“I’m pretty sure most of my Christian friends don’t believe that any of Genesis is literally true”
Have you asked them? Probably not, it’s considered rude to ask christians questions like that, isn’t it? (which is no doubt one reason why religious beliefs are able persist)
But if you did ask them you might be surprised by the answer.
Actually I suspect you are probably somewhat right: they don’t beleive genesis literally. However I suspect they don’t disbelieve it, either.
I actually don’t think religious belief has much to to with doctrine, and I don’t thmink many western christians ever actually sit down to assess exactly ‘what’ they believe, and what they don’t. Religion isn’t about believing silly things, it’s primarily about belonging. Belinging to a group that at a social everyday level is mostly harmless, and normally well intentioned.
I have been in Ashley’s situation—roped in to play a similar parlour game to demonstrate game theory in action.
In my case it was in a work setting: part of a two day brainstorming / team building boondongle.
In my game there were five tables each with eight people, all playing the same, iterarted game.
In four out of five table every single person cooperated in every single iteration—including the first and last one. On the fifth table they got confused about the rules.
The reason for the behaviour was clear—the purpose of the game was to demonstrate that cooperation increased the total size of the pot (the game was structered that way). In a workplace setting the prize was to win the approbation of the trainers and managers, by demonstrating that we were teamplayers, and certainly NOT to be the asshole who cheated his tablemates and walked off with $50.
On the the fifth table they managed to confuse themselves such that on the first iteration two of them unwittingly defected. Their table therefore ended up with the least money, but the two individuals of course ended up the richest in the room—they were hideously embarrassed.
I was left wondering what amount of money it would have taken to change behaviour. Would people defect if there was $1000 at stake? In that setting, I think still not. $10,000? $100,000 ?
Practical game-theory experiments would be quite expensive to run, I think.