I find many things in religion puzzling but the hard set ignorance and defiance of the theory of evolution really baffles me. Why exactly are many religions so apposed to the theory of evolution, why not oppose other scientific theories like the theory of thermodynamics that powers your refrigerator, or the theory of combustion that powers your car, or the theory of relativity that powers many countries electricity? Some of these theories have more complex or less scientific evidence that the theory of evolution, but religions opposed to the theory of evolution seem to accept these other scientific theories.I have some respect for religions such as certain sects of Mennonites or Amish that in parts abandon technology in general, but find it puzzling how some other religions can live in a very scientific and technological world and yet not accept basic scientific theories like evolution. But I digress, this is not a rant on the continuing saga of evolution vs. religion, I assume science will eventual win that saga as they did on the world being round, and the Earth revolving around the Sun (religious believers actually imprisoned Galileo for such thoughts). What more interests me is the fundamentally link between religion and evolution.
Most people have some understanding of biological evolution, but have less understanding that evolution is a basic mathematical algorithm that has vast applications beyond simple biology. Evolutionary algorithms are a common tool in computer science, and also have applications in Economics, Anthropology, Linguists and Sociology.
Evolution is one of the most efficient algorithms in making observations on a large set of data. The evolutionary algorithm basically goes like this, in an environment comprising of large populations of interacting entities over a large period of time, where those entities can change, merge, grow and reproduce, and over large periods of time, the entities more fit for the environment will be more likely to survive and continue to propagate. If entities can change and merge, entities that are more fit for the environment will eventually evolve.
Which brings us back to religion. If you look at the history of 10,000 years or so of human civilization, and consider the thousands or millions of societies that have existed. In this environment over time there have been many different beliefs, both religious and secular. One would have to assume that there were both societies without religion (after all agnostics are the world's oldest surviving religion, since the dawn of belief there have people who did not believe), as well as societies with varying degrees of religion. Why did every successful civilization adopt organized religion? For one society with organized religion to be successful could be a fluke, but for every successful society to have organized religion can only be evolutional.
It is obvious that religion in the world has both pros and cons, there has been much good done in the name of religion, and much bad, but how to determine if religion's net impact to society has been good or bad.
An evolutionary scientist would seek to determine the answer through creating a diverse environment with many societies with varying degrees of religion over a large period of time, as see which society tended to survive and evolve, would the societies without religion dominate, or the ones with religion? Human civilization history is such an experiment, and the results show quite clearly that religion benefits society, evolution justifies religion, so perhaps religion could be a little less skeptical of evolution.
