Science & the Big Questions

Is Your Society Good for (Biological) Fitness?

Remember that there are two major biological objectives in life, survival and reproduction.

Science on Religion

Topics: Cultural Evolution Evolution of Religion Ritual Scientific Study of Religion

Religions as Complex Adaptive Systems

Looking at religions as a complex adaptive systems helps make sense of both their persistent cross-cultural similarities and their widely varying differences.

Science on Religion

Topics: Cooperation Evolution of Religion Religious Groups Ritual Scientific Study of Religion

Why Religious Extremism is Maladaptive

To survive, religions must adapt and religious extremism impedes adaptive flexibility, although we currently have little understanding of how long extremist groups can endure in spite of their tendency to ossify social rules.

The Evolution Institute

Topics: Evolution of Religion Scientific Study of Religion

How Did Belief Evolve?

An anthropologist traces the development of Homo sapiens’ most creative and destructive force, from the making of stone tools to the rise of religions.

SAPIENS

Topics: Belief Creativity Evolution of Religion Imagination Meaning

Do Humans Have a ‘Religion Instinct’?

BBC Future

Topics: Andrew Newberg Belief Bonding Evolution of Religion Morality Religiosity Ritual Scientific Study of Religion Spirituality

The Worth of an Angry God

How supernatural beliefs allowed societies to bond and spread.

Nautilus

Topics: Cooperation Cultural Evolution Evolution of Religion Morality

Did Big Gods Come Before or After Big Societies?

The whirling center of a scientific controversy.

Science on Religion

Topics: Cooperation Cultural Evolution Evolution of Religion Morality Scientific Study of Religion

How and Why Did Religion Evolve?

BBC Future

Topics: Animal Studies Bonding Emotion Empathy Evolution of Religion Ritual Scientific Study of Religion

Big Gods Came After the Rise of Civilizations, Not Before, Finds Study Using Huge Historical Database

God only started watching over us quite recently, according to a new study that analyzed 414 societies from 30 world regions.

The Conversation

Topics: Cooperation Cultural Evolution Evolution of Religion Morality

How to Do Interdisciplinary Work That Works

A colloquium on the scientific study of religion.

Science on Religion

Topics: Evolution of Religion Scientific Study of Religion

How Belief in Punitive Gods May Have Helped Large Societies Cooperate

Belief in punitive gods may have helped humans cooperate across larger societies by uniting distant populations into a cohesive group.

New Scientist

Topics: Belief Cooperation Cultural Evolution Evolution of Religion Faith Morality Religious Groups

Gods Are Everywhere Because It’s Hard to Bargain With Them

The cognitive similarities between institutional life and religion.

Science on Religion

Topics: Cognition Cultural Evolution Evolution of Religion Imagination Religiosity Ritual Scientific Study of Religion

Science and Religion Need Not Be at War

David Sloan Wilson’s agreement and disagreement with Jerry Coyne.

The Evolution Institute

Topics: David Sloan Wilson Evolution of Religion Faith Meaning Models of Science & Religion Naturalism

How to “Grow” Shamanism in a Computer Model

An agent-based model (ABM) computer simulation that explores why shamanism in some societies is mostly male-dominated, while in other societies shamans are mostly female.

Science on Religion

Topics: Evolution of Religion Scientific Study of Religion

Why Are Some Religions More Popular Than Others?

Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism are followed by roughly 75 percent of the global population. What made these religions, with billions of believers, so successful while others fizzled?

The Crux, Discover

Topics: Belief Cooperation Cultural Evolution Evolution of Religion Morality

The Human Brain Evolved to Believe in Gods

Humans are a believing bunch. And evolutionary anthropologists say that’s no miracle. The origins and ubiquity of religious beliefs can be explained by evolutionary theory.

The Crux, Discover

Topics: Cognition Cooperation Evolution of Religion Scientific Study of Religion

Synthesizing Empirical Findings and Theory in the Scientific Study of Religion

The SEFT Project is an initiative to survey the work that’s been done in the scientific study of religion thus far — to step back and take a bird’s-eye view of what the field has accomplished, where it’s come from, and where it might go next.

Science on Religion

Topics: Evolution of Religion Ritual Scientific Study of Religion

Creating God

An in-depth look at a provocative idea about the origin and purpose of the world’s religions.

Hidden Brain, NPR

Topics: Azim Shariff Belief Cooperation Cultural Evolution Evolution of Religion Faith Religiosity Ritual Trust

Did Human Sacrifice Help People Form Complex Societies?

The debate over how well ritual killings maintained social order.

The Atlantic

Topics: Cultural Evolution Evolution of Religion Power Ritual Scientific Study of Religion Social Inequality Violence

Supernatural Punishment and the Evolution of Cooperation

The key question the supernatural punishment hypothesis tries to answer is this: how could reliable human cooperation have evolved, since there’s always an incentive for individuals to cheat — that is, to benefit from others’ cooperation without cooperating in return?

Science on Religion

Topics: Cooperation Evolution of Religion Scientific Study of Religion

Worshipping Waterfalls: The Evolution of Belief

Can we ever know why our ancient human ancestors developed spiritual beliefs? Can evolutionary science uncover the roots of religion?

To the Best of Our Knowledge

Topics: Andrew Newberg Animal Studies Ara Norenzayan Barbara King Evolution of Religion Frans de Waal Jeff Schloss