Genetics and the Future of Religion
Religiosity is partly genetic, and the religious are out-breeding the secular. It follows, then, that societies will get more religious over time. But over at Gene Expression, Razib argues that while the premises are true, the conclusion is false. He starts by looking at Turkish data from the World Values Survey, then doggedly argues in the comments with a slew of critics. When one reader insists:
If the religious outbreed the secular – which they
do; and if religiousness is correlated with heritable psychological
traits – which it is; then society will get more religious.
The only question is how quickly it will happen.
Razib replies:
please. spare me. religious people have been outbreeding non-religious
for most of history i assume given the social profiles we know (the
same stuff about religious outbreeding the non-religious was true in
france in 1840). and the non-religious keep increasing as a fraction.
as t -> ∞ you’re certainly right, but i really don’t care, that’s
trivial. you seem to live in a world where dynamics are never cyclical.
So, Western society will be getting more religious, and pretty soon.
give me numbers. no qual, quant. in the long run we’re dead. you must
have quantitative metrics in mind if you’re offering an opinion.
percentages at time X based on particular parameters.
I learned a lot from the comments. But by the end of the debate, I just wanted Razib to propose a bet…
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