Interesting scientific theory. Too bad he doesn't back up his claims with evidence, so it just sounds like pure conjucture:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=4740178&page=1

My own theory is that the evolutionary development of rational thinking and understanding of the world has been a mixed blessing for our species. One the one had it has allowed survival by the development of such things as agriculture, tool usage, medicine, engineering, etc...

On the other hand, the more we know about somethings, the more we realize we don't know much about everything. So we understand the finality of death, the diseases and dangers that can destroy us, the competition for survival, the ability to make weapons of war, etc... All of this bringing on paranoia and anxiety. But only the paranoid survive. 

Also, rational thinking being a new development has associated with many faults and failures bringing on various psychosis. Religion - the opiate for the masses may have a role in reducing the dangerous psychosis and anxieties. But hopefully with modern psychology and medicine, religion will soon outlive it's usefulness.

Any more, religion is only useful a zombist tranquilizer. Basically, religion being an opiate, causes the affected individuals to become survivalist, breeding zombies. A fine example is this Texas polygamy cult. They live a boring, highly controlled, pitiful life. But religion blocks out all the pain of reality by creating a new one. They can only exist to survive and breed, not to think or enjoy life. You can see that they are brainwashed zombies, but this is their survival technique. This is an extreme examples, but all religions affect their followers to some degree in this way.

The battle today is not so much religion vs. atheism. But more a conflict between zombiism vs. rational consciousness. Religion has some survival benefits for it's followers. But it is overall harmful to societies that rely on education, science, technology and rational thinking for the overall well being of society.