The 'god gene'

[bernee51]

In another thread the subject of the supposed 'god gene' was raised. A poster commented: "I didn't read the whole God Gene article, but from what you said, and from the above discussion, it's pretty clear that humans have some kind of instinct that tells them to seek ... explanations."

I have just finished reading a wonderful little book that some may know: Shrodinger's What is Life?. In it he discusses evolution and the mechanism of so-called chance mutations.

While an organism may 'suffer' a mutation to the genome that gives it some advantage of survival over other similar organisms, it is up to the organism to take advanage of said mutation. if the oranism was to remain in the same envirionment to which it was accustomed the advantage would remain. However, if the organism had the 'intelligence' to change its environment, or its relationship to it, or move to a more advantageous environment the advantage afforded by the mutation could be substantially increased. Also evolutionary changes are not a 'dot point' but more a work in progress. The 'god gene' I believe is inherent in all that is living and is that mechanism of seeking a more advantageous environment in which to further evolutionary drive.

How has this resulted in the 'god idea'? I have mentioned in the past that it is my belief that 'spiritual' development is subject to the same evolutionary pressures as the physical aspects of our being. The same could be said of 'culture' (are they the same thing?) It is to our evolutionary advantage to create an environment suitable for survival. In the face of the uncertainties and unexplainable, having a 'god' or the 'divine' to fall back on provides an environment whereby the like minded can feel spiritually comfortable and secure.

Meanwhile evolutionary pressures march inexorably onwards and, for some, the 'god idea' no longer provides the right environment for growth.

Is the 'god gene' a specific part of the genome or part of our overall drive to evolve?

[ST88]

Meanwhile evolutionary pressures march inexorably onwards and, for some, the 'god idea' no longer provides the right environment for growth.

Is the 'god gene' a specific part of the genome or part of our overall drive to evolve?

bernee:

I think natural human evolution has pretty much played itself out. Any further changes in the species will need to be engineered. This is because we no longer select mates based on single, specific traits. In order for evolution to be a factor, there would have to be traits that promote additional procreation (not just sex, in terms of humanity) across mass populations. From here on out, it seems to me that genetic variation ensures that "evolutionary pressures" are non-existent.

That said, I'd like to expand on something you said. As human brains were evolving into what they are now, it was [somehow] advantageous to believe in a spiritual realm -- to accept that there are things beyond our perception controlling (or at least affecting) the world around us. There could be a number of reasons why this conferred specific advantages over those other humans who didn't have this trait.

However, believing specifically in a god or in a specific type of spiritual world seems to be beyond genetics and is more cultural. It seems fairly clear that all over the world every single culture has some kind of spiritual belief -- virtually all of them so different as to be mutually exclusive (i.e., if Native American spirit beliefs are true, then the J-C God can't be). This points directly to a genetic basis for belief in the spiritual.

In a world where unexplained phenomena can be deadly, it makes sense to try and appease those unexplained powers. However, in a modern context, where many of those unexplained phenomenae have been explained, these ideas make little sense. Culturally, religion tends to make society stagnant. In general, however, the idea of what is spiritual or what the spiritual plane contains or what its purpose is does evolve as our ideas of what we require in order to survive evolves. That is, the spirit world is what we say it is, and this idea evolves over time as necessary.

[Jose]

Is the 'god gene' a specific part of the genome or part of our overall drive to evolve?

Well, whoever that really, really clever person was who suggested the "god gene" idea is the instinct to seek explanations had it right, in my opinion. In any event, I'll argue here that the mechanism by which evolution works has no means of creating a "drive to evolve." Mutations cannot be targeted to specific portions of the DNA. Yet, they happen all the time. So, there is always genetic diversity, and it is always random (albeit based on what is already there). At the same time, it is impossible to make oneself evolve, because that's not how evolution works. Rather, it's just a matter of every individual living, having offspring, and dying--and over time, the particular genetic variations that lead to the most offspring happen to become the common traits. One may have a drive to survive, and a drive to be "the best," but one cannot predict the future well enough to have a drive to make one's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren have a particular trait that we don't even know about right now.

Further, in many species in many environments, evolution proceeds by making animals less complex, or smaller, or some other type of change that we'd consider to be "less advanced." Evolution goes both ways, and it's hard to imagine a "drive" to become less advanced (or to have one's descendents be less advanced).

I think natural human evolution has pretty much played itself out...

I will disagree with this, too. I'll say that it's impossible to prevent evolution from happening. There are always mutations. There are always people who have more offspring, and people who have fewer. With humans, it seems that there are also always wars. There will also be serious environmental crises in the coming century or two, with disease pandemics, resource shortages, massive pollution, etc. When oil runs out, maybe the only ones to survive will be the Amish, and the least-developed villages that still survive by subsistence farming. That will change the gene pool of the overall human population--and that's evolution. Or, if a pandemic wipes out everyone with a particular sensitivity to whatever virus it is, leaving only a few who are resistant, we'll get a change in the gene pool. AIDS is already doing this, selecting for individuals who have a genetic variant of their CD4 (or whatever it is) cell-surface proteins.

In any event, the essence of what I'm trying to say is that evolution happens, and cannot be predicted. We never see it among humans because it doesn't happen on the scale of a single lifetime. For whatever species is alive at the time, it will always look to them as if they are the pinnacle of evolution, and that evolution has stopped. We'll have to come back in a few million years to see how it proceeds from here.

[ST88]

I think natural human evolution has pretty much played itself out...

I will disagree with this, too. I'll say that it's impossible to prevent evolution from happening. There are always mutations. There are always people who have more offspring, and people who have fewer. With humans, it seems that there are also always wars. There will also be serious environmental crises in the coming century or two, with disease pandemics, resource shortages, massive pollution, etc.

I guess in principle I agree with you, but I would argue that human intellect has overridden human evolution. By this I don't mean that specifically intelligent people have discovered cures for diseases (though that has happened also), I mean that the human brain has figured out ways to forestall the evolutionary process wherever it may occur.

Now, there may be a worldwide pandemic that causes every person not of Hungarian descent to become instantly sterile. In such a case, it would appear that the Hungarian gene would confer an advantage such that the particular immuno-Hungarianness would survive in the population. Assuming that the pathogen continues to exist in the environment, selection pressures would maintain it. But wouldn't the variability of the human genome be wide enough to repopulate the earth with both Hungarianness and non-Hungarianness once that pressure is gone?

[Jose]

...I mean that the human brain has figured out ways to forestall the evolutionary process wherever it may occur.

Ah, but has it? Sure, we have (temporarily at least) lessened the selection pressure for poor vision and for many other characteristics that would once have made people easy prey for sabertooth tigers. We have lessened the selection pressure for disease resistance by discovering and using antibiotics, but at the same time we have lessened the selection pressure against idiot politicians so that there are no regulations to restrict agricultural use of antibiotics, resulting in the evolution of seriously-resistant pathogens. They'll provide a new wave of selection when they become rampant.

But these are near-term events, and predictable. The nature of mutation is that it is not predictable. For example, what of those tetrachromatic women we discussed about a year ago? [Women with a new photoreceptor who can see 4 basic colors, rather than the normal 3.] What impact will such a change in vision have? What about a photoreceptor that is sensitive to UV, or to IR? What about a fundamental leap in intelligence? The family that has such a trait might learn that it is best to home-school their kids, and to play along with us dolts until their population is high enough that they can wipe us out. In the end, we can't predict what will happen. We can make some guesses about what might happen, but to get the environmental changes and the genetic changes right in such a guess would be challenging.

Now, there may be a worldwide pandemic that causes every person not of Hungarian descent to become instantly sterile. In such a case, it would appear that the Hungarian gene would confer an advantage such that the particular immuno-Hungarianness would survive in the population. Assuming that the pathogen continues to exist in the environment, selection pressures would maintain it. But wouldn't the variability of the human genome be wide enough to repopulate the earth with both Hungarianness and non-Hungarianness once that pressure is gone?

In such a scenario, the variability would be relevant if enough non-Hungarians survived to retain said variability. But if they were all wiped out, their variability would go with them. The new variability would build up over coming generations, starting with whatever the Hungarians had. It's unlikley that new mutations would re-create exactly what exists now, or even anything closely resembling it.

In such a catastrophic population crash, there would be such a huge change in the environment of the Hungarians (no trade partners, no antagonistic invaders, and almost certainly a collapse of current industry) that "what is useful" for survival would be markedly different from now. Under such conditions, that fundamental jump in intelligence would be helpful. Maybe longer fingers would, too. Who knows?

As an analogy, think of H. erectus, who had spread over most of the known world. Then some small group of 'em somewhere enjoyed a mutation or two that enabled complex speech. Who would have predicted it? The results were staggering. The new H. sapiens took over, and fundamentally changed the planet. In a similar vein, it's hard to predict what might occur that could give a small group of us a marked advantage over the others.

But, my money's on economic and technological collapse from environmental degradation, and thus hugely different selection pressures than we can imagine now.