two things will happen if the evident fertility rates are true and remain unchanged. If Atheism does not prove to be contagious, if it does not transmit horizontally from person to person, then it will go extinct; it will prove to be a parasite whose hosts are out-bred by those with the symbiont meme of Theism. If those infected fail to proselytize and spread the meme, then it will fail in a few generations.
If, on the other hand, Atheism proves contagious, then it may survive. It reduces the fitness of its hosts, and, like a virus, can only stay alive by reducing its host's fitness. As far as we know, this is how viruses we have today did survive through the ages: perpetual transmission despite host destruction. In this case, Atheism doesn’t destroy the life of its victims, only their ability to reproduce. It is possible that it will persist by continued horizontal transmission (adults to adults), despite how it is self-limited in vertical transmission (parents to children) by reduced fitness.
If this latter case is true (and I think it is, given the increasing number of nonreligious people), and given present fertility rates hold, we as a species must keep it under control; if Homo sapiens is to survive, we cannot all be Atheists. Dawkins and the New Atheists envision a world without religion and think such a world would be better (for a direct critique of this idea, I can think of no more convincing argument than that advanced by Parker, Stone, et. al.: here). But, if our assumptions hold, such a world cannot exist. With a fertility rate of 1.18 (or anything less than 2), it would not take many generations for our race to go extinct. And then, even if it were better morally, ours would be a selfish tyranny of a greedy few human generations, who despised their ancestors’ hopes for their would-be descendents to go on living.
With or without an Atheist utopia, this critique can be applied to Atheists as a group. With a collective fertility rate below 2, they are enjoying the benefits of their ancestors’ genes without carrying on the proud tradition of life by bestowing their genes to their children. A billion generations of unicellular organisms, fish, amphibians, mammals, apes and humans in an unbroken line have all kept positive population growth up through the present day, just to be cut off at last by a creature calling itself an Atheist. (Now I've been picking on Atheism for low birth rates as it is the thrust of this essay. But the same arguments apply to rich people, educated people and white people on the whole; all of them have negative population growth. I might blog about that later.)
Atheism, like every parasite, needs to constantly spread to new organisms if it is to survive. It must recruit Theists, because it cannot, by itself, produce enough Atheists. To maintain the population of infected hosts, it must draw from the vivacious uninfected. Thus, Atheism is a meme that is dependent on another: Theism. Without the population to recruit from, it would drive its host into extinction. The opposite is not true of Theism; Theism is independent.
So we now have the following state of affairs:
So we now have the following state of affairs:
When the Selfish Gene finally produced his masterpiece, the Atheist, he found that he had finally created a being like unto himself. In the image of The Selfish Gene, he created him. Male and female he created them. But the Atheist had no high ambitions for immortality like the Selfish Gene who carried on for untold eons with a singular plan. No. The Atheist lacked this ideal, but he retained the selfishness. And so instead of spending resources in bearing and rearing young, the Atheist used all these for himself, The Selfish Gene and his plans be damned. So The Selfish Gene was destroyed by his child and his advocate: the Atheist. The Selfish Gene was, in the final hour, out-selfished by the Atheist.
What is the conclusion of the matter? As I said in the beginning, this essay is not about right and wrong. It’s not about true or false. I have taken concepts of biology and applied them to Atheism and Theism. So what’s the point of this essay? Some of the comments thus far have been along the lines of 'sure, but so what'? Why did I just write so much about Atheism and fitness? Let me be clear about some things I did not mean. When I said Atheism is unfit, I did not mean that Atheists are worthless people. When I said that they are selfish, I did not accuse them of irredeemable moral deprivation. All of the sins committed by the Atheist are also committed by the Theist, even idolatry. The point of this essay is not to bash Atheists, but to argue Atheism’s claim to be beneficial for the human race is biologically false. I argued that, in terms of the primary biological definition of benefit, Atheism does not benefit our race and that it must be sustained by a meme that does.
But all this leaves me open to a very powerful criticism. The Atheist may justly reply, "There are more important things than fitness! It's not all about biology!" To such a criticism, I would happily reply, “Then let us discuss Philosophy!” But, alas, Philosophy is not the subject of this essay!
<---Previous Post "Introduction"
Great post! I like the inset you have on the selfish gene. Brilliant!
ReplyDeleteAnd the reply that "It's not all about biology" is quite ironic, isn't that what they're arguing for against theism in the first place?
Thanks! I was intrigued by the argument posed by Plantinga (but was earlier developed by CS Lewis), "An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism" (http://bit.ly/hQ5A47) because of its great irony. I hoped to capture some of that here.
ReplyDeleteMe: Entertaining essay, and I’m not being sarcastic.
ReplyDeleteMe: First off I object to the idea that atheism (as defined as lack of belief in a deity) is a meme. You are suggesting that not accepting the meme of theism is a meme of its own. This would mean we all have an infinite number of memes because there are an unlimited number of things we can come up with that we don’t believe in. Each of those non-beliefs would be a meme of its own. I would say atheists are those not infected by the theism meme. If a person is not infected by the theism meme or the “atheism meme” what is the religious affiliation of that person?…atheism. Theists are constantly trying to say non-belief is a belief; it isn’t. It’s like saying the lack of a virus…is a virus. I’ll play along anyway. I’m always down for pointless mental masturbation.
You: “My concern today is the biological effect of Theism or Atheism on Homo sapiens sapiens as a species.”
Me:So this will be about the effect on the species and not the individual?
You:“…some sense symbiotic; each organism in the relationship benefits from the other…There can also be commensalism, where one benefits and the other is unaffected... Finally, there is parasitism, where one organism benefits at the cost of the other.” “In which of these three categories can we put the memes of Atheism and Theism?”
Me:I think by symbiotic you really mean mutualism. Symbiosis is, generally, the overarching term for all the different types of relationships. These terms relate to a relationship between individuals not species. This was supposed to be about the species, right? I’ll play along anyway. You will have to say what you mean by benefit for a meme and benefit for an organism. Is reproduction beneficial to the organism? Is more people having the meme beneficially to the individual meme? Is a meme in a mind an individual or just one part of a larger meme consisting of all the infected minds? Since we don’t have those answers I will have to make assumptions later on.
You:“Are either of these memes adaptive?”
Me: Any answer would be pure conjecture as adaptability and fitness are highly complex ideas with no clear cut method of determination. The only way we can tell is by looking into the past from the future. Things that were adaptive in the past may not be adaptive going forward. We cannot predict the future environment and which traits will be advantageous in this unknown environment.
You:“Which of these, Atheism or Theism, leads to longer life?” “Living 85 instead of 78 is just icing on the fitness cake.”
Me: This is irrelevant to the topic as you said because it is beyond reproductive age. But I guess I could argue that longer living elderly is good for the individual, but bad for the species. More resources are given to those that don’t participate in reproduction or work. Open hunting seasons are instituted to control animal populations for the ‘good’ of that species. It’s horrid for the individual at that time, but is ‘good’ for the species. You said this was supposed to be about the effect on the species, right?
"Theists are constantly trying to say non-belief is a belief; it isn’t"
DeleteAtheism, as carefully defined, is not a belief. But a non-belief cannot exist in a vacuum. I'd be willing to bet that, from your non-belief, you have positive beliefs about epistemology: you're probably an empiricist and believe that knowledge gained by the senses is the only (or at least most) valid kind. You probably believe in particular scientific conceptions of the beginning, likely including a multiverse. Atheism, as strictly defined as you have, may not be a meme. But Atheism the Worldview most certainly is.
Perhaps it's a terminology problem. What would you call the set of beliefs that most New Atheists share, the idea-set in "The God Delusion"?
"So this will be about the effect on the species and not the individual?"
Both. As individual and group fitness contributes to the fitness of the species.
"I think by symbiotic you really mean mutualism."
Correct. My mistake. It has been corrected.
"You will have to say what you mean by benefit for a meme and benefit for an organism."
I was conceiving of benefit to an organism being fitness and in line with standard definitions, namely reproduction. My understanding of 'meme' was like a virus, so yes, a virus' success is also reproduction (and the most successful viruses are able to set up a steady state with their hosts, i.e. Herpes).
"The only way we can tell is by looking into the past from the future."
And that's what I've tried to do here. And you're right; future environments may be dramatically different. But it's hard for me to see a set of circumstances that would make a low birthrate more fit than a stable one.
"This is irrelevant to the topic as you said because it is beyond reproductive age"
Not for men. And not for memes. If it is a trait, unless we make the argument that it is vestigial or a new mutation, we assume that it is adaptive. Why do you suppose human lifespan lasts far beyond reproductive years? And whatever that fitness benefit is, don't you think it reasonable if you expand it still further with another 7 years?
You: “What we really care about is fertility rates…that nonreligious people are generally low-babied. ““So what does this mean? If these data are true, it seems we have an answer to our question. The Theists have greater fitness than the Atheists.”
ReplyDeleteMe: Fitness is far more complex than just: high fertility rates = fit. Low fertility rates are advantageous is some instances and high rates in others. If high fertility rates are always most fit why do some species have single offspring with long gestations? I’ll give you an example: If there is suddenly a dearth of resources for each family it will be easier to support one child instead of trying to spread the resources over a large number of children. Quality of offspring is a huge component and what the good qualities would be is impossible to know unless you know the future. Let me give you an example. Say theists have a exponentially more children than atheists and that every theist child ends up being a theist. Say this goes on for generations until theists dominate the population. That meme seems to have imparted great absolute fitness (a quantifiable concept) for those generations. Then let us say a massive theistic holy war starts (what a stretch that would be, eh?) where every theist is killed. The theists had a far greater fertility rate thanks to their meme, but the fitness from that meme in the end was terrible as they all died because of it.
You are using data in which approximately 10% of the population is atheistic and 90% theistic. You have not shown what the fertility rates would be if the numbers were reversed. It may be more difficult to find a suitable mate for an atheist in a population with a small percentage of atheists. Do you think the theistic reproductive rate would be the same if the population was 10% theistic? If the reproductive rate of the theistic population is the “ideal” 2.06 with 10% of the population being atheistic would that mean it may be too high if the “atheistic meme” didn’t exist? What if wanting a large family causes people to become theistic vs. the other way around? China is a highly atheistic country and they had to institute population controls to reign in an exploding population. You cannot extrapolate the data you cited to conclude that atheists couldn’t support a population on their own without theism meme help.
You:“This also doesn't address the question of social evolution. One might argue that a society that includes Atheists is more fit than one that includes only Theists. Firstly, I object to treating social evolution with the same gravitas as biological evolution.”
Me: Social evolution has to do with behaviors of one individual affecting the fitness of others around them. Care to explain ant colonies and bee hives without social evolution? The behaviors of the workers increase the fitness of other individuals. The genes of the worker benefit, however, since what their actions do amount to is kin selection or relative fitness (a quantifiable concept). Kin selection falls directly under social evolution. Social evolution is a part of biological evolution.
You: “Does a society even reproduce? In social evolution, is it not supposed to be the organism itself?”
Me: Social evolution has nothing to do with societies reproducing or societies acting like organisms.
"If high fertility rates are always most fit why do some species have single offspring with long gestations?"
DeleteOf course there are advantages to different gestation lengths, but that is standardize here (i.e. we're all humans). But I take your point:
I've gone into hypothetical land and assumed that things would generally be steady. You can argue that A) such reasoning in any sense is fundamentally silly (which I think you're doing) or B) that given the probabilities of the various Theist depopulation scenarios lead to an net lower fitness (we do this in medical economics and cost-effectiveness analysis).
"Do you think the theistic reproductive rate would be the same if the population was 10% theistic?"
Yes. Maybe higher. See Rodney Stark's "The Rise of Christianity" which argues that historically the growth of Christianity is well explained by steady reproduction (including during the early phases when it was a persecuted minority).
"What if wanting a large family causes people to become theistic vs. the other way around"
Interesting theory! Develop it. Provide evidence. I've made the assumption that these things are independent (as I've never heard of a conversion or de-conversion for these reasons). But if you have an argument, I'm all ears!
"China is a highly atheistic country"
I'd argue that the infection of a Chinese mind with Communism is an utterly different mental fitness plane than Western Atheism. Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism are in the meme mix and it would be difficult to separate the fertility contribution from "Atheism" that came with Communism. Now that you mention it, I probably should have specified "Western Atheism" as the specific meme that this article is dealing with (look at me being West-o-centric). Nevertheless, as dangerous as extrapolations are, it is at least a reasonable extrapolation outside of some contrary evidence.
"Social evolution has nothing to do with societies reproducing or societies acting like organisms."
I must have used the wrong term. Should I have said "societal evolution"? In standard theory, how were ethics/taboos evolved?
You: “Perhaps an argument could be made that it reduces the fitness of those individuals [atheism] affects, but increases the fitness of the species as a whole. Then let it be made! The comments box is ready! :)”
ReplyDeleteMe: I would not make that argument at all as the wording you have used is horrid. I can easily give numerous arguments that while the atheistic “meme” is correlated with a lower fertility rate in the current environment (as you pointed out above, but extrapolated incorrectly), but that it may “increase the fitness” of the species as a whole. I could also give arguments that while theistic memes are correlated with a higher fertility rate in the current environment, but may “decrease the fitness” of the species. But both would just be hand-waving on my part just like your arguments are above. The success of secular western governments, the propensity of the religious to start holy wars, the rejection of science, the inverse correlation between IQ & theism, and the backward moral principles of the religious would be easy places for me start such arguments. You point out the longevity and the carrying capacity issues in this essay that both may be species level advantages of atheism.
You: “I expect someone to object to these studies I cited because they are insufficient to prove that Atheism causes low fitness (instead of association and some confounder doing the causing).”
Me: You haven’t shown that atheism causes low fitness; you have shown that in today’s environment theists have a higher fertility rate than atheists, but if you want a potential confounder I'll give you one: intelligence (not education).
You: “Now it will be argued that there is overpopulation, and so Atheism (and other negative growth memes) is a good thing. This may be true, but if you use this argument, you’ve jumped tracks. I said at the beginning, I’m not talking about what’s good for society.”
Me: You said at the beginning you wanted to look at the effect on the species…? So what you really want to look at is the individual fitness…in this instance? Who is jumping tracks? Unless you are arguing that the species and society are mutually exclusive. But this overpopulation argument is just as legitimate as any argument you have presented.
You:“Further, the absolute fertility rate of white churchgoers in the US I cited above was 2.06. Is this not nearly ideal?”
Me: I don’t know, do you? I would say a fertility rate that allows for survival of the species without ever reach carrying capacity would be ideal. I don’t know if it is possible. The “ideal” is probably highly dependent on the demands of the environment.
You: “Below that and we are we are shrinking; too far above it and we are heading ever faster toward the planet’s carrying capacity and thus starvation.”
Me: So at 2.06 we are only kind of heading toward carrying capacity instead of “ever faster”?
You: “World population growth is occurring, but it is mostly in the developing world. This is not the fault of religion, but of the conditions of poverty. When child mortality drops, so do fertility rates. See the graph I made with GapMinder above (and play with it yourself here). Bottom line: if you want to lower fertility rates, save African babies.”
Me: So you are saying that fertility rates can vary based on environmental conditions irrespective of meme status? Agreed. By poverty you really mean “at or near carrying capacity.” If we save “African babies” we are artificially increasing the carrying capacity for a short time, and when that aid is removed there will be even more starvation and poverty than when we started. There is always a lag between reduction in poverty and decreasing fertility rates.
You:“Perhaps a fertility of 2.06 is contributing to a state of collapse. But this is speculation in economics or politics. To have this discussion, we must leave biology”
ReplyDeleteMe: Since when is carrying capacity outside the realm of Biology? If the fertility rate is such that population will continually increase then a carrying capacity will inevitably be reached.
You: “If we do see mass-starvation, then we can start doing biology again. We can watch Natural Selection and see if Atheism is adaptive in an environment of starvation. But until we have data, we have no science. We have only speculation.”
Me: You are right. If we don’t have data all we have is speculation. So what data do you have showing which traits and what fertility rates will be advantageous going forward?
You: “The meme of Theism seems to be symbiotic; those who hold it have higher fitness. Theism is adaptive. The meme of Atheism seems to be parasitic; those who hold it have lower fitness.”
Me: I think you mean theism is mutualistic. Symbiotic means lives together with no stance on how they relate to each other. Since you did not say what you mean by beneficial to the meme I have to assume that more meme infested minds is beneficial to the individual meme.
You say the atheistic meme is “parasitic.” This would mean the meme would be benefiting at the expense of the individual host NOT the “species” (jumping tracks again?) or at the expense of the fitness of the host (parasites may or may not change fitness). You have parasites in your eyebrows; do you think they decrease your fitness? How does the “atheism meme” benefit from a lower reproductive rate of its host? Wouldn’t that mean a lower likelihood that that meme is passed onto other hosts (assuming children of atheists are more likely to be atheists)? A Recent survey (I saw on CNN, I have no idea how good it was) have showed that those without children have reported more happiness than those with children (not to mention the risks to the mother during pregnancy and child-birth.) It seems that I may be able argue that the “Atheism meme” benefits the individual host at the “meme’s” own expense. The “atheism meme” wouldn’t be a parasite, it’d be the opposite, it’d be altruistic (which isn’t even an identified symbiosis in nature and it still isn’t because atheism isn’t a meme). If anything the theistic meme is the parasite. It causes the host to use resources (time, energy, money) to have more children which (arguably) causes harm to the individual host (potentially less happiness and increased birthing risks). Commensalism or mutualism would likely be argued by the theist here, but can we trust a meme infected mind to be objective about itself? ;-) It just so happens that the genes and host itself of that theist meme may increase in fitness in the construct of your argument. But the fitness of the host means nothing to the host. Fitness of the host benefits the genes (and possibly memes) only. Why do you think sex feels good? It tricks the individual into potentially increased fitness because the fitness on its own does not benefit the individual. Ever think that a conclusion of your essay may be that theism may only be around to trick people into higher fitness (according to your definition of fitness)? I would then argue that this is a far more parsimonious explanation for the existence of theism than is the existence of a deity. See? I too can use your baseless conjecture to invent BS conclusions that conveniently fit my worldview.
You: “given present fertility rates hold, we as a species must keep it under control; if Homo sapiens is to survive, we cannot all be Atheists.”
ReplyDeleteMe: You are right “given fertility rates hold”, but you have no data showing that would be the case in future environments. And China begs to differ (a lot of atheists and non-theistic religions).
You: “Atheism, like every parasite, needs to constantly spread to new organisms if it is to survive. It must recruit Theists, because it cannot, by itself, produce enough Atheists. To maintain the population of infected hosts, it must draw from the vivacious uninfected. Thus, Atheism is a meme that is dependent on another: Theism. Without the population to recruit from, it would drive its host into extinction. The opposite is not true of Theism; Theism is independent.”
Me: False statement. If I conceded that atheism is a meme (which it isn’t) and that if it were a meme that it is a parasitic one (which it wouldn’t be) then I would have to nit-pick that not all parasites need a host; only obligate parasites do. I could equally argue that the children of theists are default meme-less atheists until infected by the meme from a theist infected mind. Which would mean theism is dependent on fresh atheistic minds. See how either one of us can bend and twist the speculation to fit our own worldviews? It is a pretty dishonest methodology.
You: “What is the conclusion of the matter? As I said in the beginning, this essay is not about right and wrong. It’s not about true or false. I have taken concepts of biology and applied them to Atheism and Theism. So what’s the point of this essay? Some of the comments thus far have been along the lines of 'sure, but so what'? Why did I just write so much about Atheism and fitness? Let me be clear about some things I did not mean. When I said Atheism is unfit, I did not mean that Atheists are worthless people. When I said that they are selfish, I did not accuse them of irredeemable moral deprivation. All of the sins committed by the Atheist are also committed by the Theist, even idolatry. The point of this essay is not to bash Atheists, but to argue Atheism’s claim to be beneficial for the human race is biologically false. I argued that, in terms of the primary biological definition of benefit, Atheism does not benefit our race and that it must be sustained by a meme that does.”
Me: You didn’t define or apply biological concepts appropriately. You didn’t show that sin exists. You were unsuccessful in showing that it is biologically false that atheism is good for our race and you did not show that humans depend on the theistic meme.
Me: I could write your essay in a sentence: In today’s environment studies show that theists have more kids than atheists. The rest of this essay is just fluff in which you shifted the goal posts numerous times, used oversimplifications of Biological concepts (fitness and adaptive) that you then applied incorrectly with erroneously extrapolated data (fertility rates), and then showed a gross misunderstanding of other Biological concepts (social evolution, symbiosis, and memes) which you then skewed to fit the agenda of your worldview.
You: “But all this leaves me open to a very powerful criticism. The Atheist may justly reply, "There are more important things than fitness! It's not all about biology!" To such a criticism, I would happily reply, “Then let us discuss Philosophy!” But, alas, Philosophy is not the subject of this essay!”
Me: That is not a criticism at all let alone a “powerful” one.
Me: Over and Out