Time Magazine (Oct 25th) edition told of the discovery that brain chemicals responsible for regulating our mood are found in people who have traits of spirituality.
quote: There was a twin study suggesting that this spirituality scale is at least partially inherited.
The other day, I read an article about college the success of religious college students:
quote: College students with significant religious involvement report better emotional health than those with no involvement
quote: The findings, released Monday (Oct. 25), show that religious activity has positive links to emotional health.
This got me wondering if spirituality in fact proves evolution - which says that traits helping organims will have a higher chance of being inherited. If spirituality does in fact help our emotional health, then wouldn't natural selection favor it being passed on throughout the years?
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
There's also a self-transcendency quiz linked on the page to test your own degree of spirituality.
My score is totally unsurprising.
quote:You scored 25, on a scale of 0 to 100. Here's how to interpret your score: 0 - 30 Your feet are pretty firmly planted on the ground and you rarely feel "at one" with the universe. Though you may have very strong ethical and religous beliefs, they're not tied to specific spiritual experiences you've had.
On a different note - the ads featuring John Shelby Spong on every page of Beliefnet really really creep me out. Posted by MaydayDesiax (Member # 5012) on :
::raises eyebrows:: I got a 83, which is very odd because I haven't attended a church service in about a year...
About the 'emotional health' thing, my therapist I visited over the summer recommended that I spend some time going to church. I didn't understand at the time, but now I think I know why she said that.
Posted by kaioshin00 (Member # 3740) on :
Im with you sndrake
You scored 25, on a scale of 0 to 100.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
33
[ November 23, 2004, 02:33 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Spong.
Spong.
:begins to jump up and down and make squelching noises:
kai, the real beef I had with Time's article (I read the article a month or so ago) was that it presupposed that people believe in God because of what they feel. Sure, you can track down an area of the brain that is stimulated when someone is experiencing a sense of the spiritual, but it doesn't necessarily mean that these feelings are why a person believes in God. So really, it doesn't solve anything about proving evolution or the non-existance vs. existance of God. It just theorizes that there's an area of the brain that is responsible for spiritual feelings.
Posted by eslaine (Member # 5433) on :
I think the quiz is biased towards deism.
It's a little bit general. Not really impressive.
I scored 75 (mind you, I am an atheist.)
Posted by kaioshin00 (Member # 3740) on :
quote: It just theorizes that there's an area of the brain that is responsible for spiritual feelings.
Which means that a certain allele or combination of alleles is responsibe for it, right? Which means that the current levels of the appearance of it have been dominated by thousands of years of natural selection?
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
Or that we were created with the ability to sense spiritually, hence a capacity within the brain to manage that part of life.
This is a chicken and egg conversation. Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
The "god gene" isn't all that new as a concept. Robert J. Sawyer played with the idea in his "Neanderthal Parallax" trilogy.
Sawyer has a short article on the topic - it's called The God Organ.
Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :
My, I scored an 8. And that's only because I tune out while jogging. If I wasn't such a day dreamer I totally could have nailed a zero.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
kaoishin -- this doesn't particularly prove anythign regarding evolution. Of course, it doesn't have to, the existence of evolution is fully proven, as we have seen it occurring. The only question remains exactly how it has progressed in the past, and we've got most of that picture filled in as exactly as is possible when one deals with prehistory.
Posted by kaioshin00 (Member # 3740) on :
I know it doesn't prove evolution, but I was hoping that it would sort of ... go along with evolution. You know, better emotional health -> better chance of surviving -> trait passed on = evolution kind of thing.
If that makes any sense.
Posted by Tater (Member # 7035) on :
42. *shrug*
Bad kaioshin! Down with the theory of evolution! *shakes fist*
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:Or that we were created with the ability to sense spiritually, hence a capacity within the brain to manage that part of life.
If you change the word "created" to "have," that seems fine with me. We have the ability to trust, judge, and deceive. I don't know how many animals have these, but I wouldn't be surprised if all of this just came up with the chain. There is extent that I don't know if we should look to animals to figure out where we have been at the expense of exploring the richness of where we are.
[ November 23, 2004, 07:47 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by punwit (Member # 6388) on :
Pretty much conformed to my own opinion of my spirituality with a 33. I sometimes wish I were a true believer but rarely feel that way.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
a 67....
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
quote: College students with significant religious involvement report better emotional health than those with no involvement
I'm sure this is majorly related to the social net that religious groups provide. People who have a secure social net are much more stable emotionally than people who don't have friends.
Posted by ReikoDemosthenes (Member # 6218) on :
The irony of this suggestion is that, most things that are signals of an absense to the body have equivalents to satisfy them. For example, when you get hungry, it is signalling a need for nutrition. Or when one is tired, they are suffering from an absence of sleep. So if there is such a gene, odds are that there is a means of satisfying its cravings...
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:College students with significant religious involvement report better emotional health than those with no involvement.
It makes sense to me. When the power of the almightly Lord is helping lift the existential burdens, it eases everything else. I don't think that AA slipped the second step in there by accident. I think it's a little bit dangerous, though. I've seen studies that show that criminals have incredibly high self-esteem.
Being secure with your place in the world doesn't seem to be the path to righteousness. It just gives you a little elbow room.
33. I guess my work is right here.
[ November 24, 2004, 12:18 AM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by FriendlyNeighborhoodWitch (Member # 6317) on :
I scored a 92%. I had no idea, really, but when you start talking about nature to me, I just go all gooshy.
Posted by BunnV (Member # 6816) on :
Wow, I scored 25! Not bad. I wish I could do that well in my accounting class.
quote: I believe a 'sixth sense' may sometimes allow us to know things we logically wouldn't.
I thought the 'sixth sense' was seeing dead people. Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I scored 33. Same as Irami, much lower than Banna, barely out of the Complete Skeptic category.
Should I be bothered?
Maybe it's the questions.
*muses* Or maybe I'm secretly a skeptic.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I got a 33, as well. Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
*cheers* Although I'm still not impressed with the questions, that does make me feel slightly better. I think you're a couple of questions and a few amazing experiences away from letting yourself believe.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
There are genes for the ability to sense light as well. I think that of course the ability to sense the presence of God, or spirituality, is genetic, like most human abilities are genetic to some degree, but to make the leap from there to deciding that means that God doesn't exist (as some people seem to do) is a fallacy.
It's interesting that religion improves emotional health, if that's really true. (I'm not at all sure that has been proven well, scientifically.) Does religion favor survival? If so, is this taken by some people as the explanation why religion exists, even though they feel it is contrary to fact? Let's say we grant that hypothesis and see where that leads us.
What I find interesting is that IN EVERY OTHER CASE of an animal believing something contrary to fact that we see in evolution, it's the animals who perceive the real truth who survive best. That would only make sense, right? If your internal organization correctly and truthfully reflects the nature of reality, then you are more able to successfully deal with that reality. If your senses are good enough to detect the camoflaged predator, for example, then you will be more likely to survive than someone who can't see it. If you are a bird and can tell the difference between the poisonous Monarch butterflies and a tasty mimic species, then you are going to eat a lot better. Always in matters of animals being deceived or deceiving themselves, knowing the truth yields the highest survival.
So you would think that evolutionary success BY ITSELF could be taken as evidence that religion is true, if in fact such a correlation exists. I'm not at all sure that it does, but both sides of such arguments seem to grant that it does.
I got 100 on the test. I don't think that's terribly meaningful. I was an atheist for most of my adult life and probably would have scored much lower then. There's nothing immutable about a person's score on such a test, I don't think. Time Magazine isn't really a source for much good science that I've seen.
[ November 24, 2004, 09:07 AM: Message edited by: Tatiana ]
Posted by kaioshin00 (Member # 3740) on :
I didn't think evolution had anything to do with truth - if a trait appears that makes the organism more likely to survive, then it is passed on.
If, in some hypothetical world where there is no God, and no belief in God either, who would the organisms go to for emotional help? If in some generation they started believing that someone who created the world is there to protect and watch over them, and that improves their emotional health, then wouldn't it not be passed on?
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Yeah there are lots of instances of deception in nature, but believing the lie is, in every case we know well, contrary to survival.
I'm just wondering, if it's really true (which I am skeptical of) that religion favors survival, why people wouldn't see that as evidence that religion is true. Believing untrue things means you are deluded about the true nature of the reality which you inhabit. How can delusion enhance survival? In every other case, knowing the truth is what helps you surive, isn't it?
[ November 24, 2004, 09:14 AM: Message edited by: Tatiana ]
Posted by kaioshin00 (Member # 3740) on :
Ah. mere coincidence
Edit: NO fair you edited your post, making mine look like nonsense
[ November 24, 2004, 09:45 AM: Message edited by: kaioshin00 ]
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
I wonder if we should compare the survival value of various doctrines one against the other, and see what that shows us? To me this is junky science.
Posted by kaioshin00 (Member # 3740) on :
quote: How can delusion enhance survival?
What about the placebo effect? If someone truly believes they are cured, sometimes they become cured, even if the medicine they are taking is simply sugar.
I dont think survival has anything to do with truth. If you believe something false, and that happens to enhance you in some way, then natural selection will favor it.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"if it's really true (which I am skeptical of) that religion favors survival, why people wouldn't see that as evidence that religion is true"
Because the benefits of religion are not tied to religious doctrine in the same concrete way that the benefit of being able to recognize camouflage is tied to eating.
In other words, the benefit of a belief in something seems to be a general sense of relief and community, regardless of what you believe. Consequently, using this as proof of the accuracy of that belief misses the point.
[ November 24, 2004, 10:24 AM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
The placebo effect was recently proven to be false. There is no such thing as the placebo effect.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Placebo effect a myth? I thought it was well-established, ak. A few years ago, I myself thought I had taken a pill (which I needed, w/o going into specifics), experienced the desired effect, and went on with my evening. The next morning I found the pill on my bedside table. I had never taken it.
Anecdotal, to be sure, but it sure convinced me. Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Morbo: nope, one of those scientific urban legends, it seems, like N-rays. It's been discredited recently. That fact hasn't percolated through the general consciousness yet, just cause the idea of it became so entrenched. But in fact there is no such thing as the placebo effect.
Kaioshin: Edit: "NO fair you edited your post, making mine look like nonsense" Sorry, I thought yours still worked as a response to my first paragraph, which it was. I tend to edit my posts several times for clarity, cause when I read them I realize I didn't say what I wanted to say. I should post late at night when nobody else is on, I guess. Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"The placebo effect was recently proven to be false. There is no such thing as the placebo effect."
Can you provide a link? I've googled this several times and find multiple studies that do in fact demonstrate a noticeable placebo effect, but nothing to the contrary.
Edit: Ah, wait. I found it. Two studies by the same Danish doctors -- in 2001 and 2004 -- indicated that for a variety of drugs, patients on a placebo reported results only marginally better than patients who received no treatment at all, and recommended that a "no treatment" group be added to drug studies to distinguish between placebo benefits and healing over time. This study has been challenged by numerous organizations, but I'm not qualified to judge which group is using better or more authoritative methodology. The biggest flaw as I see it is that patients genuinely want to get better and consider doctor's visits to constitute treatment, so I'm not sure how you'd completely eliminate a placebo effect for the "no treatment" group without making it clear to them that their doctors honestly didn't care.
[ November 24, 2004, 11:45 AM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
quote: What I find interesting is that IN EVERY OTHER CASE of an animal believing something contrary to fact that we see in evolution, it's the animals who perceive the real truth who survive best.
It's difficult to find a counter-example to this in non-human animals, I grant you. But in humans, "belief" involves things far more murky than "is that a good butterfly or a bad butterfly?" Sorting through syystems of thought and belief systems is tricky, and rarely have clear-cut answers. A belief that helps one generation suceed can get all your descendants killed in the next, as in the English civil wars, which went back and forth between Protestents, Anglicans, and Catholics, and had massacres on all sides.
Sometimes, believing or professing belief in a belief system you believe false can help survival, as when you are a religious minority .
Or people who are overly optomistic, in spite of facts to the contrary.
The panic mode people and animals can go into can be a last-ditch attempt to survive, even though survival seems impossible.
I'm sure there are other examples but my time is limited.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Are the two studies Tom made reference to what you're thinking of, Anne Kate, when you say that it's been proven that the placebo effect does not exist? If so, could either of you provide a link? If not, I'd love to read the studies that proved this. I'm pretty skeptical of the claim, I have to say.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Claudia Therese linked us to it here when it came out. I remember thinking it made lots of sense cause all along I thought the placebo effect had to be nonsense.
I wonder if Sara can find this again. Sara?
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
One of the questions raised in the article, that I think is rather important from those defending a Judeo-Christian spirituality (as a specific example) is the fact that it means that some people are more able to commune with God than others. Why would a righteous, even self-described jealous, God make it harder for some people to believe in Him? I could see if there was equitable difficulty, but setting people up like this seems counter-productive to much of the potrait of the old testament God, at the least.
-Bok
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
I scored 75.
I am also an atheist.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Yes, the studies only found that the placebo effect was not as extreme as previously thought, in some cases, not that it was nonexistent.
Not to mention that heightened awareness of the existence of the placebo effect and the pill-taking nature of our culture could both be expected to reduce the placebo effect (edit: in studies involving pills).
[ November 24, 2004, 01:14 PM: Message edited by: fugu13 ]
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I'm not having any luck finding Sara's link using the forum's search software to hunt for the phrase "placebo effect" in the body of posts, so it may be that it's old enough that it's gone, or that the forum search software isn't the greatest, or that I'm not the worlds most gifted manipulator of said software.
I hope that she comes across this thread and can repost the link--I'm really interested in this.
Why did you think that the placebo effect sounded like hogwash, Anne Kate? It seems fairly plausible to me.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I'll be curious as to how that study squares with the one discussed in this NewScientist article.
Posted by BunnV (Member # 6816) on :
I think the idea of the mind itself helping in healing can’t be ruled out. It’s psychosomatics. The placebo affect doesn’t cure illnesses that our body can’t chemically fight off on its own. Because of advances in medication human evolution is stunted so we have to depend on drugs to cure a majority of illnesses and infections. But just like when a positive attitude toward a challenge results in more often positive results, the placebo effect can help enhance our immune system. Stress is known weaken our immune system under the same idea of psychosomatics. As an antithesis, Hypochondriacs get sick because they think they’re sick.
That also may be why a lot of people find meditation to be helpful in healing. And I think praying can be considered a form of meditation.
The placeboes effect is supposed to help, but it certainly doesn’t entirely cure all illness.
As for the improvement in academics I agree with what blacwolve said, “I'm sure this is majorly related to the social net that religious groups provide.” Social health is part of an individual’s overall health. Good health is necessary in keeping good grades.
I’m really interested in reading this study on placeboes on Sara’s link, too!
Posted by Avadaru (Member # 3026) on :
I scored 100. *shrug*
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
I don't know the best places to search for good medical articles. My main source of good science information, Scientific American magazine, has gone all payperview on me online. Bleh. I do remember seeing that here about the nonexistence of the placebo effect, and it was from a source that I categorized as completely reliable. Of course, eyewitness testimony (particularly mine) is notoriously inaccurate. Hopefully Sara will see this and clear it up for us.
I'm pretty skeptical that religion improves one's survival chances. I just read in the SciAm Skeptic column that there were bad methodological problems in studies purporting a benefit from prayer, for example. They didn't control for some rather obvious things. I think studies like that (that try to tell us controversial things about who we are) tend to be done very poorly, in general, with lots of bias. I'm reminded of all the studies there have been which purportedly showed the inferiority and superiority of various races, silly things about gender, and so on. I don't think this study or this test has much to tell us about the nature of humanity or of God. I'm just saying that if it told us anything at all, I would think it would tend to be interpreted as evidence FOR a factual basis for some sort of spiritual reality, rather than AGAINST.
[ November 25, 2004, 07:44 AM: Message edited by: Tatiana ]
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
A side topic that I find interesting as well:
BunnV said:
quote: Because of advances in medication human evolution is stunted so we have to depend on drugs to cure a majority of illnesses and infections.
I keep hearing people say that evolution has stopped for humans and I think that's a mistake. We are just being selected for different things now. Our population is much greater, but from one generation to the next, the increase is only a small percentage. So people still die at roughly the same overall rate they always did.
In much of the world, particularly the largest population centers, conditions as regards nutrition, medicine, hygiene, etc. are not a great deal changed from what they were centuries ago, and the modern world has brought new evolutionary stresses to bear on human populations, as well. (Faster dissemination of virii, human-made poisonous agents such as insecticides, etc.)
Even in the first world, though, we too are under selection pressure. ALL populations of all living beings are under selection pressures at all times, actually. I recently read the book The Beak of the Finch by... um... Honore de Balzac's (the hatrack poster by that name) dad, and it discussed how evolution is constantly happening in even stable seeming populations and traits. There is a sort of jitter-in-place effect in which the changes from one year or decade to the next roughly cancel each other out.
So what kills people before they reach childbearing age in the first world? I've read that suicide and motor vehicle accidents are the two leading causes of death in teenagers in the U.S. I wonder if nowadays we are just being selected for fast reflexes and a sunny outlook?
[ November 25, 2004, 07:31 AM: Message edited by: Tatiana ]
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
I scored a 17. The only transcendental thing I've experienced is music -- and what's so awesome about that is that music is a wholly human creation.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
The issue seems far from settled, though the effect is apparently not as powerful as was once thought.
edit:from the Times article:
quote: Professor Freedman said the statistical method the Danish researchers used, pooling data from many studies and using a statistical tool called metanalysis to examine them, could give misleading results.
"I just don't find this report to be incredibly persuasive," he said. "The evidence of a placebo effect is maybe a little bit less than I thought it was, but I think there's a big effect in many circumstances. This doesn't change my mind."
This brings to mind a question I have been wondering about: how valid are these meta-studies and metanalysis from a statistical point of view? In recent years I've seen this more often, an analysis of groups of previous studies, and I've wondered how effective a tool it is. At a superficial level it seems very powerful, yet also tricky to implement. I would appreciate comments from anyone who knows about metanalysis.
[ November 25, 2004, 10:04 PM: Message edited by: Morbo ]
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
My 1st use of http://scholar.google.com/ , thanks to whoever posted about it at HR, it's a sweet search engine for research papers!
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
quote: As compared with no treatment, placebo had no significant effect on binary outcomes, regardless of whether these outcomes were subjective or objective. For the trials with continuous outcomes, placebo had a beneficial effect, but the effect decreased with increasing sample size, indicating a possible bias related to the effects of small trials.
Whoo! Thanks for finding this, again, Morbo! I am glad to know I wasn't making that up. I'll remember to check google scholar in the future for stuff like this.
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