90. Melvin Konner — Believers: Faith in Human Nature

The Michael Shermer Show

Michael Shermer

Dialogue, Science, Reason, Michaelshermer, Natural Sciences, Skeptic

4.4 • 921 Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2019

⏱️ 99 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

World renowned biological anthropologist Mel Konner examines the nature of human nature, including and especially in his new book the nature of religiosity. In Believers, Konner, who was raised in an orthodox Jewish home but has been an atheist his entire adult life, responds to attacks on faith by some well-meaning scientists and philosophers, most notably the “new atheists” Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens―known for writing about religion as something irrational and ultimately harmful. Konner explores the psychology, development, brain science, evolution, and even genetics of the varied religious impulses we experience as a species. Konner and Shermer discuss:

the nature of human nature
what is religion?
what is faith?
is religion and faith adaptive or the byproduct of some other evolved adaptation?
his experience living among hunter-gatherers
how hunter-gatherers conceive of religion vs. modern peoples
the “Big Gods” theory of religion
the “God Module” theory of religion
the group selection theory of religion
why faith is not for everyone
the rise of the nones, but why religion will never completely die out
the upside of religion … and the downside
were our paleolithic ancestors warlike or peaceful?
would you want to switch places and live in a hunter-gatherer society?
why for at least a large minority of humanity, the belief in things unseen neither can nor should go away.

Melvin Konner, MD, is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Program in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology at Emory University. He is the author of Believers, Women After All, Becoming a Doctor, and The Tangled Wing, among other books.

Listen to Science Salon via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play Music, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.

You play a vital part in our commitment to promote science and reason. If you enjoy the Science Salon Podcast, please show your support by making a donation, or by becoming a patron.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Science Salon Podcast. I'm your host Michael Schirmer. My guest this week is Mel Connor. His new book is Believers. Faith in human nature. Mel is a biological anthropologist and a medical doctor by the way.
0:18.0	He's the Samuel Chandler Dobbs professor in the Department of Anthropology, and the program in
0:23.7	neuroscience and behavioral biology at Emory University. He's the author of
0:28.9	women, after all, becoming a doctor, and the tangled wing which I remember reading back in the
0:36.1	1980s about the biological constraints on human nature so we cover that and a lot we
0:42.0	pretty much cover all the big topics related to anthropology,
0:46.3	the nature of human nature, the nature of violence, how violent were our ancestors versus today. But mainly the primary focus of the conversation is on
0:56.1	religion. What is it? To such a big subject, what was it in hunter-gatherer societies?
1:02.0	He lived for two years amongst a Hunter Gather tribe in Africa.
1:07.0	And what's the role of spirituality, the nature of the supernatural to hunter-gatherers peoples.
1:16.3	The fact that under-gatherers actually are pretty good inductive reasoning scientists in
1:21.0	terms of their tracking and hunting and most of what they do in interaction with each other and the environment is the same thing we do.
1:28.0	So the role of religion and the supernatural has other roles to play than just explaining
1:36.4	causality and so we get into a lot of that and all the way up to what kind of
1:42.4	political system we should have today that taps into the best
1:45.6	of our hunter-gatherers and avoids the worst part of their lives.
1:49.6	So with that I give you Melvin Connor Connor MD believers faith in human nature.
1:55.2	Thanks for listening.
2:00.3	This is your host Michael Sherman and you're listening to science a lot a series of conversations with leading scientists scholars and thinkers about the most important issues of our time.
2:20.0	So you describe yourself as a secular Jew, you're an atheist, you were raised religious in a kind of a culturally Jewish family and
2:26.1	so forth.
2:27.1	Walk us through a little bit about your own, shall we call it, faith journey to how you got
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Michael Shermer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Michael Shermer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.