One of the difficulties in discussing religion is that it is not a single phenomenon. It is a belief system, a social structure, a moral paradigm, a set of rituals and practices, and a sense of identity. Typically, when a critic of religion advances a hypothesis about something that religion "causes," he is shouted down from all sides by people claiming that it's not "religion," but some kind of social phenomenon that is operating alongside religion.
This kind of goal-post shifting is frustrating, but ultimately, it is just a diversion from the reality of cause-effect factors in what we can loosely term "the religious environment." A 2010 study published in the science journal "Social Cognition" has pinned down one functional difference between believers and non-believers. In an article curiously titled IN DEFENSE OF RELIGION: SHARED REALITY MODERATES THE UNCONSCIOUS THREAT OF EVOLUTION, researchers have verified the predictions of "Shared Reality Theory" with regard to believers' perceptions of evolution and atheists.
[E]xposure to evolution-related words reduced the religiosity and anti-atheist prejudice of participants who perceived their religious experience to be unshared with their fathers, but not of participants who perceived their religious experience to be shared with their fathers... [E]xposure to evolution-related words reduced the religiosity and anti-atheist prejudice of insecurely attached participants but not securely attached participants. Together results suggest that dynamics in religiosity and religion-related prejudice are regulated by the two key elements postulated in shared reality theory: relationship quality and the degree to which relationship-relevant experiences are perceived to be shared.
In lay terms, here's what it means. Humans are highly susceptible to beliefs about other people's reality. In experiment after experiment, it has been proven that we consciously and unconsciously adopt the worldviews of those around us. The effect is profound when we want to be liked and accepted, but it is also quite strong in adversarial relationships, as well. (Stockholm Syndrome is a prime example of this.)
Subjects with strong "shared reality bonds" with their religious fathers showed marked resistance to viewing atheists or evolution favorably. Similarly, subjects with "secure attachments" to religion (read: strong social bonds) were unlikely to change their views. In other words, the social bonding and shared reality of religious commitment are responsible for hostility towards atheists and evolution.
To put this in a more direct way, religious adherence and the reality sharing it causes are responsible (at least in part) for the seemingly inexplicable resistance to the overwhelming evidence that evolution is fact. (Though it is difficult to compare such things, it is often said by biologists that the empirical evidence for evolution's existence is at least as compelling as the evidence for gravity. And evolution is actually better described in some ways than gravity.)
For atheist activists, this knowledge creates a sticky problem. We are fond of saying that education is a necessary precursor to any kind of broad secularization of America. But education alone does not appear to be sufficient, since resistance to evolution and atheism are also occurring on an unconscious psycho-social level. Home-schooling by religious zealots now appears to be an even greater danger, as it certainly exacerbates the problem of shared reality bonding.
Critics of this conclusion will undoubtedly protest. Scientists are as susceptible to shared reality theory as believers, and there is no reason to suppose the scientific community isn't falling victim to the same unconscious mechanisms. It is true, of course, that scientists are human, and subject to biases. However, the difference between "scientific belief"* and religious belief is that science has at its heart a built-in hedge against unconscious bias: Scientific observations and experiments are designed with specific protocols so that the prior beliefs of the observers do not influence the outcome. Scientists all over the world -- spanning all religions (and no religions) -- can do the experiment, and the results will be the same. The fact that people disagree actually strengthens the value of scientific conclusions.
Furthermore, no science exists in a vacuum. Evolution is not the milieu of biologists alone. The theories of evolution rely on the theories of chemistry, physics, and information. Hundreds of thousands of scientists worldwide rely on the data from people they've never met, whose disciplines are largely unknown (and functionally irrelevant), but whose conclusions nevertheless act as support structures for their conclusions. In short, the entirety of science is simply too big for shared reality theory to apply.
In any case, this research is extremely valuable to those of us in search of creative solutions to the pervasive and often unconscious infiltration of religion into our sense of reality -- a sense we have every reason to believe is more grounded in objective reality. Hopefully, follow up research will yield more specific data about the mechanisms behind shared reality bias, and give us one more way to press religion firmly into the margins of civilized society.
*"Scientific belief" is different in kind than many forms of religious belief, since the former is characterized by skepticism appropriate to the level of doubt and the latter is often identified by its peculiar insistence on things for which there are ample reasons to doubt. Even so, English is clunky at best, and this equivocation will have to do for this article.
Source: Magee M, Hardin C. In defense of religion: Shared reality moderates the unconscious threat of evolution. Social Cognition [serial online]. June 2010;28(3):379-400.
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