Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
reductionism and materialism, for science ultimately will answer all ques-
tions. And the answer to the question “Why religion?” is that it is adap-
tive and leads to social stability.
In a concluding perspective on this, Wilson said in an interview,
I just believe, to put it as simply as possible, that science should be able to go in
a relatively few decades to the point of producing a humanoid robot which would
walk through that door. The first robot would think and talk like a Southern
Baptist minister, and the second robot would talk like John Rawls. In other
words
, somehow I believe that we can reconstitute, re-create, the most mysteri-
ous features of
human
mental activity.
That's an article of faith but it has to do
with expansionism. That's expansionism!
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Hence, every element of mental and physical behavior will have a
physical basis, and ultimately there will be a materialist explanation for
everything. For science will continue to test every religious assumption
and claim about God and humans, and will in the end come to the foun-
dation of all human moral and religious sentiments. Wilson Asserts, “The
eventual result of the competition between the two worldviews, I believe,
will be the secularization of the human epic and of religion itself.”
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According to Segerstråle, “One would then test, in the sociobiological
mode, whether the peculiarities of the human brain are inferred to have
taken place. If such matching does exist, then the mind harbors a species
god, which can be parsimoniously explained as a biological adaptation
instead of an independent, transbiological force.”
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Thus, God and reli-
gion are products of the brain, itself a product of evolution, which leads
us to various adaptive behaviors, of which religion is one. And we are
back again to biology as the full explanation of all behavior—Wilson's
original point in developing his theory of sociobiology. But is this the
whole story?
A problem here might be the lack of distinction between three types
of “why” questions. A scientific why question seeks to answer how one
could account for a particular outcome: why do bodies fall, for example.
A philosophical question tries to seek out inner relations and ultimate
principles—Aristotle's seeking out of final causes, for instance. Religion
pursues its why question in terms of ultimate meaning—say, for what
may we hope. Each of these disciplines has a particular set of rules and
a framework in which its particular why question can be answered along
with a set of criteria for evaluating the adequacy of the answer. A
