All Models Are Wrong, and Some Are Religious: Supernatural Explanations as Abstract and Useful Falsehoods about Complex Realities

Abstract

Many cognitive and evolutionary theories of religion argue that supernatural explanations are byproducts of our cognitive adaptations. An influential argument states that our supernatural explanations result from a tendency to generate anthropomorphic explanations, and that this tendency is a byproduct of an error management strategy because agents tend to be associated with especially high fitness costs. We propose instead that anthropomorphic and other supernatural explanations result as features of a broader toolkit of well-designed cognitive adaptations, which are designed for explaining the abstract and causal structure of complex, unobservable, and uncertain phenomena that have substantial impacts on fitness. Specifically, we argue that (1) mental representations about the abstract vs. the supernatural are largely overlapping, if not identical, and (2) when the data-generating processes for scarce and ambiguous observations are complex and opaque, a naive observer can improve a bias-variance tradeoff by starting with a simple, underspecified explanation that Western observers readily interpret as "supernatural." We then argue that (3) in many cases, knowledge specialists across cultures offer pragmatic services that involve apparently supernatural explanations, and their clients are frequently willing to pay them in a market for useful and effective services. We propose that at least some ethnographic descriptions of religion might actually reflect ordinary and adaptive responses to novel problems such as illnesses and natural disasters, where knowledge specialists possess and apply the best available explanations about phenomena that would otherwise be completely mysterious and unpredictable.

Conviction Narrative Theory: A theory of choice under radical uncertainty

“…A popular answer is that our evolved cognition is like a flawed superpower: Humans might be generally sensitive to the statistical and causal structure of their environments (Sperber, Premack, & Premack, 1995), but they are also prone to biases and misleading intuitions that disrupt these capabilities (Kahneman, 2013). An alternative answer, which I advocate here, is that religious falsehoods are part of a broader tendency to generate useful, ecologically rational narratives (Lightner & Hagen, 2022). Under radical uncertainty, where information is scarce and the data-generating processes are unknown, how should people think about fitnessrelevant challenges like natural hazards or social conflicts?…”

Narratives need not end well; nor say it all

“…A popular answer is that our evolved cognition is like a flawed superpower: Humans might be generally sensitive to the statistical and causal structure of their environments (Sperber, Premack, & Premack, 1995), but they are also prone to biases and misleading intuitions that disrupt these capabilities (Kahneman, 2013). An alternative answer, which I advocate here, is that religious falsehoods are part of a broader tendency to generate useful, ecologically rational narratives (Lightner & Hagen, 2022). Under radical uncertainty, where information is scarce and the data-generating processes are unknown, how should people think about fitnessrelevant challenges like natural hazards or social conflicts?…”

Narratives of crisis: From affective structures to adaptive functions

“…A popular answer is that our evolved cognition is like a flawed superpower: Humans might be generally sensitive to the statistical and causal structure of their environments (Sperber, Premack, & Premack, 1995), but they are also prone to biases and misleading intuitions that disrupt these capabilities (Kahneman, 2013). An alternative answer, which I advocate here, is that religious falsehoods are part of a broader tendency to generate useful, ecologically rational narratives (Lightner & Hagen, 2022). Under radical uncertainty, where information is scarce and the data-generating processes are unknown, how should people think about fitnessrelevant challenges like natural hazards or social conflicts?…”