DAUGHTER OF KURA

Paleoanthropologists, evolutionary biologists, and evolutionary psychologists have extracted enormous amounts of data from those very old skulls, but there just isn’t any way to know what was going on inside them. Biologists can figure out who is related to whom, and estimate how long ago a common ancestor lived, but can’t know how their subjects behaved. Psychologists who study evolution have theorized extensively about the evolutionary development of religious beliefs, but suffer from an even worse shortage of data than do the other scientists. All of these fields of inquiry have helped make Daughter of Kura plausible.

Snap, the unbeliever, and Bapoto, her devout nemesis, have inherited some behavior patterns that help them cope with their lives, but also might lead to religion. The three relevant behavior patterns which might give one an evolutionary advantage, but which might also predispose one to the development of religion are agent detection, causal reasoning, and theory of mind.

Agent detection is the ability to recognize patterns that might be other living things, and possibly threats. A person who is better able to recognize an unmoving leopard might live longer and have more offspring than a person who doesn’t recognize the leopard before it attacks. On the other hand, the person who sees a bear where only a rock exists might be the very person who perceives trees and rocks to have personalities and intentions. A person with better agent detection might have an evolutionary advantage, but also have a predisposition to belief in the supernatural.

The second relevant behavior is causal reasoning. People, wonderfully enough, have developed the ability to understand that whatever happens first might cause whatever happens second. This ability is clearly adaptive in those who learn to avoid dangerous situations. On the other hand, the same sort of reasoning leads to religious explanations for random events.

The theory of mind is the third behavior that might promote the development of religion. This phrase doesn’t refer to a theory in the usual sense; it only means an understanding of the idea that people have minds. At around age four, people develop the ability to recognize that other people have minds separate from one’s own, each filled with invisible thoughts. The concept of mind allows one to distinguish the physical brain from its functioning; it allows one to differentiate consciousness from the body in which it occurs. Once one sees the mind as something separate from the body, it becomes easy, even natural, to imagine the continuation of consciousness after the death of the physical body. It is a short leap from here to inventing the idea of immortal souls.