This chapter looks at explanation for religious belief. Dawkins' suggestion is that religious belief is not something that natural selection has selected for, but a by-product of something it has selected for. He draws an analogy with the moth and the flame - natural selection did not select moths that fly into flames, it selected for e.g. a form of navigation (keeping a fixed point of light - such as the moon - at a certain position in the visual field) that has this unfortunate by-product: moths navigating by a candle will spiral in and fry. Dawkins provides an example of the sort of thing he has in mind. Children need to acquire a lot of information very quickly if they are to have a good chance of survival. They cannot carefully reason though things before accepting - they must take advice from the elders on trust. So natural selection selects for this. But this feature of young humans has a down side - it makes them vulnerable to bullshit beliefs. Bullshit beliefs can slip in,
Stephen Law is a philosopher and author. Currently Director of Philosophy and Cert HE at Oxford University Department of Continuing Education. Stephen has also published many popular books including The Philosophy Gym, The Complete Philosophy Files, and Believing Bullshit. For school talks/ media: stephenlaw4schools.blogspot.co.uk Email: think-AT-royalinstitutephilosophy.org