As I was updating the random youtube videos today (sorry it’s been so long!), I was watching the Michael Shermer video below and a thought suddenly struck me. If evolution and natural selection in particular are working as we know they do - will humans eventually evolve to lose the need for irrational beliefs?
What I mean is, will humans who prefer to believe in the power of prayer over medical science or vaccination eventually die out due to their beliefs - or am I being too hopeful here? As Shermer discusses in the TED video, our brains have evolved with something he calls ‘patternicity’ that was very useful when our survival depended on it working correctly. I’d argue that because we no longer need this as much as we did, then possibly we may evolve to lose or have it greatly reduced - and this might be beneficial to the species.
Too hopeful? Maybe, but we all know that if an organism can have a very slight advantage over another because of a modified trait then eventually that trait will become dominant.
Might take a few thousand more years, but you never know. Imagine a world filled with ‘Hitchens’…
