Brown Symposium

The fist lecture I went to was “How God Can Change Your Brain” by Dr. Andrew Newberg. I found the topic extremely interesting; I’ve always been intrigued by the physical effects one’s religion can have on them. One of the experiments that Dr. Newberg discussed that I enjoyed was about the brain activity in the frontal lobe during prayer. A brain scan was made on a nun while she was in prayer and compared to her baseline scan; the increased activity in the frontal lobe during prayer was indicative of the high amount of attention and focus she was exhibiting. The same types of scans were done on an atheist who was asked to contemplate the idea of God. The scans showed no increase of activity in the frontal lobe. This is logical because it would be difficult to focus attention on a concept in which you do not believe. Another thing that Dr. Newberg stated as a driving force behind his research was that science can’t prove the existence of God, but it can show how God affects us, which is something that could be just as informative.

The second lecture I attended was “Evolution as the Theory of Choice for the Study of Religion” by David Sloan Wilson. While I don’t quite agree with statement made by Wilson that religion is “100% a social construct,” I did find some of the lecture interesting. One of the studies that was discussed was particularly so; two experiments were done to examine the effect on egg laying productivity. The first breeded the most productive individual chicken from each group, and the second breeded all the chickens in the most productive group. The chickens from the first experiment ended up killing each other and the three left were featherless because they plucked each other. After six generations, the chickens from the second group had a 160% increase in productivity and were all healthy. This difference occurred because the chickens from the first experiment were working as individuals to benefit themselves, while the chickens from the second group were working together to benefit the group. Though they were doing this unknowingly, I think it could say a lot about human behavior. It reminded me of the concept John Nash came up with in “A Beautiful Mind” (and obviously in real life). He stated that everyone is most successful when taking each others’ success in to consideration, as opposed to only thinking of their own success.

I would be really interested in hearing the thoughts of others in the cohort, especially those with agnostic or atheist beliefs. I think that it is important to discuss these things and that discussion can often reaffirm one’s beliefs, whatever they may be. Religion is such an integral part of “understanding human behavior” I really think we should spend some time on this.