Why the Evolutionary Sociology of Religion Should Build on Rather than Reinvent Biological Models

Authors

  • Lloyd Black University of Connecticut
  • Richard Sosis University of Connecticut

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.35723

Keywords:

adaptive systems, evolution of religion, institutionalization, selection mechanisms

Author Biographies

  • Lloyd Black, University of Connecticut

    University of Connecticut

  • Richard Sosis, University of Connecticut

    University of Connecticut

References

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Boyer, Pascal. 2001. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books.

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Corning, Peter A. 1997 “Holistic Darwinism: ‘Synergistic Selection’ and the Evolutionary Process.” Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems 20(4): 363–400.

Hartberg, Yasha, Michael Cox and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas. 2016. “Supernatural Monitoring and Sanctioning in Community-Based Resource Management.” Religion, Brain and Behavior 6(2): 95–111. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2014.959547

Hodge, K. Mitch. 2011. “On Imagining the Afterlife.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 11: 367–389. https://doi.org/10.1163/156853711X591305

Johnson, Dominic. 2015. God Is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Johnson, Dominic and Oliver Krüger. 2004. “The Good of Wrath: Supernatural Punishment and the Evolution of Cooperation.” Political Theology 5(2): 159–176.

Kiper, Jordan and Richard Sosis. 2014. “Moral Intuitions and the Religious System: An Adaptationist Account.” Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 1(2): 172–199. https://doi.org/10.1628/219597714X14025664303047

Maynard Smith, John and E. Szathmáry. 1995. The Major Transitions in Evolution. Oxford: Freeman Press.

Plotkin, Henry C. 2002. The Imagined World Made Real: Towards a Natural Science of Culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Purzycki, Benjamin Grant. 2013. “The Minds of Gods: A Comparative Study of Supernatural Agency.” Cognition 129: 163–179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2013.06.010

Purzycki, Benjamin Grant and Richard Sosis. 2009. “The Religious System as Adaptive: Cognitive Flexibility, Public Displays, and Acceptance.” In The Biological Evolution of Religious Mind and Behavior, edited by Voland, Eckart and Wulf Schiefenhövel, 243–256. Heidelberg: Springer Berlin. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00128-4_17

Richerson, Peter J. and Robert Boyd. 2005. Not by Genes Alone. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.

Roes, Frans L. and Michel Raymond. 2003. “Belief in Moralizing Gods.” Evolution and Human Behavior 24: 126–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(02)00134-4

Smuts, J. C. 1926. Holism and Evolution. New York: Macmillan Co.

Sosis, Richard. 2016. “Religions as Complex Adaptive Systems.” In MacMillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks on Religion. Mental Religion: The Brain, Cognition, and Culture, edited by Niki Clements, 219–236. Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan.

———. 2009. “The Adaptationist-Byproduct Debate on the Evolution of Religion: Five Misunderstandings of the Adaptationist Program.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 9(3): 315–332. https://doi.org/10.1163/156770909X12518536414411

Watts J., O. Sheehan, S. J. Greenhill, S. Gomes-Ng, Q. D. Atkinson, J. Bulbulia and R. D. Gray. 2015. “Pulotu: Database of Austronesian Supernatural Beliefs and Practices.” PLoS ONE 10(9). e0136783 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0136783

Wheeler, William M. 1927. Emergent Evolution and the Social. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner. https://doi.org/10.5840/wcp6192721

Whitehouse, Harvey. 2008. “Cognitive Evolution and Religion: Cognition and Religious Evolution.” In The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and Critiques, edited by Joseph Bulbulia, Richard Sosis, Erica Harris, Russell Genet, Cheryl Genet and Karen Wyman, 31–41 Santa Margarita, CA: Collins Foundation Press.

Wilson, David S. 2002. Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226901374.001.0001

Published

2018-05-18

How to Cite

Black, L., & Sosis, R. (2018). Why the Evolutionary Sociology of Religion Should Build on Rather than Reinvent Biological Models. Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion, 4(1), 37-41. https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.35723

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