Feierman, Jay R., ed. The Biology of Religious Behavior: The Evolutionary Origins of Faith and Religion, 978-0-313-36430-3, Praeger, 2009, Santa Barbara, CA, ix + 301 Pp., $49.99
In the past several years there have been a number of books written on the evolution of religion. See for example Boyer 2001 (Pascal: Religion Explained), Atran 2002 (In Gods We Trust), Wilson 2003 (Darwin’s Cathedral), Dennett 2006 (Breaking the Spell) and Dawkins 2006 (The God Delusion). As the title currently under review perceives it, what are missing from most of the above sources are the types of direct, human ethological studies of religious behaviors, where behavior is conceptualized as the movement of individuals. Can religious behavior be recognized by its form or structure, as can human courtship, maternal care, play, agonistic and other behaviors? Or, is religious behavior so influenced by culturally acquired components that it can only be recognized by its function? Or, in contrast, are these culturally acquired components of religious behavior just local variations on a more general theme.
Dr. Jay Feierman, MD, with a group of internationally known and respected experts in 2007, set forth on a one week, international conference on the Evolution of Religion. The emphasis in the lectures at the Evolution of Religion conference all regarded how human religion, which is defined very broadly if at all, could have evolved. The lectures from this conference have finally been released in this book by Praeger, of which Feierman is editor. Feierman has put together this very readable and useful study of religion as religion has ‘evolved’ from primitive times until today. At the bases of the biological and behavioral levels, they contend, there is a great deal more there that unites the world’s religions than what divides them, which is an underlying theme of the book. Overall, they set forth that religion and evolution are not contradictory, and it would be wise for teachers, devout clergy, everyone interested in knowing why that is the case. Rather, religion and science are compatible, according to psychiatrist Feierman (retired, U. of New Mexico; B.S., zoology) principally by introducing the new non-theological approach to the study of religion through neo-Darwinian disciplines including ethology, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive science. However, one the main issues of debate within the conference – later within the book – includes whether religion is a product or by-product of natural selection or whether it is the product of individual or group selection.
The edited volume is quite timely, given the current socio-political discussions all over the world on the basis of religion. The contributors approach the evolution of religion by examining the behavior of individuals in their everyday lives. After describing various religious behaviors, the contributors consider the behaviors with reference to their evolutionary history, development during the lifetime of the individual, proximate causes, and adaptive value. It seems that this foray into understanding religion from a bio-behavioral perspective demonstrates that, at the biological and behavioral levels, what unites the different religions within the world is far greater than what divides them. The essays is this volume address, e.g., the descriptions of religious behaviors (prayer, etc.) in the world’s great religions, religious behaviors in tribal religions, as well as the phylogeny, ontogeny, proximate causes/mechanisms and the adaptive functions of religious behavior with the emphasis on behavior per se.
Part I of the text describes religious behavior through the paradigm of ethology (behavioral biology, i.e.).Within this first part, one find distinct chapters covering how religious behavior in societies of different socioecological and cultural complexity (chpt 1); additionally, the question of how we classify and characterize a category of religious behavior is elucidated (chpt 2). In part II, the evolutionary history of religious behavior is depicted, and it is indicated that the apparent feature of such behavior can be defined by its form. Part III shifts from the corporate in order to trace the development of religious behavior to the individual. Numerous causes of religious behavior are explicated in the fourth part of the book, with attention (warrantedly so), being shifted to the brain and the mind that derives from the brain. In the final – non-reflective portion of the book – the amazing adaptiveness of religious behavior is discusses with reference to belief systems, practices such as fasting, and altruism.
All in all, this is a strong book; it should be lauded due it taking up the idea of religion from a broad perspective, and not simply from a singularist perspective instead, which is often the fault of former attempted analyses. The existence of common themes that are herein established across religions, allows one to make generalities that are applicable to widely disparate religions with respect to their origin and trajectory. Philosophy of religion courses would well benefit from this title, as it make valuable connections amongst various religions, opening up the possibility for further ecumenical dialogue. For this, it should be sued well in upper-division college courses as a supplementary text.