Belief in Gods/The Supernatural: A Product of Evolution?

[Recusant]

I mentioned this article about a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in joeactor's thread Faith found to reduce errors on psychological test, but I think it deserves it's own thread.

While the science appears sound enough, from what I can glean in an article written for non-scientists, I'm not sure that it warrants the conclusions that Professor Jordan Grafman would like to draw from the study:

"When we have incomplete knowledge of the world around us, it offers us the opportunities to believe in God. When we don't have a scientific explanation for something, we tend to rely on supernatural explanations," said Professor Grafman, who believes in God. "Maybe obeying supernatural forces that we had no knowledge of made it easier for religious forms of belief to emerge."

I think that a scientist who does not believe in a god would draw an entirely different conclusion, certainly not one that invokes "supernatural forces that we had no knowledge of." I see nothing in the study as reported that points to the existence of such forces, but rather it seems that perhaps there has been a survival value in belief in such forces.
As for the generalization that a person who does not have a scientific explanation for something  will tend to rely on supernatural explanations, that's a stretch too.  If the tendency to posit supernatural explanations evolved, then it of course did so before people had the scientific method of knowledge.  But not before pragmatic methods of knowledge!  I think that humanity evolved a tendency to try to understand our environment better, and explanations of phenomena that invoke the supernatural were just one of several different ways of understanding that we evolved..  However, if it is our tendency to rely on supernatural explanations in the absence of readily apparent natural explanations, as Grafman would like to think, then why would we ever bother with continuing to seek natural explanations at all?  I would like to think that it's much more likely that we as a species tend toward pragmatic knowledge, and only opted for the supernatural route when we reached the limits of that pragmatic knowledge. I realize that this sounds similar to Grafman's quote above, but where he sees a tendency toward the supernatural, I see a pragmatic relegation of the presently unknown into a sort of limbo. "We don't understand X right now, so we'll make up a good story about it." For many it's true that they will be satisfied with the story.  It may even be that those are in the majority.  But I think that there is a survival value in continuing to seek a natural explanation, even when we have a perfectly good supernatural one.   It seems obvious to me that if the tendency toward supernatural explanations were the dominant one in all of the members of the species, homo sapiens would not have survived.  
Of course I'm editorializing, just as Grafman was in the last couple of paragraphs of the article, and I have no credentials to back up my views.  I just want to point out that the credentials which Grafman has do not make his belief in a god any more grounded in reality than any other theist's.

I admit, I get a kick out of how this line of thinking twists around and does a backflip from the tripe that is the standard Christian fundamentalist line of argument:  "If we evolved to believe in gods, then maybe it's reasonable to think that gods do indeed exist."

[PipeBox]

Alternatively, maybe he just means we use the supernatural as a sort of place holder.  Not that it is actually supernatural, but that we identify it as such to keep ourselves aware that there are "rules" to the universe we don't yet know.  Naturally, it's easiest to imagine these mechanics when filtered through personification.  I'd say it's a multi-faceted thing, and that the person quoted wasn't entirely aware of what it would sound like they were saying.  Still can't eliminate the possibility.  But I see the process moving something like this:
[li]Witness a happening several times that is not readily explained.
[li]Note that it doesn't happen all the time, and nothing else witnessed seems random, without cause.
[li]The cause being non-random, yet unapparent, leaves a desire to know.
[li]In speculating what the underlying mechanics are, it is easy to ascribe ones based on the person.  Lightning and the mind are equally not understood, so it is easy to apply personal qualities to it.

Or something like that, I'm no social anthropologist.  

[Recusant]

Alternatively, maybe he just means we use the supernatural as a sort of place holder.

I think it's pretty clear that in the third sentence I quote from Grafman, he's essentially saying, "Through the grace of God we evolved the ability to understand that He exists."
I agree with your idea that the supernatural is a sort of place-holder, but it seems that Grafman thinks it's much more than that, otherwise he would not say that he believes in god.