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Atheists are mutants

Started by GSOgymrat, December 23, 2017, 03:30:57 PM

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GSOgymrat

Religious People Live Healthier, Longer Livesâ€"While Atheists Collect Mutant Genes

http://www.newsweek.com/religion-healthy-atheism-mutant-genes-756984

Religious people tend to live healthier, longer lives than atheists.This trend has puzzled academics for some time, but social scientists may have discovered the reason why.

Research published in Evolutionary Psychological Science has linked a rise in atheism to increasingly prevalent mutant genes.
Lead author Edward Dutton from the Ulster Institute for Social Research explained the research to Newsweek. He says: “Maybe the positive relationship between religiousness and health is not causalâ€"it's not that being religious makes you less stressed so less ill. Rather, religious people are a genetically normal remnant population from preindustrial times, and the rest of us are mutants who'd have died as children back then.”

Changing societal norms are reflected in our genetics. According to natural selection, behaviors across a species will work to improve its survival chances. Social deviations, therefore, are sometimes associated with unfit genetic mutations.
Since the industrial revolution, the hold of natural selection on humanity has weakened. “We developed better and better medical care, easier access to healthy food and better living conditions. Child mortality collapsed down to a tiny level and more and more people with more and more mutant genes have survived into adulthood and had children,” Dutton says.
Atheismâ€"which was once a deviation from the normâ€"is becoming more and more common. As it becomes normal, the burden of associated unfit genes could grow.

Dutton and colleagues tested for left-handedness among religious people and atheists. Left-handedness is a good marker of a high mutational load. They found higher levels of left-handedness in atheists than in followers of most major religions.

Explaining the behavior behind these results, Dutton says: “Religiousness makes you more pro-social, and you become more religious when you're stressed. Religious people would have been sexually selected for because their pro-social, moral, unstressed nature would be attractive.”

The authors argue that certain kinds of religious belief involving the worship of moral gods can thrive as societies develop. “Once groups become relatively complexâ€"developing farming and then citiesâ€"you find yourself dealing with strangers more and more,” Dutton says.
Holding similar moral beliefs gives individuals an incentive to mingleâ€"and reproduceâ€"with new people. This creates large “ethnocentric” groups, bound by religion, who come to dominate others. “They win the wars and kill off the other groups,” Dutton explains.
As selection against mutation becomes less intense, the indirect selection for religiousness also becomes less frequent. “Precisely because it was selected for so long it is associated with all the 'normal' instincts which were selected for in the past,” Dutton tells Newsweek. “Accordingly, while the religious are outbreeding the non-religiousâ€"but, their percentage of the population is shrinking because selection is so weak.”

Earlier this year, Dutton and colleagues identified a link between intelligence and atheism. He predicts that, in the end, intelligence and atheism will be both undone by a gradual return to natural selection.

Dutton explains: “We will be taken over by a more religious society which is more ethnocentric than us. In that our intelligence is decreasing, I suspect civilization will go backwards, Natural selection will return and we will become more religious once more. This seems to be a rule of history.”



Cavebear

I haven't had the flu in 50 years and not a cold once.  Beat that.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Mr.Obvious

#2
I was plagued by colds and allergies before I lost my faith.
I am plagued by colds and allergies now.
But truly sick? Hardly ever.

Also, as long as we get to choose; I pick being Donatello.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

GSOgymrat

Am I the only one who thinks the authors have combined a couple of pieces of data and a lot of assumptions to make some spurious predictions? They don't seem to even consider how gene editing and computer technology will influence intelligence in the future.

"In that our intelligence is decreasing, I suspect civilization will go backwards, Natural selection will return and we will become more religious once more. This seems to be a rule of history.”

A rule of history? I am unfamiliar with this rule.

Baruch

Quote from: Mr.Obvious on December 24, 2017, 05:52:10 AM
I was plagued by colds and allergies before I lost my faith.
I am plagued by colds and allergies now.
But truly sick? Hardly ever.

Also, as long as we get to choose; I pick being Donatello.

Eat more sprouts and fewer waffles ;-)  Sounds like you need to be on an allergy diet ;-)
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on December 23, 2017, 03:51:56 PM
I haven't had the flu in 50 years and not a cold once.  Beat that.

Ah, but you are The Mule, from Asimov's Foundation Trilogy.  You are here to disrupt the careful calculations of the historians of the future (it was a con, the historians were manipulating popular opinion behind the scenes).
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mr.Obvious

Quote from: Baruch on December 24, 2017, 07:57:03 AM
Eat more sprouts and fewer waffles ;-)  Sounds like you need to be on an allergy diet ;-)

I already have the green part down dude. ;)
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

Baruch

Quote from: Mr.Obvious on December 24, 2017, 08:01:19 AM
I already have the green part down dude. ;)

Well maybe per EU Schengen, move to a different biome.  They have to take you as long as you aren't an Ant Twerp ;-)  Giant praying mantises are probably allowed.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Gawdzilla Sama

Having not  bothered reading the OP doesn't stop me from stating that , yes, we are mutants. A few hundred million years ago we were small nocturnal rat-like critters. We've mutated a bit since then.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Baruch

Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on December 24, 2017, 08:16:23 AM
Having not  bothered reading the OP doesn't stop me from stating that , yes, we are mutants. A few hundred million years ago we were small nocturnal rat-like critters. We've mutated a bit since then.

Some of us are still rat-like.  Even shrewish (some women).
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mr.Obvious

Quote from: Baruch on December 24, 2017, 08:02:55 AM
Well maybe per EU Schengen, move to a different biome.  They have to take you as long as you aren't an Ant Twerp ;-)  Giant praying mantises are probably allowed.

LOL, Well played.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

Mike Cl

Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on December 24, 2017, 08:16:23 AM
Having not  bothered reading the OP doesn't stop me from stating that , yes, we are mutants. A few hundred million years ago we were small nocturnal rat-like critters. We've mutated a bit since then.
Well--some of us have--but witness congress--not much mutating there; still mainly rat-like critters.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Shiranu

I almost never get sick, maybe once every 3 or so years... if that. Maybe I'm not actually an atheist...
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur

Baruch

Quote from: Shiranu on December 24, 2017, 01:24:59 PM
I almost never get sick, maybe once every 3 or so years... if that. Maybe I'm not actually an atheist...

Saints don't get to be atheists.  I am sure you will end up doing extreme austerities to yourself or others, just for the Hell of it ;-)
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Blackleaf

Quote from: Mr.Obvious on December 24, 2017, 05:52:10 AMAlso, as long as we get to choose; I pick being Donatello.

Fine, but I'm taking Magneto.
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--