Paper short abstract:

Are culture and religion biological traits of the human organisms, arisen through natural selection, or are they systems that surpass the boundaries of biology? Marshall Sahlins, sociobiologists, and more recent scholars have attempted to answer the question, as the present work will illustrate.

Paper long abstract:

A consistent part of the anthropological thought of the 20th century has been based on the discussion about the concept of culture, often portrayed as a crucial element of the humankind. Discourses about religion, as a subset of human culture, have been incorporated into the larger debate regarding the definition of culture. The central question of the debate is the following: are culture and religion biological traits of the human organisms, arisen through natural selection and genetic inheritance, or are they entities and systems that surpass the boundaries of biology?

The scientific paradigm of sociobiology, become popular through E.O. Wilson’s eponymous book "Sociobiology" (1975), supported the view of culture and human behaviour as products of natural selection. This view was criticized by other scholars, within and outside of biology, such as in Marshall Sahlins’ book "The Use and Abuse of Biology" (1976). In his work, Sahlins has discussed the evolutionary approach held by sociobiologists and offered a view on culture that exceeded the explanatory boundaries of natural selection.

After the 1970s, the debate around the biological interpretations of culture was pursued by further specialists, such as evolutionary psychologists, ethologists, and neuroscientists, alongside biologists and anthropologists. Many have also addressed the concept of religion, often seen as a cognitive trait of the human mind that needed to be explained through evolution and natural selection.

The present work will discuss the relationship among culture, religion, and biology, trying to illustrate the debate surrounding these concepts and their interrelations. In this regard, both Marshall Sahlins’ and sociobiological arguments will be discussed critically and confronted with more recent stances on the debate.