[ExI] Origin of Religions was Terrorist? Who can tell?

[hkhenson]

At 01:44 PM 9/9/2008, BillK wrote:
>On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 8:16 PM, hkhenson wrote:
> > Longer version was printed
> > 
> http://www.mankindquarterly.org/summer2006_henson.html I can send you a copy
> > of the .pdf if you want.
> >
> > If you have a better analysis of the selection forces that drove the
> > psychological characteristics that result in what we see as religions don't
> > keep it a secret.
><snip>
> > But to get selection for some trait at all, 
> you need the environment to have
> > serious survival effects on gene frequencies.  People generally have filled
> > the world to beyond capacity for all the time they existed.  Fighting
> > between groups who exploited the environment was a major source of
> > selection.  See Azar Gat on this subject.  Or consider the Old Testament.
>
>A new paper, here:
><http://www.physorg.com/news140174454.html>
>
>Quote:
>Tribal war drove human evolution of aggression
>By Lisa Zyga,
>Wars are costly in terms of lives and resources ­ so why have we
>fought them throughout human history? In modern times, states may
>fight wars for a number of complex reasons. But in the past, most
>tribal wars were fought for the most basic resources: goods,
>territory, and women.

>These reproduction-enhancing resources prompted our ancestors to fight
>in order to pass down their family genes. With war as a driving force
>for survival, an interesting pattern occurred, according to a new
>study. People with certain warrior-like traits were more likely to
>engage in and win wars, and then passed their warrior genes down to
>their children, which ­ on an evolutionary timescale ­ made their
>tribe even more warrior-like. In short, humans seem to have become
>more aggressive over time due to war's essential benefits.
>
>Basically saying that human males fight because in pre-history the
>males who were worse at fighting didn't pass their genes on.  But they
>are at a loss to explain why modern nations go to war.
>(Except for obvious economic reasons).

This is an incomplete picture.  Were it to be 
true without qualification then there would be no 
limits on the human trait to fight.  But that's 
obviously not the case, even though most peoples 
do engage in war, they don't do it all the time.

Genes are going to tune people up for wars, but 
only when the cost/benefit is in the gene's 
favor.  Going to war when you don't need to and 
could be hunting to feed wives and kids is not 
cost effective for genes.  If for some reason the 
population is hugely reduced, there is going to 
be a long time, generations possibly, before the 
cost/benefit of going to war becomes positive.

So like most other behavioral traits, fighting 
wars depend on an evolved behavioral switch, like 
the one that causes ducks to fly south in the fall and north in the spring.

If you read the article, I discuss the switch and how it is tripped.

Incidentally, economics, in the sense of feeding 
the kids through the next dry season, has always 
been the ultimate reason for wars, stone age and modern alike.

Keith