I disagree. It's worth mentioning simply because the practice has survived a long time trough many cultures. Time is a really good curator - if something survives a really long time (thousand of years scale) it is very likely to be of use.
This is actually one of the fallacies related to evolution. Selection only happens against negative pressure, not for positive pressure. In other words, adaptation generally only happens for things which harm survival. Things which are neutral or even benefit survival are not selected for.
Therefore, the proper statement to make would be more along the lines of, "Well, it can't hurt too much."
But, in all, the original statement still stands: Selections only work negatively. That is, a peacock with better plumage might get more chances of reproducing due to sexual selection, but as long as he gets at least one chance of reproduction, he has not been selected against.
Different organisms have evolved different reproduction strategies through selection:
Things which impact reproduction will be selected for. Things which kill you before you can finish raising a child will be most strongly selected against. Things that allow you to keep reproducing longer will be less strongly selected for. I guarantee that if there were a gene that let men and woman keep popping out babies for a century, it would be very likely to be preserved.
No. This is the fallacy.
> I guarantee that if there were a gene that let men and woman keep popping out babies for a century, it would be very likely to be preserved.
It would be preserved, yes. The fallacy is that it will not be perserved in preference of lack of the gene, because there is nothing selecting against not having that gene. In other words, both lines will continue to live on, because there is nothing selecting against either of them.
As long as individuals can reproduce, then their traits are not being selected against. If there are multiple variations of the traits, those will become part of the population's natural variation. Which is a good thing to have in terms of the population, because natural variation helps prevent genetic bottlenecks.
I simply don't believe you.
As the one making the preposterously counterintuitive claim, it's up to you to support this with facts, beyond just saying "nope, you're wrong, it's a fallacy."
Put 9 Smiths and a Johnson on a boat. Now kill half of them. What are the odds that Johnsons are extinct? Now repeat the experiment until my point sinks in.
Also, you are no longer discussing the fallacy. The fallacy is believing that something that allows an individual to survive better than another individual will be selected for, when in fact individuals can only selected against by preventing reproduction, thereby restricting the expression of those traits in the future population. The mere existence of a Johnson in the first place indicates that Johnsons were not previously selected against. An event killing the Johnson would then be the selection against.
The end result looks like Smiths were selected for, but the actuality is that not-Smiths were selected against.
Would THAT weird flap trait be selected against? After all, it "prevents reproduction, thereby restricting the expression of those traits in the future population."
And how is that scenario in any way different than the Smiths which merely reproduce 10 times as often, by virtue of the aforementioned century of fertility?
If a individual does not successfully reproduce because of an individual trait, then that individual was selected against for not being fit. This is true no matter what the trait. As soon as an individual successfully reproduces, then that individual was not select against. This is a binary proposition: selected-against ⊕ ¬selected-against.
Now if some other individual happens to be capable of reproducing more, then that individual's traits will be proportionately better represented in the next generation. Over time, these different traits will spread throughout a population and become part of its natural variation.
HERE'S THE IMPORTANT PART: BUT they will both continue to exist within the population because there is no such thing as selecting for a trait. More successful traits will carry a higher proportion within the equilibrium than less successful traits, but all traits not selected against will exist in the population.
It's important to realize that this is a GOOD THING. If individuals were selected for, reductio ad absurdum, only the "best" individuals would survive. This would lead to lower variation within the population, which would make it extremely fragile to changes. What was a relatively unsuccessful trait yesterday might become a very successful trait today.
Finally, take activities that are strongly beneficial. Not doing these things will put one at a selective disadvantage against one's rivals.
If you agree with the above, there is no validity at all left in your original claim:
>Things which are neutral or even benefit survival are not selected for.
My rebuttal would be that you are looking at the wrong side of the equation. Eating is not selected for; not eating is selected against. So no, your argument does not counter my original claim. Such reworkings of the argument may seem petty, but they are centered around a deeper understanding of what exactly selection is and how it works.
Do you have any evidence to support this theory? I very much doubt this holds any truth. Time is not an indication of truth, empirical evidence is.
People have being praying for thousands of years, yet I have seen no conclusive evidence of its effectiveness.
The question I was asking, and which your response does not address, is whether or not a certain activity that claims to be beneficial becomes beneficial purely on the basis that it is practiced over 'x' period of time. Which I do not believe to be true. If you have evidence to the contrary, please post it.
Keep in mind, practiced over 'x' amount of time where x > 2000 years.
>"if something survives a really long time (thousand of years scale) it is very likely to be of use."
Whereby time was the factor by which something is considered 'of use'. The things you've mentioned evolution, the wheel, research papers etc. Have more concrete evidence than just time to back them up.
Although on the topic of food, do you have any evidence to support that?
From an anecdotal perspective, I found that I suffered more stress and frustration via praying than not.
Prayer is like meat - it isn't for everyone, but if you're not getting it you have to be careful not to miss out on certain things.
Do you have any evidence to support the benefits of a placebo effect in relation to religion and/or prayer?
>"plus there's the social benefits of people focusing on good things and potentially manifesting them, and the community benefit of coming together to pray, and psychological benefits are a possibility,"
What social benefits? What good things? What psychological benefits?
>"Although I don't think that's well-studied (or even measurable?) enough to start that debate."
Seems very convenient to me.
>"Prayer is like meat - it isn't for everyone, but if you're not getting it you have to be careful not to miss out on certain things."
What certain things?
Your comment seems awfully shallow in content to me, lacking in any specifics.
tl/dr; inconclusive, hard to get funding.
So, you are implying that there is a switch that will magically turn off beneficial parts of human biology (such as some well known and researched mechanisms like the placebo effect) for those and only those humans that engage in activities that you find personally disgusting (such as religion and prayer).
That's the most overtly religious belief I have seen expressed by a self professed rationalist, you know...
If someone makes a particular claim, the burden of proof is on them.
What you are saying is that if the "cure" in question is prayer instead of sugar pill, then this requires extra burden of proof because the universe is somehow bound to not listen to religious people. Or, to put it more bluntly, prayer would have to be extra harmful in order to counter whatever placebo effect might be at play.
This is a very peculiar belief, not rational but political in nature. In the economics of rhetoric there is a zero sum game: "for my argument to win my opponents must be seen to be in the wrong".
Praying isn't likely to mess with the metabolism. It is, in fact, entirely difficult to tell what it would mess with. Fasting is relatively easy to observe: if it fails, people starve to death.
Meanwhile, people all over the world incorporate fasting into their world intentionally. Far before civilization, they probably did so unintentionally. I highly doubt the body is not equipped in some form to deal with regular period of not eating. It is only extremely recently that the median human has reliable food sources.
But it's a far jump from there to "very likely to be of use." The body is adapted to withstand all sorts of cultural practices that we no longer think are particularly medically useful, like haircuts, shaving, piercings, circumcision, branding, tattoos, foot binding, neck lengthening, bleeding (leeching), etc.
Take the example of sacrifice. In dozens of cultures spanning ((in some cases) hundreds of) thousands of years, people have believed that the sacrifice of <insert species here> will stop the rain/volcano/thunder & lightning/etc. we now know this to be completely false, even though many of these cultures have writings and other 'empirical evidence' that says it does work.
But of course, it is really easy to demand more evidence for the facts we "very much doubt" that for those that confirm our preexisting ideas.