My theory is having kids is just really hard work, but a deeply ingrained religious belief that children are a blessing from God helps groups like the Amish push forward with it anyway.
Evolution only makes predictions about reality, it doesn't tell you what is more moral or what you should do
Nobody said fitness implies morality. But the Amish by definition have higher evolutionary fitness than average Americans.
sure, it does not matter that things that we pay for and consume ends up having a million things that makes us sick in multiple ways, and if you are in some developing nation, you would be hard pressed to find food to feed your babies that is not laced with some kind of harmful pesticides or fertilizer, but hey, we can always pay more in healthcare to extend our diseased misery. We are doing just fine, in the mean while, there are more and more existential threats as the day progress, but hey, say it with me, we are JUST.DOING.FINE.
If we extrapolate this over the next few decades, and accept the conclusion that more technology = less children, and we can expect to see more technology in the future. Almost no new children will be born from within these high-tech societies, we will have to rely on immigration from Africa (the only place where replacement rate is high), and low-tech traditional religious societies.
What good is technology in this future scenario?
Technology has already replaced most agricultural workers in most developed countries and I can't imagine anyone wanting to return to pre-industrial agriculture.
Ofcourse if the current trends continue.
More kids surviving does and on that part the Amish benefit from technology because they can and some do to seek medical help if it's necessary.
If they become dominant or even merely competitive with the larger society then there will be conflict.
>Reasons for Population Growth. The primary forces driving the growth are sizable nuclear families (five or more children on average) and an average retention rate (Amish children who join the church as young adults) of 85 percent or more. A few outsiders have joined the Amish, but the growth is almost entirely from within the Amish community.
Go figure, this has nothing to do with religion.
There's a logical disconnect here: I can believe in death, but I really don't want to "win" at death.
Hence, if the human mind is a product of evolution, evolution must ultimately prefer truth to falsehood. But, what then to make of evidence that, in the long-run, natural selection prefers religious beliefs to non-religious belief? Can you see how that might be a problem for those who are convinced that all specifically religious beliefs are false and irrational?
Religions themselves are to some degree affected by their own evolutionary pressures. The views on missionary work, procreation and possibly also military all will effect the group of people that adhere to the religion, and if they lead to a higher survival/birth-rate then the religion itself will also win against alternatives. The truth of its dogma isn’t really relevant for this factor (unless we start considering interventionist deities, but that’s a different discussion entirely, as the above would apply across shared value/belief systems without the need for interventionism)
Would you still endorse the same statement if one replaced “religious” with something else, say “philosophical”?
Also, is that saying “the truth of a belief is irrelevant, so long as it has pragmatic benefits”? But, doesn’t that undermine one of the key arguments for the truth of scientific claims - the pragmatic technological benefits of their acceptance?
See above re: fundamental misunderstanding of truth in science.
As for your original post, you make a jump to stating that evolution would prefer truth, but that’s not a given simply from the fact that we perceive our world in such a way that we consider evolution. Evolution as we understand it is without intent, and only “prefers” that which in the long run yields further offspring.
A point I was trying to make was that the truthfulness of for instance religiosity doesn’t impact whether or not it has an effect on “fitness”. A religion can be entirely false, and yet contain memes that make its adherents’ genes procreate more successfully.
You can’t be sure you’re arrived at the truth. Nothing about the philosophy of science expects you to be sure; it’s an inductive process that encourages increasing confidence, but never absolute certainty.
Evolution doesn’t “prefer” anything. It’s a stochastic adaptation process. The existence of religious beliefs is incredibly interesting from an anthropological perspective, but doesn’t really tell us anything about evolution itself.
But still, an argument that “some religion is probably true” would have value even if it can’t tell us which religion is true
You may roll down a hill but it doesn't mean you win at gravity theory.
They also have huge economies of scale.
One of my grandmothers was one of 10 kids, and liked to relate that her parents always said it was the first 4 kids who were the hardest. After that, they start to look after themselves! Older kids act as babysitters for younger kids, etc.