richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion

THE ROOTS OF RELIGION 165
themselves to a lifetime of celibacy or to lonely silence, all in the
service of religion. What is it all for? What is the benefit of religion?
By 'benefit', the Darwinian normally means some enhancement
to the survival of the individual's genes. What is missing from this
is the important point that Darwinian benefit is not restricted to
the genes of the individual organism. There are three possible alternative
targets of benefit. One arises from the theory of group
selection, and I'll come to that. The second follows from the theory
that I advocated in The Extended Phenotype: the individual you are
watching may be working under the manipulative influence of
genes in another individual, perhaps a parasite. Dan Dennett
reminds us that the common cold is universal to all human peoples
in much the same way as religion is, yet we would not want to
suggest that colds benefit us. Plenty of examples are known of
animals manipulated into behaving in such a way as to benefit the
transmission of a parasite to its next host. I encapsulated the point
in my 'central theorem of the extended phenotype': 'An animal's
behaviour tends to maximize the survival of the genes "for" that
behaviour, whether or not those genes happen to be in the body of
the particular animal performing it.'
Third, the 'central theorem' may substitute for 'genes' the more
general term 'replicators'. The fact that religion is ubiquitous probably
means that it has worked to the benefit of something, but it
may not be us or our genes. It may be to the benefit of only the
religious ideas themselves, to the extent that they behave in a somewhat
gene-like way, as replicators. I shall deal with this below,
under the heading 'Tread softly, because you tread on my memes'.
Meanwhile, I press on with more traditional interpretations of
Darwinism, in which 'benefit' is assumed to mean benefit to
individual survival and reproduction.
Hunter-gatherer peoples such as Australian aboriginal tribes
presumably live in something like the way our distant ancestors did.
The New Zealand/Australian philosopher of science Kim Sterelny
points up a dramatic contrast in their lives. On the one hand
aboriginals are superb survivors under conditions that test their
practical skills to the uttermost. But, Sterelny goes on, intelligent as
our species might be, we are perversely intelligent. The very same
peoples who are so savvy about the natural world and how to