richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion

164 THE COD DELUSION
otherwise applying ants to the feathers. Nobody is sure what the
benefit of anting is - perhaps some kind of hygiene, cleaning out
parasites from the feathers; there are various other hypotheses,
none of them strongly supported by evidence. But uncertainty as to
details doesn't - nor should it - stop Darwinians from presuming,
with great confidence, that anting must be 'for' something. In this
case common sense might agree, but Darwinian logic has a particular
reason for thinking that, if the birds didn't do it, their
statistical prospects of genetic success would be damaged, even if
we don't yet know the precise route of the damage. The conclusion
follows from the twin premises that natural selection punishes
wastage of time and energy, and that birds are consistently observed
to devote time and energy to anting. If there is a one-sentence manifesto
of this 'adaptationist' principle, it was expressed - admittedly
in somewhat extreme and exaggerated terms - by the distinguished
Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin: 'That is the one point which
I think all evolutionists are agreed upon, that it is virtually impossible
to do a better job than an organism is doing in its own
environment.' 75 If anting wasn't positively useful for survival and
reproduction, natural selection would long ago have favoured
individuals who refrained from it. A Darwinian might be tempted
to say the same of religion; hence the need for this discussion.
To an evolutionist, religious rituals 'stand out like peacocks in a
sunlit glade' (Dan Dennett's phrase). Religious behaviour is a writlarge
human equivalent of anting or bower-building. It is
time-consuming, energy-consuming, often as extravagantly ornate
as the plumage of a bird of paradise. Religion can endanger the life
of the pious individual, as well as the lives of others. Thousands of
people have been tortured for their loyalty to a religion, persecuted
by zealots for what is in many cases a scarcely distinguishable alternative
faith. Religion devours resources, sometimes on a massive
scale. A medieval cathedral could consume a hundred mancenturies
in its construction, yet was never used as a dwelling, or
for any recognizably useful purpose. Was it some kind of architectural
peacock's tail? If so, at whom was the advertisement aimed?
Sacred music and devotional paintings largely monopolized
medieval and Renaissance talent. Devout people have died for their
gods and killed for them; whipped blood from their backs, sworn