As the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the world, shutting down entire countries and threatening the worst economic crisis since 2008, developed nations are asking their citizens for the kind of sacrifices that normally are restricted to wartime. A shelter-in-place order now covers millions residents in California and Illinois. Colleges and universities around the country are shuttered. Are these unprecedented efforts to “flatten the curve” really worth it? One renowned researcher – John Ioannidis, a specialist in scientific methodology at Stanford University… Read more
March 21, 2020
Scientific Conflict About the Coronavirus Lockdown
March 21, 2020 By Connor Wood
0 Comments
March 6, 2020
The Coronavirus Outbreak Shows the Dangers of Social Hypercoherence
March 6, 2020 By Connor Wood
0 Comments
Globalization: it may be a 2000s buzzword, but it’s brought the world many benefits. Our consumer goods are cheaper than ever before. Surging industrialization has lifted billions worldwide out of grinding poverty. For a while, you could even get Starbucks in the very heart of Beijing’s Forbidden City (if that’s what you were into). But the last few years have also taught us that globalization isn’t an unalloyed good. One unique danger it poses is hypercoherence, or maladaptive syncing between… Read more
February 21, 2020
Will Cognitive Gadgets Replace Evolutionary Psychology?
February 21, 2020 By Connor Wood
0 Comments
Psychologist Cecilia Heyes thinks that evolutionary psychology’s main claim – that the mind is made of evolved cognitive modules – is false. Instead, we learn core capacities like language and imitation from social experience, making them more like “cognitive gadgets” than innate abilities. Read more
January 28, 2020
Why Humans Imitate. And Imitate. And Imitate.
January 28, 2020 By Connor Wood
0 Comments
Life in 21st-century America – or any wealthy Western nation, really – is a nonstop celebration of individualism and nonconformity. To sell Sketchers, you dream up ads showing hip young people striking defiant poses, as if wearing a product manufactured by a S&P 400 stock index corporation were a courageous act of daring rebellion. College students and entrepreneurs learn to be “disruptors,”* defying established wisdom in favor of striking out boldly in new directions (and hopefully acquiring juicy seed funding)…. Read more
January 15, 2020
Extreme Rituals and Health: A Surprising Match
January 15, 2020 By Connor Wood
0 Comments
With the possible exception of scrolling through Twitter, it’s hard to imagine an activity less conducive to mind-body health than shoving metal spikes through your cheeks before walking up a steep mountain path in shoes made of nails. Yet during the kavadi attam ritual – part of the annual Thaipusam festival of Tamil Hinduism – innumerable people eagerly do exactly this (and worse) as they process up a hillside to the local temple of the god Murugan. Some worshipers drag… Read more
November 23, 2019
Videos on War and Painful Ritual
November 23, 2019 By Connor Wood
0 Comments
Back in the spring, the Center for Mind and Culture and I hosted a colloquium for top leaders in the cognitive and evolutionary sciences of religion. It just so happened that Andrew Henry, the proprietor of the popular YouTube channel Religion for Breakfast, was able to join us and filmed in-depth interviews with each of the top-flight participants. Two of those interviews are now live, and I thought I’d put up a quick post to show them around. Both Andrew and… Read more
November 9, 2019
What Distinguishes Humans from Chimps? Vocal Learning and Ritual.
November 9, 2019 By Connor Wood
0 Comments
The neuroscientist Björn Merker argues that humans, unlike chimpanzees, have “ritual culture” – culture that depends on over-imitation and intensive social learning. Interestingly, this means we have more in common with whales, seals, and songbirds than with our closest living relatives. Read more
October 25, 2019
Conservatives Have Smaller Moral Circles than Progressives
October 25, 2019 By Connor Wood
0 Comments
A new study has found fascinating evidence that conservatives care about to smaller, tighter moral circles than liberals do – whereas liberals go so far as to care about the fate of strangers from other countries, paramecia, and…rocks in outer space. Read more
September 25, 2019
Is Morality About Cooperation?
September 25, 2019 By Connor Wood
0 Comments
If there’s one thing nearly all people can agree on, it’s that some actions are morally right and others are wrong. But which actions count as right or wrong? That gets a bit more complicated. In some societies, polygamy is normal and proper. In others, taking a second wife can get you imprisoned. Some societies value individual rights and autonomy, while others emphasize collective obligations and hierarchy. In the face of such dazzling differences, how are we supposed to develop… Read more
August 12, 2019
The Future of Religion: What Follows the Decline of “Big Gods?”
August 12, 2019 By Connor Wood
0 Comments
A recent article at the BBC argues that the future of religion might be found in a return to pre-Abrahamic, ethnic religious traditions, such as Norse neopaganism or the neo-African religion Ifa. What effect would this shift have on the world as we know it? Read more
get the latest from
Science On Religion
Sign up for our newsletter
POPULAR AT PATHEOS Public Square
Browse Our Archives
TRENDING AT PATHEOS Public Square
