I have always been fascinated by the question of belief. Especially belief in things that are impossible to prove or disprove. I have wondered what the purpose of such beliefs would be.

Recent speculation has suggested that a genetic predisposition to gullibility might enhance survival. This seems to defy common sense.  You would think that the closer a person could come to an accurate picture of reality, the better suited they would be for survival.

The argument goes something like this. If you saw a shadow in the forest and thought that it might be a tiger, you would run away. If you were wrong, no harm done. On the other hand, if you saw a shadow in the forest and dismissed it as a bush and you were wrong, you might wind up dead. Therefore, it would be best to err on the side of belief in a danger. So, those who a little more gullible would survive to pass on their genes while those who were more skeptical would not.

So much for the idividual but what about the group? There has been a big debate in evolutionary theory over whether survival selection operates primarily at the individual level or the group level. Some research with software agents has yielded provacative results. One  group of agents was programmed to believe only things that could be validated. Another group was programmed to believe in both things that could be valideated and things that could not  be validated. It turns out that the group that shared a belief in things that could not be validate fared  better in internal cooperate and external competition than the group that went strickly by what could be validated.

Apparently, belief in things that cannot be validated could enhance survival at both the individual and group level.

Surveys of belief indicate that those with strong religious beliefs live longer, are healthier and happier. Research has shown that being able to understand the reason something happened can help a person cope with stress. So, if a person believes strongly that some supernatural power controls the world and that everything that happens happens for a reason, that person would cope better with stressful events even if they could not aticulate the reason for a particular event.

Loneliness can be very stressful and injurious to health. Believing that an invisible supernatural person loved you and was always with you could help someone cope with loneliness.

Consideration of individual mortality has been shown to be stressful. Believing that a supernatural power can grant eternal life if one believes strongly enough would be helpful in coping with fear of death.

Recently, a gene was discovered that appears to enhance the placebo effect. Apparently, if a person has this gene, they are susceptible to placebos. If you don’t have the gene, you are not. Is this the belief gene?

There seem to be a lot of reasons for a belief in things that cannot be proven or dis-proven to survive. Unfortunately, there are times when such a belief could prove to be fatal. So if seems that skepticism will also survive.