Fear and the Need for Certainty. Finally, there appears to be something about fear and doubt that impels religiosity and dispels acceptance of evolution. People seem to take more comfort from a stance that says, someone designed the world with good intentions, instead of that the world is just an intention-less, random place, says Norenzayan. This is especially true when we feel a sense of threat, or a feeling of not being in control. Indeed, in one amazing study, New Zealanders who had just suffered through a severe earthquake showed stronger religiosity, but only if they had been directly affected by the quake. Other research suggests that making people think about death increases their religiosity and also decreases evolution acceptance. Its not just death: Its also randomness, disorder. In one telling study, research participants who were asked to think of a situation in which they had lacked control and then to provide three reasons supporting the notion that the future is (un-) controllable, showed a marked decline in their acceptance of evolution, opting instead for an intelligent design-style explanation. (Another study found that anti-evolutionists displayed higher fear sensitivity and a trait called the need for cognitive closure, which describes a psychological need to find an answer that can resolve uncertainty and dispel doubt.) Such is the research, and its important to point out a few caveats. First, this doesnt mean science and religion are fundamentally incompatible. The conflict may run very deep indeed, but nevertheless, some individuals can and do find a way to retain their religious beliefs and also accept evolution—including the aforementioned biology textbook author Kenneth Miller of Brown University, a Catholic. Second, while there are many reasons to think that the traits above comprise a core part of who we are, it doesnt automatically follow that religion is the direct result of evolution by natural selection. It is also possible that religion arises as a byproduct of more basic traits that were, in turn, selected for because they conferred greater fitness (such as agency detection). This byproduct view is defended by Steven Pinker here. In any event, the evidence is clear that both our cognitive architecture, and also our emotional dispositions, make it difficult or unnatural for many people to accept evolution. Natural selection is like quantum physics...we might intellectually grasp it, with considerable effort, but it will never feel right to us, writes the Yale psychologist Paul Bloom. Often, people express surprise that in an age so suffused with science, science causes so much angst and resistance. Perhaps more surprising would be if it didnt.
Posted on: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 00:59:29 +0000
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