On his book Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods: Early Humans and the Origins of Religion
Cover Interview of October 22, 2017
The wide angle
The book is based upon four scientific principles. The first
is the principle of human evolution. It was Darwin, in fact, who first
suggested that a belief in gods might be a result of “structure of brain
heredity.” The book uses modern neuroscience to fully develop Darwin’s original
idea.
The second principle is parallel evolution. This occurs when
organisms that have had a common genetic origin continue to evolve along
similar lines even though they have been separated from each other for
thousands, or even millions, of years. The most famous example of parallel
evolution are the mammals of Australia, many of which are remarkably similar to
mammals on other continents despite the fact that Australia drifted away from
other continents more than 100 million years ago. Parallel evolution explains
not only why agriculture developed at about the same time independently at
several places in the world, but also why gods emerged at about the same time
independently at several places in the world.
The third principle is the science governing the evolution
and function of specific brain areas. For a century we have known which parts
of the human brain evolved early and which parts evolved more recently. In
recent years we also developed the technology to ascertain the function of
specific brain areas. Thus we can now say with certainty that the motor cortex
evolved very early, allowing a newborn child to hold on and suck, and the
lateral prefrontal cortex evolved very recently, allowing humans to plan the
future.
The final principle on which the book is based is that the
cognitive development of children roughly parallels the evolution of our
species. Thus children develop an awareness of self at about age two, and only
later develop an awareness of what others are thinking, an understanding of
death, etc. We can therefore use our knowledge of child development to make
some informed guesses regarding the order of development of cognitive processes
in human evolution.
My education and professional training led me to this book. As
a university student I majored in religion. I then got a master’s degree in
anthropology and worked for two years in Africa, thus experiencing other
cultures. My training in medicine and psychiatry led me to focus on the brain,
and I organized one of the most widely used brain collections for research. Evolving
Brains, Emerging Gods is the composite result of those experiences.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
The wide angle
The book is based upon four scientific principles. The first is the principle of human evolution. It was Darwin, in fact, who first suggested that a belief in gods might be a result of “structure of brain heredity.” The book uses modern neuroscience to fully develop Darwin’s original idea.
The second principle is parallel evolution. This occurs when organisms that have had a common genetic origin continue to evolve along similar lines even though they have been separated from each other for thousands, or even millions, of years. The most famous example of parallel evolution are the mammals of Australia, many of which are remarkably similar to mammals on other continents despite the fact that Australia drifted away from other continents more than 100 million years ago. Parallel evolution explains not only why agriculture developed at about the same time independently at several places in the world, but also why gods emerged at about the same time independently at several places in the world.
The third principle is the science governing the evolution and function of specific brain areas. For a century we have known which parts of the human brain evolved early and which parts evolved more recently. In recent years we also developed the technology to ascertain the function of specific brain areas. Thus we can now say with certainty that the motor cortex evolved very early, allowing a newborn child to hold on and suck, and the lateral prefrontal cortex evolved very recently, allowing humans to plan the future.
The final principle on which the book is based is that the cognitive development of children roughly parallels the evolution of our species. Thus children develop an awareness of self at about age two, and only later develop an awareness of what others are thinking, an understanding of death, etc. We can therefore use our knowledge of child development to make some informed guesses regarding the order of development of cognitive processes in human evolution.
My education and professional training led me to this book. As a university student I majored in religion. I then got a master’s degree in anthropology and worked for two years in Africa, thus experiencing other cultures. My training in medicine and psychiatry led me to focus on the brain, and I organized one of the most widely used brain collections for research. Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods is the composite result of those experiences.