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Forum: Science & Societyquestion might be yes, because some adaptations emergein the absence of cultural support. How should a byproducttheorist answer, however? Some byproduct theoristswould also reply affirmatively. It is sometimes proposedthat cognitive biases, such as an evolved hypersensitivityto environmental cues to agency, produce religious con-cepts within individual minds. Barrett, for instance, sug-gests that it may even be that were children not providedwith ideas about gods, they would discover gods for them-selves when combined with a tendency [. . .] of findingdesign and purpose in the natural world ([4], p. 42). Ifcorrect, this would constitute a simple explanation for why

meshes well with their early-emerging teleological biases[10]. However, these older children do not spontaneouslypropose novel divine creators. Instead, they adopt theparticular creationist account that their culture supplies.This might be a singular God or multiple gods; it might bealien visitors or Mother Earth. If children are not exposedto such cultural beliefs, the explicit notion of an intentionalcreator might never arise.

Children also appear to readily acquire the concept of anafterlife. When children are directly questioned, they tendto assert that certain psychological traits, but not biologicaltraits, persist after bodily death [11]. These responses arearguably rooted in the psychologically intuitive anduniversal distinction between minds and bodies, whichmakes it natural to consider mental life enduring without

Corresponding authors: Banerjee, K. (Konika.Banerjee@yale.edu);Bloom, P. (Paul.Bloom@yale.edu)

7Would Tarzan believe in Gemergence of religious bel

Konika Banerjee and Paul Bloom

Department of Psychology, Yale University, 2 Hillhouse Avenue

Would someone raised without exposure to religiousviews nonetheless come to believe in the existence ofGod, an afterlife, and the intentional creation of humansand other animals? Many scholars would answer yes,proposing that universal cognitive biases generate reli-gious ideas anew within each individual mind. Drawingon evidence from developmental psychology, we arguehere that the answer is no: children lack spontaneoustheistic views and the emergence of religion is cruciallydependent on culture.

Would an individual never exposed to religious ideas such as Edgar Rice Burroughs character, Tarzan, who wasraised by apes after his first birthday nonetheless come tobelieve in God, an afterlife, and the divine creation ofhumans and other creatures? That is, do core religiousbeliefs emerge spontaneously in the course of development,even in the absence of cultural support? If one classifiesreligion as yet another cultural invention, akin to agricul-ture or writing, the answer to these questions is plainly no.However, many cognitive scientists see the universalityand pervasiveness of religious belief as suggesting that it isa natural feature of evolved human psychology. Somepropose that certain aspects of religion are biologicaladaptations perhaps belief in a punitive supernaturalentity makes individuals more moral and hence moredesirable as mates and social partners [1]; or perhapsreligion promotes social cohesion and cooperation, suchthat groups with religion do better than those without [2].Other researchers, including ourselves, see religion ingeneral, and religious belief in particular, as a biologicalaccident a natural byproduct of cognitive systems thathave evolved for other purposes [36].

If one is an adaptationist, then the answer to the Tarzan? Conditions for thef

ew Haven, CT 06520, USA

belief in gods exists in every known human culture, pastand present.

In this article, we argue that the answer is no: cognitivebiases make humans receptive to religious ideas, but donot themselves generate them. This means that an expla-nation for the universality of religion has to be foundelsewhere (P. Harris, unpublished; see also Gervaiset al. [7] and Rottman and Kelemen [8] for similar argu-ments). Our argument is based on research in child devel-opment. This might seem surprising, because findingsfrom developmental psychology are often interpreted asproviding support for the naturalness of religious ideas. Wethink that they do only up to a point, however: theysupport receptivity, but not generativity.

Consider belief in a divine creator. Young children areprone to generate purpose-based explanations of the ori-gins of natural objects and biological kinds. They believe,for example, that clouds are for raining and animals areto go in the zoo [9]. However, there is no evidence thatchildren spontaneously come to believe in one or moredivine creators. It is one thing, after all, to think aboutnatural entities as intentionally designed artifacts of asort; it is quite another to generate an enduring belief ininvisible agents who have created these artifacts. Indeed,other studies find that young children are not committedcreationists; they are equally likely to provide explana-tions of species origins that involve spontaneous genera-tion [10].

Older children, by contrast, do exclusively endorse cre-ationist explanations. This shift to a robust creationistpreference arises in part because older children are moreadept at grasping the existential themes invoked by thequestion of species origins (e.g., existence and final cause)and also because the notion of a divine creator of nature

the presence of a body [5]. Some, such as Barrett [4], takechildrens readiness to reason about life after death asevidence that they are born believers in an afterlife.

Of course, the diversity of world religions is not the resultof a series of wholly independent moments of cultural in-vention. Rather, once religious ideas emerge, historicalprocesses of social movement and geopolitical conquest

Forum: Science & Society Trends in Cognitive Sciences January 2013, Vol. 17, No. 1This conclusion is probably too strong, however. There isno evidence that belief in the afterlife arises spontaneouslyin the absence of cultural support. For instance, research inrural Madagascar, where there is widespread belief inancestral spirits, finds that the conception of an afterlifeemerges in the course of development [12]. Even if childrenare natural-born dualists [5], this initial stance need notdirectly give rise to the afterlife beliefs that are character-istic of many of the worlds religions.

More generally, if universal, early-emerging cognitivebiases generate religious ideas, we would expect to seethese ideas emerge spontaneously. This would be akin tothe process of creolization, such as when deaf children whoare exposed to non-linguistic communication systems cre-ate their own sign language [13]. However, such cases are,as best we know, non-existent. There are many exampleswhere children are quick to endorse religious beliefs, oftensurprising their atheist parents [4]. But this is consistentwith receptivity, not generativity, as these beliefs corre-spond to those endorsed within the social environment inwhich children are raised.

Consider, as a test case, belief in multiple deities. This isthe historically foundational religious stance, with mono-theism a more recent invention [14]. It would be strikingsupport for the generativity position if children raised inmonotheistic societies declared their belief in multiplegods. However, to our knowledge, they never do. Theycome to believe instead in the same singular omnipotentdeity that everyone else believes in.

The findings from developmental psychology supportthe following theory of the emergence of religious belief:humans possess a suite of sophisticated cognitive adapta-tions for social life, which make accessible certain conceptsthat are associated with religion, including design, pur-pose, agency, and bodysoul dualism. However, more isneeded to generate fully-fledged, sustained, and consciousreligious beliefs, including a belief in gods, in divine crea-tion of natural entities, and in life after death. Such beliefsrequire cultural support.

If our analysis is correct, then certain conclusionsfollow. First, this analysis suggests that any theory, ad-aptationist or otherwise, that posits that religious beliefwill emerge without cultural support an affirmativeanswer to the Tarzan question is mistaken. Second, thisperspective shifts the emphasis from representationalbiases towards learning mechanisms (see also [7]). Anyadequate theory has to explain how such beliefs are ac-quired. Third, we are now left with the question of wherereligious beliefs came from in the first place. Why dopeople think them up?8spread them around the globe [14]. Nonetheless, an originstory or a series of origin stories is still needed and herethe emphasis might shift to the types of analyses presentedby scholars such as Freud, Marx, and Durkheim, whoexplored the social and motivational forces that lead peopleto generate religious ideas. Although current developmentsin the cognitive science of religion may explain why religionsticks once it has got off the ground, an explanation for whyhumans have it in the first place requires a very differentapproach, one that moves away from biases in learning andrepresentation and explores, instead, considerations ofmotivation, needs, fears, and creative insights.

AcknowledgmentsWe thank Paul Harris, Justin Barrett, and two anonymous reviewers fortheir helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.

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1364-6613/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2012.11.005 Trends in Cognitive Sciences, January 2013,

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Would Tarzan believe in God? Conditions for the emergence of religious beliefAcknowledgmentsReferences