Title: The Emergence and Evolution of Religion By Means of Natural Selection
Abstract:The Emergence and Evolution of Religion By Means of Natural Selection by Jonathan H. Turner, Alexandra Maryanski, Anders Klostergaard Petersen, and Armin W. Geertz is both innovative and anachronistic...The Emergence and Evolution of Religion By Means of Natural Selection by Jonathan H. Turner, Alexandra Maryanski, Anders Klostergaard Petersen, and Armin W. Geertz is both innovative and anachronistic. While the book presents cutting-edge research that links the evolution of neurological structures that allowed for increased sociality among humans to the emergence of religion, its discussion of the sociocultural evolution of religion hearkens back to long-refuted theories of sociocultural evolution from the nineteenth century, in particular the evolutionary theories of Herbert Spencer. Conceptually, the book consists of two halves. The first half describes what the authors refer to as “Darwinian” or “non-teleological” selection. The main argument made in this section of the book is that religion emerged as the consequence of “pre-adaptations” for increased sociality among early hominins.1 The authors posit that the subcortical regions of the hominin brain, responsible for the experience and regulation of emotion, enlarged as they transitioned from the relative safety of forests onto savannahs where they were more vulnerable to predation.2 The enlarged subcortical areas increased the range of emotions experienced by hominins. The increased range of emotions from the enlarged subcortical regions strengthened and intensified social bonds, which allowed the average size of hominin social groups to increase. In order to handle the larger palate of emotions experienced by hominins, an increase in the size of the neocortex occurred that allowed for the development of several traits that are sine qua non for the development of religion, including language, increased capacity of mimicry, the ability to make causal attributions, and abstract thought, which allows humans to conceptualize a supernatural realm.Read More
Publication Year: 2018
Publication Date: 2018-04-25
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 35
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