Why isn’t Mickey Mouse a god?
This is a serious question for researchers studying the evolution of religion, and it offers some insight into the question of why some religions have persisted while others haven’t.
The so-called Mickey Mouse problem is an oft-cited, catchy critique of the idea that religion is merely a by-product of the way our brains evolved. According to this view, natural selection favored human ancestors with certain mental capacities, including our tendencies to seek patterns and think about other peoples’ thoughts (theory of mind). These cognitive adaptations, which helped our ancestors survive and reproduce, also made people prone to supernatural beliefs.
Scientists criticizing the cognitive by-products explanation don’t deny it. Rather, they say it’s just the start of the story. “It’s a really important element, part of the picture of what we need to know,” says Ara Norenzayan, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of British ...
