Is religion a parasitic meme or is it a cultural adaptation?



The divide on the question of the naturalistic origins of religion is between the adaptationists and the by-product theorists. The adaptationists are led by David Sloan Wilson and Jonathan Haidt, while Daniel Dennett is the major proponent of the religion-as-a-by-product hypothesis. In this post, I outline the issue briefly and mention some implications of these ideas.



The application of evolutionary theory to… Continue