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Byproduct to Benefit

from The Rap Guide to Religion by Baba Brinkman

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Question: Is religion an adaptation, or a byproduct of an adaptation? Answer: Yes.

Further reading: genealogyreligion.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Adaptationist-Byproduct-Debate-Sosis.pdf

lyrics

What’s the original origin of religion?
Is it teleology? Agency detection?
Theory of mind, or anthropomorphism?
Those are byproducts of common social cognition
So there was no benefit, huh? No function?
Just a random bunch of intuitions and hunches
Just mental eruptions in a population of primates
Tryin’ to keep track of each others’ changeable mind states
Minds play tricks like Scarface and Bushwick 
They see intentions in every rustle of bushes
But so what if religion started kinda random
Nothin’ adaptive about it, just a spandrel?
That doesn't mean it stayed that way, it could've taken
A turn for the beneficial and become an adaptation
That’s what happened to feathers, birds can fly and soar
Even if their descended from a terrestrial dinosaur
But Jurassic World lost the plot a bit
It pissed off a whole lot of palaeontologists
‘Cause raptors had feathers, the question is why
Would evolution produce a feather that can’t fly?

Here’s a toast to the scavengers
Leveraging advantages
Makin’ something outta nothin’
Byproducts into benefits

Here’s a toast to survivors
To the dumpster divers
Makin’ beauty out of blemishes
Byproducts into benefits

Take a look at a flock of velociraptors
They can’t fly but feathers are also attractive
So they’re good for displays and mating dances
And they're fuzzy, so there's an insulation factor
How else you gonna to keep a tyrannosaur warm
In a rain storm? That's how the feather was formed
But dinosaurs ran into an asteroid apocalypse
A few survivors descended from archaeopteryx 
A new function for the feather was found 
Propelling an organism across the ground
Mutations accumulated and spread them flatter
Gradually makin’ them more aerodynamic 
And dinosaurs survived; they recolonized the earth
Today we know them as “birds”
Okay, dinosaurs didn't make it, but their descendants did
They turned a byproduct into a benefit

Here’s a toast to the scavengers
Leveraging advantages
Makin’ something outta nothin’
Byproducts into benefits

Here’s a toast to survivors
To the dumpster divers
Makin’ beauty out of blemishes
Byproducts into benefits

The original origins of religion
A side effect of social cognition
An imaginary population of intuitions 
Ancestors, gods and apparitions
But populations change, they’re not static
They fluctuate like soft plastic
Some gods proliferate, others fade away
Like Poseidon, who nobody prays to today
You're a Poseidon atheist, admit it
And you're comfortable with it, which makes you a militant
Poseidon atheist – “Poseidon theology”
Used to be huge, but now we call it “oceanography”
Beliefs change and impact behaviour
They spread from head to head through oral labia
So what's religion, a byproduct or benefit?
Well that depends on what you spread with it

Here’s a toast to the scavengers
Leveraging advantages
Makin’ something outta nothin’
Byproducts into benefits

Here’s a toast to survivors
To the dumpster divers
Makin’ beauty out of blemishes
Byproducts into benefits

credits

from The Rap Guide to Religion, released October 23, 2015
Written by D. Brinkman and T. Caruana
Produced and Mixed by Tom Caruana
Additional Keys by Simon Kendall
Additional Vocals and Guitars by Tom Van Deursen
Mastered by Mr. Simmonds

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Baba Brinkman New York, New York

Science rapper and inventor of several novel hip-hop variants. Canadian transplant to New York. Pathological optimist.

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