I don’t want to rain on Heather Mac Donald’s parade, especially after the sweet compliment she paid me in that Q&A Ramesh linked to, but consider the following:

—The inclination to be religious is, like most other aspects of human personality, heritable in part.

—Religious people, a few oddities like the Shakers aside, are more philoprogenitive than irreligious people.

Now, weave in our recent thread about consumer eugenics and designer babies. If consumer eugenics becomes cheap and ubiquitous, as I suspect it will, won’t religious people want their offsprings’ genes tweaked to make them religious, too? With the result, if those differential birthrates hold up, that the world will become more religious generation by generation?

And if these things come to pass, won’t churches and religious groups, from sheer self-interest, be lobbying for more choice in baby-design via genetic tweaking? While the legions of the godless clamor for restrictions on these techniques in fear of an advancing theocracy?

Just a thought. I am enjoying a quiet smile, anyway, at the prospect of an octogenarian Ramesh railing angrily on National Review Inbrain (“beamed direct to your cerebral cortex!”) against those who seek to restrict parental choice in determining the religiosity of their offspring…