Evolutionist Marc Hauser has an important new
paper on: The Origins of Evolutionary Storytelling: Evolved Adaptation or By-Product? The work is, as usual, extremely sophisticated and complex. As a service, here is a summary of the research and findings, without all the big words:
Considerable debate has surrounded the question of the origins of evolutionary storytelling. One proposal views evolutionary storytelling as an adaptation for cooperation, whereas an alternative proposal views evolutionary storytelling as a by-product of evolved, non-storytelling, cognitive functions. We critically evaluate each approach, explore the link between storytelling and mendacity in particular, and argue that recent empirical work in the history of mythology provides stronger support for the by-product approach. Specifically, despite differences in mythological background, individuals show no difference in the pattern of their preference for unfamiliar mythological scenarios in particular, and level of mendacity in general. These findings suggest that evolutionary storytelling evolved from pre-existing mythology and proclivity toward mendacity, but that it may then have been subject to selection, creating an adaptively designed system for solving the classic problem of looking in the mirror.
Evolutionist Marc Hauser has an important new paper on: The Origins of Evolutionary Storytelling: Evolved Adaptation or By-Product? The work is, as usual, extremely sophisticated and complex. As a service, here is a summary of the research and findings, without all the big words:
Ok, here is the real abstract from the paper. This just makes it easier than following the link to see that you're just having a bit of a laugh Dr Hunter.
ReplyDelete"Considerable debate has surrounded the question of the origins and evolution of religion. One proposal views religion as an adaptation for cooperation, whereas an alternative proposal views religion as a by-product of evolved, non-religious, cognitive functions. We critically evaluate each approach, explore the link between religion and morality in particular, and argue that recent empirical work in moral psychology provides stronger support for the by-product approach. Specifically, despite differences in religious background, individuals show no difference in the pattern of their moral judgments for unfamiliar moral scenarios. These findings suggest that religion evolved from pre-existing cognitive functions, but that it may then have been subject to selection, creating an adaptively designed system for solving the problem of cooperation."
Saying that you have removed the 'big words' when you have actually changed the entire meaning of the script is a bit of a porky isn't it?!