01. January 2010, 12:52
Now, the Darwin Year is over. In a sense, sadly so. It has been full of surprises. Think of it: How many people expected it to run as a kind of a climax in the Culture Wars between (some) Evolutionists and (some) religious Fundamentalists. But then, surprising things happened: Christian preachers as e.g. Michael Dowd thanked God for Evolution and more and more atheists, agnostics and believers discovered together, that evolutionary studies were a splendid way to discover new facts about religiosity and religions, building a new and shared, scientific perspective on the matter.
As I have done on the German Scilogs, I decided to endorse three very special books that helped to pave the way for a better understanding of evolution and religion(s).
1. Voland, Schiefenhövel (Eds.): The Biological Evolution of Religious Mind and Behavior
It is an expensive piece of scientific jewellery. And I am amazed everytime, when I browse and read through it. 19 chapters of evolutionary studies on religion, each a unicum in itself. There is e.g. the Chinese contribution in Neuropsychology of religious belief by Shihui Han or the multi-dimensional American theory about the "Where", "When" and "Why" of the Evolution of Religion (Matt Rossano). There is the captivating cross-check of evolutionary theories with ethnological observations in Melanesia (Wulf Schiefenhövel) and... well, see for yourself the list of contents!
As I had been part of the Delmenhorst-conference about Biology of Religion back in 2007, I had been impressed by the sheer, interdisciplinary dynamics of a bunch of courageous scholars. With "TBEoRMB", Eckart Voland and Wulf Schiefenhövel not only managed to distill this event, but to expand upon it. Although the book may be too special and too expensive to get a wider audience, it will sure be treasured (and used) by those dedicated to evolutionary studies of religion far beyond the Darwin Year.
2. Schaller, Norenzayan et al. (Eds.): Evolution, Culture, and the Human Mind
Well, the cognition and culture institute got the flair of this impressive and broad tome: "An enormous amount of scientific research compels two fundamental conclusions about the human mind: The mind is the product of evolution; and the mind is shaped by culture. These two perspectives on the human mind are not incompatible, but, until recently, their compatibility has resisted rigorous scholarly inquiry. Evolutionary psychology documents many ways in which genetic adaptations govern the operations of the human mind. But evolutionary inquiries only occasionally grapple seriously with questions about human culture and cross-cultural differences. By contrast, cultural psychology documents many ways in which thought and behavior are shaped by different cultural experiences. But cultural inquires rarely consider evolutionary processes. Even after decades of intensive research, these two perspectives on human psychology have remained largely divorced from each other. But that is now changing - and that is what this book is about." It is divided into three parts (1. How Evolution and Culture Fit Together., 2. Evolutionary Bases of Cultural Phenomena., 3. Evolutionary Universals and Cross-Cultural Differences.) with international and intercultural teams adressing these in captivating studies and chapters. Of course, I especially appreciated:
*S. Solomon, J. Greenberg, T. Pyszczynski, F. Cohen, D.M. Ogilvie, Teach these Souls to Fly: Supernatural as Human Adaptation.
* A.F. Shariff, A. Norenzayan, J. Henrich, The Birth of High Gods: How the Cultural Evolution of Supernatural Policing Influenced the Emergence of Complex, Cooperative Human Societies, Paving the Way for Civilization.
But other chapters e.g. about social selection or Baumeister's The Human Mind and the Evolution of Cultural Animals offered food for (scientific) thought for years to come.
3. Robert Wright: The Evolution of God
Although Wright featured the E-word in the title, his book (sadly) doesn't recourse on many contemporary studies e.g. about the biological bases or biocultural effects of religiosity. Instead, Wright is presenting and discussing the cultural evolution of religions in the framework of Game theory. Well written, I have seen that some of my students and colleagues new to the field found Wright's approach very accessible and convincing. What's more, it's offering some ethnological and historical insight in the recent evolution of religious behavior and religions. If you are seeking a book for introducing someone in the perspective of evolutionary studies on religion without risk of drowning in divergent theories, Wright's book is a very good choice.
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