Model Says Religiosity Gene Will Dominate Society 729
Hugh Pickens writes writes "PhysOrg reports on a study by Robert Rowthorn, emeritus professor at Cambridge University, that predicts that the genetic components that predispose a person toward religion are currently "hitchhiking" on the back of the religious cultural practice of high fertility rates and that provided the fertility of religious people remains on average higher than that of secular people, the genes that predispose people towards religion will spread. For example, in the past 20 years, the Amish population in the US has doubled, increasing from 123,000 in 1991 to 249,000 in 2010. The huge growth stems almost entirely from the religious culture's high fertility rate, which is about 6 children per woman, on average. Rowthorn says that while fertility is determined by culture, an individual's predisposition toward religion is likely to be influenced by genetics, in addition to their upbringing. In the model, Rowthorn uses a "religiosity gene" to represent the various genetic factors that combine to genetically predispose a person toward religion, whether remaining religious from youth or converting to religion from a secular upbringing. Rowthorn's model predicts that the religious fraction of the population will eventually stabilize at less than 100%, and there will remain a possibly large percentage of secular individuals. But nearly all of the secular population will still carry the religious allele, since high defection rates will spread the religious allele to secular society when defectors have children with a secular partner."
Um, (Score:2, Funny)
For Christ's sake! this can't be true. . .
Less than 100%? (Score:2, Funny)
EXTERMINATE! (Score:3, Funny)
Clearly, we should terminate those inferior people before they contaminate us.
Hitler was right in his war!
At least now we can prove it, since we've isolated the gene.
Re:Less than 100%? (Score:4, Funny)
haha, you been worrying about the wrong beards! (Score:3, Funny)
ha ha, all this time you Americans have been running around worrying about some bearded dudes in the Middle East, panicking about Muslims, al-Quaeda, Bin Laden and all that crowd... and all the time you've been looking at the WRONG BEARDS!
Fancy that, turns out those chilled out Amishes have pulled one on you, it's the dudes with the buggies and the barns you got to watch out for, and they've all got US passports to boot.
Just goes to show, doesn't it. It's the quiet ones who do carpentry you got to watch out for ;-)
Re:*facepalm* (Score:2, Funny)
Damnit, beaten by 10 mins. That's what I get for researching a comment!
I bet you're the kind who takes the time to RTAF before posting, too.
Re:Evolution (Score:4, Funny)
Exactly, and being successful would have rewarded such individuals with access to all the best wenches. Which would have spread their genes into the religious population getting us to where we are now.
The problem with today's society is that there is no sexual reward for being a science oriented non-conforming innovator.
Therefore, I suggest that anyone who demonstrates high aptitude or innovation in one of the sciences gets to sleep with any religious girl they choose, no condoms of course. How about one girl for every article you get published.
Re:Religiosity gene? (Score:4, Funny)
You couldn't help but make that comment, could you?