Fertility Does Not Explain “Evolution of Religion”
We should thank Tom Rees over at Epiphenom for posting a much needed “rant on the evolution of religion.” What has Tom so worked up? The claim — first made by Michael Blume and now accepted by Jesse...
View ArticleGroup Level Selection? The Non-Evolution of Religion
There are a number of scholars who claim that “religion” evolved as an adaptation. What kind of adaptation? A group level adaptation. The story usually goes like this: at some unknown time during the...
View ArticleProto-Religious Foragers v. Non-Religious Foragers
In a recent post on group level selection and the evolution of religion, I observed that if we assume such selection was operating on human groups during the Paleolithic, three factors play a major...
View ArticleEvolution of Religion Project: Is “Adaptation” Code for “Design”?
Several months ago I became aware of the “Evolution of Religion” project, which maintains a website here. I did not find it particularly interesting because it was immediately apparent that the...
View ArticleTempleton Money and Metaphysics
In a rare moment of clarity, Immanuel Kant penned these unforgettable words: Time was, when she (Metaphysics) was the queen of all the sciences; and, if we take the will for the deed, she certainly...
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Bellah’s Reading on Religious Evolution
I’ve finally gotten round to reading Robert Bellah’s Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age (2011). I’ve been avoiding it for fear it would infect, in a good way, my own...
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How “God” Sorta Evolved
Over at Evo Anth, Adam Benton opines on how “god” evolved. The first thing I have to do is congratulate Adam because his post was picked up by The Browser. This is an honor and will ensure he gets at...
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Pleasing Theories & Reality
Over the past several weeks, I’ve been getting the uneasy feeling that evolutionary models of what we today call “religion” aren’t really bringing us all that much closer to actually explaining the...
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Darwin & The Descent: Animism-Religion
Yesterday was spent with Darwin. It was a good day and something I need to do more often. One of the curious things about Darwin is that he is so well known, so much a part of evolutionary discourse,...
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Whitehouse on ERS
It’s not often that I read an article or interview about the evolution of “religion” that does not provoke some dissent — an objecting inner voice saying “that’s not quite right” or “that’s really...
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