Building unshakeable faith: Addendum
Why my claim against Richard Dawkins' selfish gene theory in Part 1 was incorrect, and why that's a good thing.
What’s the selfish gene theory?
It builds on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. It proposes that it is the ‘selfishness’ of individual genes—their desire to survive—that contributes to the variety of life around us and the origin of many of our basal traits/needs.
Put simply, it explains:
why we put our own survival ahead of others (because our genes want to survive),
why we cooperate (it improves the chances of the genes’ survival), and
why we may act altruistically at our own expense (because the organism we have sacrificed ourselves for shares significant genetic material with us).
What did I claim incorrectly?
In Part 1 of this series, I said, simplistically, that “The selfish gene theory does not explain my (…) desire for connection.” And because I offered no justification for this claim, my consequent conclusion that “connection is an equally strong motivator as survival” falls flat, too.
But the theory does explain my desire for connection. Logically. Defensibly.
Quick note: ‘Connection’ and ‘belongingness’ are synonymous and used interchangeably here. Perhaps another way to put it is also ‘love.’
The need to belong has clear survival benefits. Quoting from a significant academic exploration on belongingness (Baumeister & Leary 1995):
Groups can share food, provide mates, and help care for offspring (including orphans). Some survival tasks, such as hunting large animals or maintaining defensive vigilance against predatory enemies, are best accomplished by group cooperation. Children who desired to stay together with adults (and who would resist being left alone) would be more likely to survive until their reproductive years than other children because they would be more likely to receive care and food as well as protection. Cues that connote possible harm, such as illness, danger, nightfall, and disaster, seem to increase the need to be with others, which again underscores the protective value of group membership. Adults who formed attachments would be more likely to reproduce than those who failed to form them, and long-term relationships would increase the chances that the offspring would reach maturity and reproduce in turn. (emphasis added)
I made an impassioned pitch for a “connection that transcends the mere physical into the mental, emotional, and spiritual” that brings fulfilment in a relationship. But this can easily be explained as an evolutionary development.
Finding such deep “mental, emotional, and spiritual” connection with someone will make me feel understood and loved.
It will create a deep attachment with the other person.
Logically, the deeper the attachment, the more likely that it will be a lasting, long-term relationship that improves both survival and reproductive outcomes.
Why is it good that I was wrong?
It made me think.
In hindsight, the theory’s logic seems obvious. Did faith blind me? Yes.
A common mistake humans make is confirmation bias, which includes not only cherry-picking supportive evidence, but also ignoring evidence that does not support one’s view.
For it is a habit of humanity to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy. -Thucydides
I am emotionally invested in my faith. It is a key ingredient of my identity. This emotional investment and its strong amalgamation with my self-image make me highly susceptible to confirmation bias.
Why am I so emotionally attached to the idea of God? Evolution does posit an answer.
It gives me comfort to imagine an all-powerful God who loves me unconditionally and has my best interests at heart.
It helps me make sense of this mind-boggling world, and reduces my anxiety about how uncertain everything is, how brutal humans are, and how we’re probably driving ourselves into extinction.
It gives meaning and direction to my life. The Vedanta theology, which I believe in, lays out a clear purpose for human life and directive principles to achieve it.
In the language of evolutionary theory, organisms tend to seek pleasure (reason #1 above) and avoid or reduce pain and uncertainty (reasons #2 and #3), as these behaviours would improve chances of survival in hunter-gatherer settings.
Does knowing this change anything? Yes and no.
It isn’t as though I have only recently discovered the concept of confirmation bias; I’ve used Farnam Street’s bias checklist since 2018. But, when a bias is so emotionally encapsulated (as mine in favour of a God), knowing about it does not make one any less immune.
To be clear, my objective is not to remove my ‘bias’ in favour of God, but to argue better for the validity of my belief. And there, thankfully, I’m not hopeless.
I hope that employing the following actions will help make my thought-process and belief system more robust:
Systematic study: The academic study of religion includes understanding its anthropological origins. Additionally, the ability to engage with contemporary opposition is a characteristic of a true Vedanta theologian (see Shankaracharya’s and Ramanuja’s commentaries on the Vedanta Sutras eloquently refuting the materialist, non-theistic perspectives of their times). I have committed to formal, academic study of religion and Vedanta theology, which forces systematic review of material and cogent argument construction.
Accountability: This series of essays is one example of the accountability mechanisms I’m creating. Another big one (that also prompted this addendum) is consistent debates with my husband. We engage with each other’s beliefs without judgement, but with compassionate inquiry. We push each other to clearly articulate and justify our points of view on everything mundane to metaphysical.
If we are expected to justify our beliefs, feelings, and behaviours to others, we are less likely to be biased towards confirmatory evidence. This is less out of a desire to be accurate, and more the result of wanting to avoid negative consequences or derision for being illogical. - Farnam Street, quoting Learner & Tetlock
How would I argue differently?
If I was to rewrite that Part-1 essay today, of course, the first thing I would do is correct my biggest oversight, i.e., explain my claim. Although evolution has a logical explanation for my need for connection (as covered above), it is insufficient for me.
Why I feel that the selfish gene theory is insufficient to explain my need for connection/love.
Starting with the very first life-form on Earth and progressing over billions of years to the highly complex and varied beings both alive and extinct today—at each step, there were unlimited possible outcomes. How each outcome came about—and essentially why we exist in the way that we do today—is explained by natural selection, randomness, and chance. [Further reading: Chance in Evolution]
Randomness: If you rolled the dice a second time, it may not necessarily give you the same result as your first roll.
Chance: The probability of the second roll being the same as the first is 1 out of 6.
Chance is the label we give to a human limitation—our inability to know why something happened exactly the way it did and what exactly will happen in the future. At best, we can chart a range of possible pasts and futures. But we cannot know for sure why one outcome materializes over another.
In short, we cannot know with certainty that I have a hard-coded need to belong only because it helped my ancestors survive. There were other factors at play that we have labelled chance.
Survival is certainly a part of the story, and notably, the part with the most empirical evidence, but it is not the full story. Survival cannot be an end in itself. I refuse to accept that survival is the sole purpose of life.
This is where God (and Vedanta philosophy) makes an appearance in my narrative. Why is it that we evolved with the very specific anatomy and brain chemistry that we did and none of the other unlimited possible ways and forms? I believe it is because the universe (which is God’s energy) interacted with us (individual souls, also God’s energy) to manifest the forms that were most suitable to fulfil our desires. A key desire common to us all, according to the Vedanta philosophy, is to be a ‘doer’ and an ‘enjoyer’—manifestations of our false ego.
The true purpose of our existence, however, according to Vedanta, is to re-connect with the Divine.
Depending on which school of Vedanta resonates with you, you would interpret ‘Divine’ to mean either of the following:
non-dualistic: the divinity in you, me, the universe, and everything that pervades it
dualistic: the divinity that is the primordial cause of you, me, the universe, and everything that pervades it (i.e., God)
This is the basis of my belief that my need for connection/belonging/love is an equally strong motivator as survival. As you will have guessed, I ascribe to the dualistic Vedanta school—it is intuitively more appealing to me.
I will not go into the sophisticated philosophical arguments underlying the Vedantin ontology because it is no small feat (and traditions spend lifetimes perfecting their commentaries), but if you are interested, I’d recommend Edwin Bryant’s online course.
Closing reflections
I spoke about the limitations of our sense perceptions in Part 2 of this series. Because our sense perceptions are limited, empirical evidence—the foundation of modern knowledge systems and science as we know it—is unlikely to be enough to prove or disprove God. At least not in my lifetime. So, rather than remaining undecided all my life, I choose the belief that is supported by a mix of reason, valid testimony, and intuitive appeal.
Without exception, each of us has a core belief about the origin and purpose of life. And that’s a kind of faith, too.
Whether you believe that God was involved in your existence, or natural selection and chance were, you still believe in an entity other than yourself. The theologian’s quest is to understand the former, and the scientist’s is the latter.
I want to end with a reminder that it’s okay to not have all the answers. I’m quoting from Purpose, Meaning, and Darwinism by Mary Midgley (emphasis added).
For example, Darwin, recounting in his autobiography how his views on religion had developed, explained that he was still impressed by “the extreme difficulty, or rather impossibility, of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man… as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting, I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man, and I deserve to be called a Theist… [But then] arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?”
This discouraging idea led Darwin to remain agnostic. But this suspicion surely should have made him go much further. He should have distrusted the whole train of reasoning by which he reached this conclusion – indeed, the whole mass of thought, including scientific thought, that had caused his scruple: it all comes from the same evolutionary source! His complaint about that source suggests there’s some method of revelation that would bypass such drawbacks. What would that oracle be?
If you persevered this far, thank you so much for reading, and I hope it was engaging + useful. Please reach out if you have any thoughts or feedback.