Book Review: The Faith Instinct by Nicholas Wade

I think I picked up Nicholas Wade's "The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why it Endures" when I was browsing through discounted books at a Border's book store on its way to closure last year. It turned out to be a very good work by the author who is a science reporter forNYT. In the book Wade doesn't come across as a strong theist or atheist but simply as someone studying the evolution of religion and making observations. Books by authors like Dawkins, while arguing vigorously about the negative effects of religion on civilizations, usually gloss over the reasons as to why human beings seems to have an innate desire to have and practice religion. This book seems to fill that gap. His basic tenet is that religions are memes that served purposes such as social cohesion, a way to impart morality, help in trading of goods, etc. that confers evolutionary advantages to the population that practice it. So, it tends to stick around in successful population and has evolved over the centuries so as to remain relevant. In several sense it is more like a  business that modifies and adapts to changing circumstances and needs of the population it serves. In his own words, "Many of the social aspects of religious behavior offer advantages--such as a group's strong internal cohesion and high morale in war--that would lead to a society's members having more surviving children, and religion for such reasons would be favored by natural selection. This is less true of the personal aspects of religion. Religion may help people overcome the fear of death, or find courage in facing disease and catastrophe, but these personal beliefs seem unlikely to enable them to have more surviving offspring, natural selection's only yardstick of success. Rather, the personal rewards of religion are significant because they draw people to practice it, without which the social benefits could not have been favored by natural selection." 

He starts off with a chapter discussing the works of moral psychologists on trolley experiments and such. I always found them quite intriguing and have talked about it with family and friends. You can see the Wiki version if you haven't heard about these thought experiments before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

He then moves on to discuss different aspects of religion such as music, dance and trance that was a big part of primitive religions, and how the behavior evolved over time towards the formation of the three big Abrahamic religions. There are lot of interesting little pieces of information buried in the discussions of research on three contemporary hunting and gathering societies--the !Kung San, the Andaman Islanders, and Australian Aborigines. For example there is a group of Melanesian islands near Papua New Guinea inhabited by Trobriands who practice what is called Kula exchange system. Though individual islanders don't interact with all the other islands, they do trade with islands adjacent to them. When they do, there is a practice of exchanging very prestigious gifts that may have no practical value as well as trading commodities that are needed for their survival/living. The prestigious gifts are of two kinds, something like a necklace and a decorated arm band, where the necklace is given to the island on the left and the armband to the right..! These exchanges may take place couple of times a year and the gifts may get enhanced while they are in possession of an island. Though the islanders never seems to have understood that they are a part of a big ring of couple of dozen islands, as per their religious practices they know they are supposed to honor the gift exchange practice. So, an islander who is old enough may see the same gift coming back to the island couple of times in his lifetime though he may not understand the mechanism involved (similar to Americans participating/using financial products without understanding all the details of how say a CDO works). But this religion based prestige gift exchange that revolves in opposite directions ensures that trust is established for accompanying commodities trading..! 

In later chapters he discusses as to why religion bothers itself so much about regulating sexual practices of its followers. Though it may not make much sense to imagine an omnipotent God being bothered by what goes on inside individual bedrooms, from a very practical business point of view, it makes all the sense to regulate these practices to ensure the number of followers of a religion continues to increase so that the religion can thrive. He argues that this self-preservation motivation prompts religions to oppose abortion, gays and encourage child-bearing and so forth. Sects that do not follow this model, Shakers being a prime example (they expect everyone who is a Shaker to remain celibate), tend to decline over time. He also discusses the high entry price some religions stipulate on its followers. For example, Mormonism insists that all its followers donate 10% of their earnings and considerable personal time to proselytizing for the church. This model helps ensure that those who get in can be trusted as motivated followers that in turn ensures cohesion among Mormons. 

He concludes discussing the kind of civic religion that is in vogue in US (where there is no state sponsored church or religion) for the past few decades. There is reference to God in presidential oath (that wasn't there in the original constitution), oath of allegiance, and in all public speeches and even in bringing backing to the US treasury bills without explicitly referring to any specific God but sort of keeping the references to a generic version. :-) Thus, as long as it continues to slowly evolve and perceived to be providing a service that helps the economy and social cohesion, religion may not go away for a long time. One thing I found a bit disappointing is the lack of effort spent to discuss Hinduism, while even Confucianism is discussed a bit more. Though it is practiced by 1/6th of the world's population, it is always a footnote in the thoughts of western scholars. Reminded me of The Simpsons TV show where in an episode Reverend Lovejoy lovingly points out as to how people of various religions in the town came together to help Ned Flanders, an ardent Christian. Pointing out Christian, Muslim, Jewish neighbors standing next to each other, he turns to Apu next and says "Miscellaneous". When Apu protests saying there are a billion people on this planet practicing Hinduism, the Rev. brushes him aside with a patronizing "Oh, that's super". It seems to satirically but correctly sum up the Western view of Hinduism. :-)

Book is only 285 pages long. Pick it up if you can and let me know what you think.
-sundar.