Gods and religions, in sum, are group-level adaptations for producing cohesiveness and trust. Like maypoles and beehives, they are created by the members of the group, and they then organize the activity of the group. Group-level adaptations, as Williams noted, imply a selection process operating at the group level.47 And group selection can work very quickly (as in the case of those group-selected hens that became more peaceful in just a few generations).48 Ten thousand years is plenty of time for gene-culture coevolution, including some genetic changes, to have occurred.49 And 50,000 years
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