The Emergence of Religion in Human Evolution (Routledge Studies in Neurotheology, Cognitive Science and Religion)

In this book, Rappaport and Corbally make an important contribution to the current revolution in understanding religion. Most writers over the last half century trace the rise of religion to relatively simple genetic changes that allowed our evolutionary ancestors to adapt and survive better, as they left the African rainforests for the savannah. Some even joke about a "God gene." Such writer usually focus on a single reason for the genetic changes that caused religion -- to meet the need for belonging to a group, for example, or the need to believe in something. Rappaport and Corbally, on the other hand, take a more complex approach. As with other writers participating in this reassessment of the origins of religion, they discuss current research into early human fossils and current neurobiology in order to show that religion emerged as our ancestors evolved to be better hunter-gatherers. Over time, many of the changes that made them better hunter-gatherers would interact to create the human devotion to ritual, which is so important to religion.So, when Rappaport and Corbally use the word "emergence" in their title, they mean it as a sophisticated pun. Not only did religion emerge, in the everyday sense of something new appearing; it also emerged in the sense used in Complexity Theory. That's what they mean when they say religion did not come out of any one of the many genetic changes they discuss; it emerged from "all of them." These changes range from walking on two legs to increased memory and better decision-making ability, all of which made them more effective hunters; from a larger precuneus, which led to more sexual pleasure and stronger emotional bonds within the group, to all the abilities that made them storytellers, which made them better communicators and also increased group bonding. As the Complexity Theory meaning of emergence suggests, religion "emerged" as the effects of all these changes interacted with each other as our ancestors adapted to life on the savannah. At some point, all this new behavior probably started to resemble what we think of as religion, vastly increasing their ability to adapt to new situations.This emergent version of religion's origin is important because it takes us away from the quest to explain why most human groups have developed the need to believe in a "counterintuitive and counterfactual world" of supernatural beings. Instead, Rappaport and Corbally add to the work that suggests religion reflected many of the most important evolutionary developments in our ancestors, as those developments made new behaviors possible that would help them survive in environments ranging from Siberia's arctic wastes to the rainforests of India. This book, then, is part of the current revolution in the way we think about religion and well worth the time and effort for anyone who has realized how important to human survival the behaviors we think of as religion have been.

This was a scientific book that I as a non-scientist found to be a great book. While the science was deep, I needed to go to my dictionary a number of times, the overall message was clear and convincing. I learned a great deal about how and from where we came to be.

The authors of this book, one a cultural anthropologist and biologist, the other a Jesuit priest and astronomer with the Vatican Observatory, have placed the phenomenon of religion in the context of the biological evolution of Homo sapiens. The book’s fundamental premise is that the widespread and powerful human penchant for involvement with the supernatural has its origin in certain evolutionary transformations in the human brain and nervous system.. The impulse to engage in religious thought and behavior is in effect hard-wired into the human genome. The author’s localize this capacity in a neural network involving the prefrontal cortex, the precuneus (part of the parietal lobes), and the cerebellum. These evolutionary changes distinguish Homo sapiens from other mammalian and primate species, and even (as far as can be determined) from earlier human species such as Homo erectus.The authors describe religion as a “capacity” unique to our species, analogous to the capacity for mathematics, music, and art. All humans have the capacity to engage in these latter activities, some more skillfully than others. But not all cultures support the activities, and even in cultures that value them, not all individuals choose to activate potential mathematical, musical, or artistic skills. Likewise, the capacity for religious thought is “optional”, in the authors’ words. Not all individuals choose to pursue it. There is no advocacy in the book that people “should” practice religion; the book simply analyzes the evolutionary origins of this capacity and its potentially adaptive functions. The principal adaptive function that presumably drove the evolution of religion (in the view of the authors, not that of this reviewer) is that of promoting human group solidarity.The book is divided into three sections: (1) an overview of recent findings in biological evolution, (2) a model specifically discussing the “evolution of a trait for religious capacity” and identifying the specific part of the brain whose evolutionary development they believe is responsible for the unique human capacity for religious thought; (3) the implications of the findings, both for humans of the present and for the “next member of the genus Homo”, whom they call Homo auctus.The strengths of this interesting book far outweigh the quibbles which readers can have with this or that passage. A major positive element is the postulate that the unique human penchant for involvement with the supernatural is a positive adaptive capacity. This postulate is a refreshing departure from fundamentalist Marxist dismissal of religion as an “opiate” invented for the control of uneducated, exploited masses. It also departs from chic middle-class Freudian critiques that dismiss religion as a maladaptive illusion based on sexual repression. In the authors' view, those who involve themselves in religion are mobilizing an inborn human capacity that requires activation. They are not succumbing to a mental illness that requires therapy.The technical language in which much of the book is formulated may make it a difficult read for non-specialist readers. And the hardcover price may discourage potential individual buyers. (This reviewer stumbled on an electronic freeebie in his University of Florida library.) But the effort and cost will be worthwhile not only for those interested in the latest findings concerning the evolution of the human brain. It will also, in particular, interest readers curious about the possible biological basis of that stubborn fascination with the supernatural that has characterized Homo sapiens from our earliest origins,