From: huston@access.digex.com (Herb Huston)
Subject: Re: Should religion be eliminated?
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 20:23:41 GMT

In article <1dfeuuINN6em@morrow.stanford.edu> salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem) writes:
>In article <BxAoL5.7pK@access.digex.com> huston@access.digex.com (Herb Huston) writes:
>>Have you considered the possibility that religion might a biological trait
>>of _Homo sapiens_ instead of some cultural artifact?  If not, I suggest that
>>you read _The Biology of God_ by Alister Hardy (sorry not have publication
>>information at hand).

Author: Hardy, Sir Alister Clavering
Title: _The Biology of God: A Scientist's Study of Man, the Religious Animal_
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Date: 1975
ISBN: 0224011294

I'd be very surprised to learn that it's still in print.

>	This may weaken the argument that religion is due to something
>trancendental.

Hardy considered them orthogonal.

>               If it is a biological trait, this claim might link it
>close to issues, such as behavior, that are relatable to evolutionary
>theories.

Bingo!  Hardy devoted an entire chapter to doing just that.  (I also learned
why dairies no longer leave foil-covered bottles of milk on the porch.)

>          Many of the so-called universal, and trancendental, moral
>standards, are relatable to behaviors that have a known evolutionary
>context. This includes all of what has been called "Family Values", of
>late. It also includes antethetical behaviors such as competition between
>unattached males and male competition with offspring of earlier matings.
>Do you care to expand on this subject?

Hardy considerd the origins of religion to lie in neoteny, the retention
of juvenile characteristics in the adult, and carnivory, which fostered
cooperation.  In this regard his views are mostly in agreement with those
of Desmond Morris as expressed in _The Naked Ape_ and _Manwatching: A Field
Guide to Human Behaviour_.  In the latter Morris characterizes the body 
lowering of religious behavior as a submissive display toward a super-
dominant individual and notes that parental terms are often applied to
deities, e.g., God the Father.

Hardy, of course, dismissed the natural theology of William Paley but
attempted to resurrect the term for his own use.  (I'd have called it
evolutionary theology to avoid confusion.)  He also rejected theistic
evolution, specifically that of Teilhard de Chardin.  He proposed testing
transcendental aspects by rigorous investigation of claims of religious
experience, and to that end he founded the Religious Experience Research
Unit at Oxford (I don't know if it's still in business; one of my projects
is to try to find some reports).

The book is derived from a series of lectures that Hardy had presented to
some theologians a few years earlier.  I found it quite readable.  From
reading your articles, Bruce, I think you'd find it interesting.

By way of background, Hardy was one of the leading marine biologists of
his day (that part of his career lasted from World War I until he retired
in 1961), and his work on plankton is considered classic.  He began studying
religious experience full-time immediately after his retirement and continued
until his death in 1985 at the age of 89.  A few months before he died, he
received the Templeton Religion Prize; it's cash value is greater than that
of the Nobels.

-- Herb Huston
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