According to Stephen Jay Gould, why is it so difficult to know the evolutionary function of religious belief?
Hint: think of spandrels (or unintended secondary effects). “Science tries to document the factual character of the natural world, and to develop theories that coordinate and explain those facts. Religion, on the other hand, operates in the equally important, but utterly different, realm of human purposes, meanings, and values – subjects that the factual domain of science might illuminate, but can never resolve.” People need meanings in life, and the consequence of that, as Stephen Jay Gould sates, was religion. He also thinks that it would be impossible to trace the function of religious beliefs because we cant exactly point out specific things that make religions the way they are. The variety in the function of religious belief is said to be the byproduct of consequences and spandrels. It cannot be explained or perceived by people who first encounter religions. Since the function of religions is directly related to time, as time goes on, the function of religions is altered to a new
