During the last years, the increasingly interdisciplinary and international evolutionary studies of religiosity and religions made tremendous progress. 'Explaining Religion 2010' is an interdisciplinary conference run by the University of Bristol's Department of Philosophy and the Bristol Cognitive Development Centre which aims to integrate approaches. The event will be held at the university's beautiful Orangery  on the 2nd and 3rd of September (Thursday & Friday).

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For a long time, evolutionary studies have been dominated by Western male scientists. Maybe it is not that surprising that their main hypotheses about the specific pathways of our hominid ancestors focussed on competition, hierarchies, warfare, weapon-and-tool-making and hunting. Unfortunately, the most obvious differences between our species and our primate relatives went largely unnoticed: No chimpanzee or orang-utan could entrust her children e.g. to a birthday party or kindergarten in the hands of non-kin others (the biological term being "alloparental care" - childcare beyond mother and father). Their offspring would risk to be attacked and killed. Therefore, other primate mothers tend to carry and shield their offspring for longer stretches of time, which led to extended spans between births wile restricting times of childhood.

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These last years, I have made a sad experience repeatedly: When it comes to the evolution of religiosity and religions, many self-reported "rationalists" tend to falter. Although Charles Darwin himself naturally assumed a successful, biocultural evolution of religious behavior (as with any other behavioral trait), many self-purported "scientifically" people are not even able to assess the respective hypotheses.

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Dr. Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations in the Commonwealth and Baron of Aldgate has been a theological speaker worth listening to for many years. Combining Jewish tradition, liberal philosophy and modern sciences, he targeted collective blind spots of society more than once. Speaking last week at the Theos think tank in London, Rabbi Sacks quickly induced a range (!) of intensive debates with a single lecture.

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As the demographic implosion of secular populations and the higher birth rates of the religious especially among wealthy and educated are acknowledged by more and more people, two different sides of the medal are perceived. My research is focussed on the biocultural explanation and long-term biological effects of religion(s) on fertility, that is: The (ongoing, maybe even accelerating) evolution of religious behavior. But there are, of course, increasingly observable, short-term effects in the societal, cultural and political sphere, too. And there are bright young scholars exploring them as Eric Kaufmann, former research fellow in Harvard and currently Reader in Politics and Sociology, Birbeck, University of London, United Kingdom.

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Few scientists have fuelled the contemporary dynamics of Evolutionary Religious Studies in the last years as anthropologist Richard Sosis from the University of Connecticut. With empirically driven studies ranging from US history to Israel and Ifaluk (in the Pacific Ocean), Richard observed and described how ritual behaviour toward supernatural agents enhanced cooperation.

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Some days ago, I got another visit from Ara Norenzayan, professor in social psychology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. While he valiantly survived my pizza (sorry for my cooking, Ara :-) ), we eagerly exchanged and debated news, studies and theories about the evolution of religiosity and religions. I thoroughly enjoyed the day! And as Ara's Sabbatical just ended, we are about to read some exciting studies in the near future!

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Jesse Bering, director of the Institute of Cognition & Culture at Belfast University, is to be counted among the most creative and captivating proponents of evolutionary psychology in the dynamic field of the Evolutionary Religious Studies. In a series of intriguing experiments, he has explored whether children are equipped with neurobiological traits toward "intuitive theism" and his findings have strongly supported adaptionist hypotheses on religiosity and religions. (More)

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For quite some years, devout disciples of Richard Dawkins basked in the perception that evolutionary studies would prove religions to be false and harmful. But in 2002, evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson published "Darwin's Cathedral. Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society", leading to new perspectives of scientific study...

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