AJ,
I listed 'secular' 'agnostic' and 'atheist' separately, because they are separate words, each having a distinct meaning, -even if those meanings are sometimes slippery to define.
I was merely trying to be thorough,-if not pedantic.
As I recall, even Dawkins didn't give himself a '10' for atheism, as to do so would be unscientific; it is (currently) impossible to disprove the existence of a God, or Gods, and probably always will be.
I am not sure I would describe agnosticism and atheism as 'mutually exclusive', although I think there are what could be described as fundamentalist atheists, who are as irrationally certain of the non existence of God, as the fundamentalist theists are certain of it's existence.
Are we all agnostic? This is to entertain the 'game of threes'; we think we know, we know we know, we think we know that we know...
Millions are secure in their belief in a God or Gods, and would strongly object to be called agnostic.
I think an encouraging sign is the slow emergence of the 'doubting Christian'(I don't know for sure, but I believe); also the 'gambling Christian' (maybe there is, maybe there isn't, but I got everything to gain, and nuthin to lose).
Thin end of the wedge?
As to the New Scientist article, the research is certainly interesting, but at this stage hardly conclusive or even compelling.

Bugsy,

I haven't understood the line of reasoning you are trying to lay out, and I am having a hard time understanding the relevance of the NS articles stevenlmeyer gave links to. However, as I understand it spirituality does have a genetic component and is thus heritable, and right now it definitely the case the religious people do have more kids. stevenlmeyer did give links to supporting both assertions, and I don't think either is particuarly contentious.

Those conditions are sufficient to take us down the evolutionary path stevenlmeyer spells out. If they were sustained for long enough atheism would disappear.

It may be unscientific, but it sure works for me.

>>As I recall, even Dawkins didn't give himself a '10' for atheism, as to do so would be unscientific; it is (currently) impossible to disprove the existence of a God, or Gods, and probably always will be.<<

In the same category, we can place Bigfoot, the Yeti, dragons, the unicorn, UFOs, aliens from other worlds living amongst us...

It is currently impossible to disprove the existence of any of the above, but I'm afraid that I am completely convinced that none of them has ever existed, and will continue to not-exist in the future.

So, call me "unscientific" in my unequivocal acceptance of the historic and future absence of all of these mythological beings, but it is entirely consistent with my atheism. For which I would award myself a '10'.

The way I see it is that humans prefer to have a simple explanation for everything. If it is beyond our imaginative capacity to cope with the vastness of the universe, it helps a little if we convince ourselves that "we are not alone". To accept the alternative scenario - that our collective brief span of existence is unlikely to coincide with a similarly brief span elsewhere in the universe - needs a level of confidence and self-sufficiency that some folks simply do not have.

So they invent concepts such as UFOs and Area 51. They fantasize over unexplained footprints in the snow, and create theories that fit their fears, as well as their need for certainty.

Religion is part of human nature, as is the need for security and certainty. To me, there's absolutely nothing wrong with believing in a God or Gods, so long as those beliefs are not used as a weapon.

My atheism is not reliant on science to disprove anything, since I know that by its own terms, it is unable to do so. But it continues to be sustained by the lack of supportable alternate positions.

rstuart, it situation is much more complex than it appears. Every now and then there appears in the paper some sort of 'research' that proclaims that blondes or redheads will be virtually extinct in several hundred years because of the recessiveness of those traits. Similar arguments are seen with skin colour and it has been predicted from as early as before 1900 and reiterated in various forms that the human race will eventually all end up being coffee coloured, or that black people will outbreed white people or whatever sort of racial or ethnic groupings you wish to compare. This is of course, to borrow Pericles' word, twaddle.

The fact is that being religious or not is not the same thing as an index derived from a questionnaire put to Minnesotan men. "Religiousity" is a complex social phenomenon, with what appears may have a genetic component that makes you more susceptible to it. Having more children is also likely a byproduct of the social/cultural aspect and support and directives that religious people get to have children. It is doubtful that these "genes for religiousity" convey any sort of propensity towards greater fecundity.
Also, there does not appear to be any great selection pressure against not being religious. If there were, I'd be willing to bet those of us that aren't religious would find ourselves going to church, if only to either survive or get laid.

And then there is also another genetic phenomenon that has not been mentioned, recombination. The genetic alleles are always reshuffled through each generation, thus ensuring that populations don't become genetically homogenous. It's very difficult to select against these sort of complex traits and not weaken the gene pool as a whole, ask any crop breeder.

Religion is not genetic, perhaps feelings of being spiritual are (and are exploited by religion and thus correlative), but religion is not.

Bugsy: "Religion is not genetic, perhaps feelings of being spiritual are (and are exploited by religion and thus correlative), but religion is not."

So, to summarise your point: it does look like that at this point in history religion is correlated with higher birth rates, and it also looks like spirituality is heritable, however this does not mean spirituality is associated with higher birth rates and we have no evidence of this. Do I have it right?

If so, you might be correct. I don't have the time to check. But it seem to me like you are stretching a fairly long bow.

All this hand waving about "recessiveness of those traits", "recombination" seems irrelevant to me. The math behind it is very simple. If spirituality it is heritable then the proportion of spiritual versus not spiritual will stabilise at the point where reproduction rates of both groups equalise. There are a few complicating factors - like the spirituality being a gradient rather than an black/white thing, the genes for spirituality effecting other things, and the conditions having to remain stable for many generations. But none of this has much to do with the issues you were raising.

By the way, you'll notice I did not at any time mention religion. It was deliberate, and in that I agree with you that they are very different things. However, they aren't unrelated. I suspect religion is a political organisation or social grouping that arises because some of us are spiritual. In fact, I'd say in evolutionary terms, they are the only meaningful outcome. The fact that these spiritual people believe in a imaginary person doesn't matter much, but they regularly gather themselves into hordes to annihilate other groups does. We have found other ways to do that now of course, and I suspect they are more efficient, so perhaps the evolutionary pressure to be spiritual will wane.

There are more than just a few confounding factors rstuart.

I could summarise yours and stevens argument thus: If we put humans in a big jar and treat them like bacteria, the faster breeders will dominate or the birth rates of the imaginary separate population groups will stabilise.

Sorry, but humans are far more complex than that I'm afraid.

Population genetics relies on dominance and recessiveness, selection pressures, recombination, gene interactions and environmental interactions. This isn't just 'handwaving', it's what scientists actually study. I mentioned them so that you could at least begin to understand the complexity of the subject. Thank you for calling them irrelevant, I now have a much better idea of where you stand in the science continuum.

Many factors are correlated with birth rates: socio-economic status, education levels, nutritional levels, GDP of the country you live in just to name a few. Selecting one relatively minor influence on these birth rates and calling it a major selection pressure and making science fiction predictions based on that is not science, and doesn't come close to reality.

The complexity of the world ensures that the fantasies that steven dishes up to us are exceptionally unlikely, and quite frankly far more tedious than the realities we are discovering bit by bit every day