Some time ago, I took an internet blowhard to task for misunderstanding even the most basic aspects of how science works. Instead of being able to rebut me, he just blew harder, making light of the idea that ideas of justice and equality could evolve, though of course there was absolutely no substance to any of his dismissals. It's common among people like that to ask how evolution could possibly explain the rise of beliefs or non-physical concepts among humans, in particular religious belief. Evolutionary biologists have lots of answers to that, but an interesting new study indicates that religious belief isn't that hard to evolve. They created a simple simulation, and the results were provocative:
The model assumes, in other words, that a small number of people have a genetic predisposition to communicate unverifiable information to others. They passed on that trait to their children, but they also interacted ...
