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The evolutionary psychology of religion is the study of religious belief using evolutionary psychology principles. It is one approach to the psychology of religion.As with all other organs and organ functions, the brain's functional structure is argued to have a genetic basis, and is therefore subject to the effects of natural selection and evolution.
either that religion evolved due to natural selection and has selective advantage; or that religion is an evolutionary byproduct of other mental adaptations. Stephen Jay Gould, for example, saw religion as an exaptation or a spandrel, in other words: religion evolved as byproduct of psychological mechanisms that evolved for other reasons.
The Guardian ' s Andrew Brown describes it as giving "a very forceful and lucid account of the reasons why we need to study religious behaviour as a human phenomenon". [2]In Scientific American, George Johnson describes the book's main draw as being "a sharp synthesis of a library of evolutionary, anthropological and psychological research on the origin and spread of religion".
The challenge for the psychology of religion is essentially threefold: to provide a thoroughgoing description of the objects of investigation, whether they be shared religious content (e.g., a tradition's ritual observances) or individual experiences, attitudes, or conduct;
The book also includes empirical research papers meant to introduce topics of interest in evolutionary psychology, such as mating, social and developmental psychology, and perceptual adaptations. It includes contributions from evolutionary psychologists such as Steven Pinker, David Buss, Martin Daly, and Margo Wilson.
Theory of mind (ToM) is a capacity to attribute mental states, complete with thoughts, emotions and motivations, to other social agents. [11] This adaptation is ubiquitous in primitive forms among various social species, but the complexity of human social life for long stretches of evolutionary history has facilitated a rich understanding of others' mental experiences to match. [12]
Critical reception of Religion Explained has been mixed.. The psychologist Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi called the book "a milestone on the road to a new behavioral understanding of religion, basing itself on what has come to be known as cognitive anthropology, and pointedly ignoring much work done over the past one hundred years in the behavioral study of religion and in the psychological ...
Pascal Robert Boyer is a Franco-American cognitive anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist, mostly known for his work in the cognitive science of religion.He studied at université Paris-Nanterre and Cambridge, and taught at the University of Cambridge for eight years, before taking up the position of Henry Luce Professor of Individual and Collective Memory at Washington University in St ...