Hi Bugsy,

As I've pointed the article I linked is but one of many. They all point in the same direction. In the UK Professor Tim Spector or Kings College London heads up a twins study unit which has had similar results.

To quote Prof. Spector:

"The last 15 years has really been sorting out the nature/nurture debate… The default position now is that everything is partly genetic until proven otherwise. It seems that nothing is off-limits to what can be genetically programmed: from political views to religion…you feel like nothing is sacrosanct."

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/2008/Features/WTX052565.htm

Spector expressed similar sentiments on an SBS insight program about twins broadcast in 2008.

As I have been at pains to point out, such studies are merely indicative. To repeat ad infinitum, we won’t know for certain until we identify the gene networks, if any, that govern an inclination to religiosity.

However right now the weight of evidence points to a genetic link to an inclination towards religiosity.

If you are so certain that religiosity conferred (past tense) no evolutionary advantage you may want to share your cogitations with the scientists who are working on this topic. Perhaps you can stop them wasting their time.

Of course religion MAY simply be a by products, a "spandrel" to use Gould's terminology, of our ability to recognise patterns. But, then again, it may not. It is an open question.

You may also wish to share your insights on the non-existence of assortative mating with population geneticists. I think they would be fascinated - especially by your discovery that "Once one looks at population level humans, along with many animals, effectively mate randomly (genetically speaking of course)"

Come to think of it, I think population geneticists would be interested in your "discovery" that:

"Very few genes are actually selected FOR"

BTW turns out that human appendixes may not be as useless as was long thought:

See:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-10/dumc-aiu100807.php

That's what I LOVE about science. It overturns cherished notions daily.

Maybe we'll discover a use for male nipples!

Rstuart,

I doubt we shall see atheists vanishing for two reasons:

--At most we inherit a tendency towards religiosity. You are not born religious in the sense that you are born destined, like me, to go bald.

--I think groups which include some "free thinkers" will always have a competitive advantage vis a vis those that that are governed entirely be religion.

What I think you will find is a greatly expanded role for religion in Western society. To some extent it is already happening. I would never have believed you if you had told me back in the 1960s that in the 21st century something like embryonic stem cell research would be curtailed in the US on religious grounds.

The idea of a highly secular country like the UK tolerating a sort of shariah court system with the public blessing of the Archbishop of Canterbury would have seemed bizarre.

I really thought that by now gay marriage would have been as uncontroversial as an evening at the cinema.

And I NEVER would have believed we would be fighting the evolution wars in the 21st Century.

That's a pretty long bow, stevenlmeyer.

>>BTW turns out that human appendixes may not be as useless as was long thought<<

Did you actually read the article you pointed out to us?

It states, quite clearly, that:

"In industrialized societies with modern medical care and sanitation practices, the maintenance of a reserve of beneficial bacteria may not be necessary. This is consistent with the observation that removing the appendix in modern societies has no discernable negative effects."

This states, unequivocally, that in modern society the appendix is completely useless.

I suppose it is just possible that we might regress into a non-industrial society. But I wouldn't bet on it if I were you.

Your tenuous relationship with logic is also evident here:

>>As I've pointed the article I linked is but one of many. They all point in the same direction... right now the weight of evidence points to a genetic link to an inclination towards religiosity<<

I would humbly draw your attention to the fact that the reason all the articles point in the same direction, is that you have selected them specifically to support your point.

Therefore the only "weight of evidence" is that which you have created for this article.

And I still don't understand why your godly warriors would fight harder.

>>Consider that religion may have conferred an evolutionary advantage under primitive conditions. After all, who is likely to fight more fiercely for the best hunting grounds? A tribe of atheists? Or a tribe with warriors that believe that when they die they get a reward in the after life?<<

Especially as you now add that...

>>tribal religions... often promised brave warriors and hunters a place in a post-life paradise like the "happy hunting grounds" of the Native American religions.<<

Surely, the logic here clearly favours that they would be far less inclined than the godless to fight hard, given their anticipation of such afterlife benefits.

In fact, all things considered, we may be witnessing the emergence of a whole new approach to logic, stevenlmeyerism.

One that relies entirely on counterinformed conclusions.

Not to mention, stevenlmeyer, that you also blur the boundaries of speculation to suit yourself.

>>I would never have believed you if you had told me back in the 1960s that in the 21st century something like embryonic stem cell research would be curtailed in the US on religious grounds.<<

But surely you must have worked out that the US has always been the bastion of religious extremism? Surely, had you known about embryonic stem cell research in the 60s, you would have pretty quickly latched onto its potential for "different" religious interpretations amongst US godbotherers?

In any event, many countries, ours included, consider it an ethical minefield, and that even disregarding totally the religious angle, it is far from being a cut-and-dried issue.

http://www.biotechnologyonline.gov.au/human/ethicssc.html

>>The idea of a highly secular country like the UK tolerating a sort of shariah court system with the public blessing of the Archbishop of Canterbury would have seemed bizarre.<<

Again, you would only come to this conclusion i) if you had been ignorant of the basic underlying religious tolerance of the English, ii) if you had been unaware that Beth Din "courts" had been operating there for generations of Jews and iii) if you had not understood the relationship of sharia "courts" to the English legal system.

>>I really thought that by now gay marriage would have been as uncontroversial as an evening at the cinema.<<

You would have thought that, back in the 60s?

Wow, what optimism.

Does the name Harvey Milk mean anything to you?

>>And I NEVER would have believed we would be fighting the evolution wars in the 21st Century.<<

Possibly because you would not have foreseen the lengths to which the religious would go, in their attempts to defend the indefensible.

Because it isn't atheists who are "fighting the evolution wars".

Just those religious folk who have a vested interest in perpetuating their mythology. Everyone else is totally cool with it.

Bugsy: "Population genetics relies on dominance and recessiveness, selection pressures, recombination, gene interactions and environmental interactions."

Forgive me my scepticism Bugsy, but you have so far not provided me with more than you word, which I gather you seem to I should accept as the final authority on the matter. If you provided some support I'd find it easier to accept it. But, as far as I am aware the relationship I gave above about the expression of phenotype reflecting breeding success is a pretty good model of reality. I don't doubt the frequency of genes that gives rise to that phenotype depends on recessive/dominance and a whole host of other things. But that isn't relevant to the discussion here, which is about the dominance of the spirituality phenotype.

Perhaps you have links that could improve my lay understanding of the science? If so I would like to see them.

I for one would hate to see atheists and rationalist post-modern thinkers disappear completely. They play a very important part in the world.They force us to evaluate our ideas about God.They are a natural braking action to the proliferation of rotten theistic thinkers who debase all us human beings to the level of utter morons steeped in superstitious and outmoded balderdash.
We DO NOT WANT to hand over our brains to the religious fundamentalists in every religion who are to be found all over the world as they propel us all towards sectarian-based armageddon.