The Evolution of God
Book cover.
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| Author | Robert Wright |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Evolution, Religion, Spirituality, Evolutionary Psychology, God |
| Publisher | Little, Brown and Company |
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Publication date
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June 8, 2009 |
| Media type | Hardcover, Paperback |
| Pages | 576 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 277086176 |
| 200.9 22 | |
| LC Class | BL473 .W75 2009 |
| Preceded by | Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny |
The Evolution of God is a 2009 book by Robert Wright that explores the history of the concept of God in the three Abrahamic religions through a variety of means, including archeology, history, theology, and evolutionary psychology. The patterns which link Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and the ways in which they have changed their concepts over time are explored as one of the central themes.
One of the conclusions of the book that Wright tries to make is a reconciliation between science and religion. The future of the concept of "God" is also prognosticated by Wright.
Among other things, Wright discusses the role of evolutionary biology in the development of religion. Geneticist Dean Hamer hypothesized that some people have a specific gene that makes them prone to religious belief, which he calls the God gene, and that over time natural selection has favored these people because their spirituality leads to optimism. Wright, however, thinks the tendency towards religious belief is not an adaptive trait influenced by natural selection, but rather a spandrel - a trait that happens to be supported by adaptations originally selected for other purposes. Wright states that the human brain approaches religious belief based on how it adapted to survive and reproduce in early hunter-gatherer societies.
He points out four key traits of religion that align with the human brain's survival adaptations:
Humans have adapted to pay attention to surprising and confusing information, because it could make the difference between life and death. (For instance, if a person left the campsite and mysteriously never returned, it would be wise for the others to be on guard for a predator or some other danger.) Understanding and controlling cause and effect also takes top priority in the human brain, since humans live in complex social groups where predicting and influencing the actions and thoughts of others gains them allies, status, and access to resources. As human cognitive abilities and curiosity expanded over the centuries, their investigation of cause and effect expanded from the strictly social context out into the world at large, opening the doors for religions to explain things like weather and disease.
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