Minor Meditations On Religion and Neurobiology

There’s lots to think about in the write up on recent studies into the relation between neural wiring and the concept religion at the New Scientist.

A really simplified version would be that the brain has a couple of built in biases that make the concept of religion arise almost naturally. One is that we have different cognitive systems for dealing with inanimate object and for living thing–things with minds and volition. Just that alone gives a lot to think about–and a decent explanation for Cartesian mind-body dualism seeming to make so much sense–but when you combine it with another of the brain’s biases, our predisposition to see patterns and causation where none exists, things get really spooky. Read the article.

What I found most interesting though was the description of research that suggests that this second bias is significantly stronger when people feel “out of control”–that we essentially look harder for inherent patterns and meaning when we’re scared or unsure. That’s utterly fascinating. And it may go a long way to explaining the significant anti-correlation between education, particularly scientific education, and religiosity. If you have a way of understanding the world, and of explaining things that happen, and of determining what actions within your control might alter the state of the world to make it more to your satisfaction, then presumably you will less often feel that “out of control” sensation, or the need to look for an explanation beyond what you can apprehend rationally.

It’s certainly an interesting idea.

I wonder what other areas of human operation could be explained (or manipulated) by working this bias/stress relationship? The article mentions a rise in religious observance during economically hard times as an example, but I think looking at an artifically created climate of fear (hello “Homeland Security” and “Terror Alert Levels”) and it’s effects on trust in large institutions might also be worth looking at from this perspective.

I also note another recent study which found, essentially, that the more devoutly religious someone is, the less concern or anxiety they feel when they make a mistake. While I could make some jokes about the kind of people who can’t learn from their mistakes because they don’t see them as problems, I think it might actually be more interesting to think about the connection to the findings mentioned above. If anxiety and loss of control drives you to see patterns and meaning which isn’t there, and this tends to lead to religious behaviour, which tends to remove anxiety and displace concerns about sense of control to an external force or entity… well, that’s a pretty powerful little closed loop of neurobiology that reason has to work uphill against, isn’t it?