You've Been HADD

Religion is one of the halmarks of our species. For all of recorded history, religious behavior has been a part of the human condition, regardless of geography or culture. Children, without prompting, are apt to conjure up spirit worlds all their own, bearing out Voltaire's famous prediction that even if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

Which is plenty of examination into the nuts and bolts of religion for many of the religious among us, thank you very much. The explanation for this apparent hard-wiring is perfectly obvious to them: we are programmed by The Almighty Creator for a relationship with Heavenly Father.



So it's all very well and good to co-opt the language of science where it can be seen to edify supernatural claims. It's another thing when researchers go digging around in the biological underpinnings of religious experience with the aim to bring it down to earth.

But that's just what cognitive scientists are trying to do. Whether pinning orders of belief to particular brain states or identifying universal, systemic traits of religion and the cognitive devices to which they minister, experimentalists in the fields of neuroscience and behavioral study shed light on where religion may have come from, and why it persists.

One reason is that each of us comes equipped with what is called a hyperactive agency detection device (HADD). Anywhere in our environment that there is the first sign of causality, agency is presumed out of hand. That rustle in the bushes could be a predator, or the wind. False positives are a small price to pay for being able to quickly anticipate intentions that may pose a threat. So we let our imaginations run wild. Better safe than sorry.

A similar note of caution has been sounded by secular oppenents of religious research that is empirically based.  What if people need religion, they warn, in order to be good, or to find any purpose in living at all?  Gallup polls have shown that countries where respondents claimed higher religious devotion tended to exhibit lower suicide rates, according to World Health Organization estimates.  Robbing the faithful of their illusions could rend the very fabric of society.  Better safe than sorry.

I happen to think the what if question is worth asking.  It's no use plunging forward blindly into a post-religious epoch.  Like it or not, a natural theory of religion is upon us and it's perfectly prudent to work out the implications of that as best we can.  If indeed religion initially flourished as a sort of moral bootstrapping trick, and vast numbers of people would cease being "good" without it, then that would be information worth having.

But it wouldn't be cause for despair.  There will still be a need for individuals to measure the moral character and fidelity of their fellows. Solutions have a way of presenting themselves just as they become necessary. As the belief in a judging God continues to decline in our post-industrial, information-based society, perhaps it is no coincidence that the technology driving social networking pushes people into realms of increasing, self-imposed cross-accountability.  Are you going to rob that bank, knowing that it could be all over Facebook tomorrow?

Better safe than sorry.

Freddie Mac CFO Checks Out

No "glimmers of hope" for this guy.  David Kellerman, who was the acting Chief Financial Officer for troubled lending giant Freddie Mac, has turned up dead in his suburban home.  His wife discovered the corpse of her late husband and made a call to authorities early this morning.  The death is being reported as a suicide.  Few additional details are being released at this time.  It is unclear whether the couple's five-year-old daughter was involved in the discovery of her deceased father's body.

Speculation surrounds the motive for Mr. Kellerman's apparent suicide, but I'm going to take a wild guess and say the fellow didn't want to be alive anymore.  The handsome, young executive took over the top post at Freddie back in September, assuming control of the company's financials. Recent filings have disclosed that the Justice Department, among other agencies, has placed scrutiny on accounting practices for which Mr. Kellerman has been responsible since even before his promotion last fall, which is being played like a death sentence.

Of course all kinds of people are pissed that Kellerman had approved millions in bonuses to be paid over the next couple of years to ensure that the same geniuses who brought us the current housing mess will be around to clean it up.  Perhaps the social pressure of such an unpopular position as much as any criminal liability explains what happened last night.  Maybe his wife did it.  Maybe she's just such a bitch that he couldn't take it any longer.  

The point is we don't know, and it would be wise to avoid depicting this story as an economic one simply because it fits so neatly into the "sign of the times" narrative.  Better to wait for the TV movie.