Is there any evolutionary justification for faith?

Answer 1

"Faith" is simply a set of beliefs that we accept without having to personally discover or test them.

So faith accounts for virtually all abstract information we know and use in our everyday lives. There isn't time for anyone to re-discover all of our knowledge.

The senses that feed information to our brain are way too slow to account for our consciousness. Instead, our brain carries a model of the world, and our senses just update the model.

It looks real, but as one researcher put it, we actually just hallucinate our way through life.

That we use a model and the model is incomplete, is demonstrated in advertising by asking someone to pull out a dollar bill. Everyone recognizes it instantly.

Then ask what are the details of the engraving. People can't fill in the details, because our brain never filled in this gap in the model. And without close study, the eye doesn't even pass on what detail it recently saw.

So in a sense, faith is just how good our model of the world is. Strong faith is the basis for a strong model. A strong model is critical for survival, and would be selected for in evolution. In psychology, people with strong faith and confidence do better in their tasks and jobs.

That is why the military is obsessed with morale and instilling confidence in their troops. Confident soldiers do better and win battles and pass on their genes. Soldiers that worry about living through a battle are distracted from their task, tend to die more, and don't pass on their genes.


Unfortunately, we are also vulnerable to bad information being passed on without question. Religions, politicians, activist groups, etc. all depend on blind acceptance of faith to promulgate their agendas.

Science is one area where people are supposed to question some scientific beliefs (or faith) in a controlled setting. Even so, scientists that make truly novel discoveries are often attacked and ostricized (even today) because human nature just does not want to discard its beliefs, except under extreme duress.

Answer 2

There are a few theories around trying to answer this question, I'm probably going to get these not quite right, because I don't have time to source the answers...with that said.

I'm going to assume religious or supernatural faith, when you say faith - most people have mundane faith in everyday things all of the time (when I press this button, the doorbell rings, or whatever..)

Genetics - well, a common socio-biological argument follows from above really, faith in otherworldly things is a side effect of faith in worldly things - people have a tendency to personify objects and ideas as a better way of understanding and remembering them - "the table felt sad as I left the room" is much more memorable and evoking than the mere worldly facts...

A natural extension of this is that these personifications become real in a material sense.

another argument is the Machiavellian one - we have developed a kind of social intelligence to help us live with others - and to cut a long story short - religious activity is a side effect of this.

another might be that faith keeps communities together (Although we can see around us this isn't always true)

these are all arguments of the 'side effect' variety. That is a useful aspect evolved, and is passed on, and along side it other things are as well...

Evolution doesn't happen with a goal in mind, which is important to bear in mind, and is not quite as simple as just the useful or successful bits get passed on.

But

on a completely different tack, I like the idea of a second replicator - the meme, this theory basically states that once humans developed the ability to imitate, there is something other than genes that can be copied: ideas, actions and so on.

Imitation is a good trait, genetically but as soon as it appears, things get more complicated - ideas develop not on the strength of their genetic usefulness, but on how successful they are at being copied...to cut a long theory short, a good memetic replicator may not be genetically useful.

Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine (Oxford University Press) is a good intro to this theory, which is still controversial.

really all of these sciences are still in their infancy and there is much we do not know.

There are scientists trying to isolate the tendancy to have spiritual activity gene, (or combination of genes) but this alone won't provide answers...

The more I look into these questions the further away from answers I feel...

all the best

Answer 3

Possibly.

Some researchers have suggested that societies are more cohesive when based on a central shared set of beliefs. That is when the societies members believe something to be special about the way they live without rational justification.

Cohesive societies historically have been more successful - especially in tribal societies (where there are large numbers of small groupings).

So it is quite possible that religion evolved as a survival mechanism for a social animal. This would also explain why there are such a large number of religions and why they have so little in common - i.e. it explains the lack of an underlying "truth" to religion. It also explains why the religious so emphatically and ignorantly denounce anyone who does not share their "tribal" perspective.

Answer 4

Evolutionary biology does not justify things, it simply explains the origins of things. Some sociobiologists have attempted to account for the evolutionary origins of religious beliefs. We do see precursors of things like human moral codes and superstitious behavior in non human primates, and such behaviors do appear to have adaptive/survival value. As more is understood about the neurological basis of religious experience and the basis of such neurology in terms of molecular genetics, we may eventually develop a more accurate understanding of how and when the human species became attracted to religious belief.

Answer 5

To put it simply, yes! I would dare to say a better question would be, What would the world be like without faith? The fact that faith still keeps some people in check these days because it was taught to them (or should I say shown).

Answer 6

Oh the irony if faith were an inherited trait.