Adam Barnett
Ara Norenzayan awarded James McKeen Cattell Fund Fellowship
The 2014–2015 James McKeen Cattell Fund Fellowships have been awarded to Ara Norenzayan, Ione Fine, and Todd A. Kahan. Presented in partnership with APS, the Fellowships allow recipients to extend their sabbatical periods from one semester to a full year. Cattell, an important figure in American psychology, established the fund in 1942 by donating a […]
Prosociality in History and Historiography: PWIAS workshop – October 2014
Prosociality in History and Historiography: Can Big Gods tip the Balance in World History? An International Research Roundtable awarded to Dr. Edward Slingerland and Dr. Brenton Sullivan, Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC Recent scholarship in the cognitive science of religion, social psychology and anthropology has advanced the hypothesis that the development of […]
Conversion and Religious Transformation Lecture Series 2014/15
CONVERSION AND RELIGIOUS TRANSFORMATION: ANCIENT AND MODERN EXPERIENCES AND PARADIGMS This lecture series, which extends the programming at Green College by UBC’s Centre for Human Evolution, Cognition and Culture, will focus on religious experience at points of change, especially but not exclusively in the ancient Mediterranean world and in the post-medieval (Christian) West. Speakers will […]
Experimenting With Social Norms
Questions about the origins of human cooperation have long puzzled and divided scientists. Social norms that foster fair-minded behavior, altruism and collective action undergird the foundations of large-scale human societies, but we know little about how these norms develop or spread, or why the intensity and breadth of human cooperation varies among different populations. What […]
Trying Not to Try – Edward Slingerland
Crown (Random House), March 4, 2014 (295 + vi pages) UK version from Canongate German Edition, Das Geheimnis der Gelassenheit: Wie wir mehr erreichen, wenn wir weniger wollen, Berlin Verlag Contracted translations into Dutch (Maven), Russian (Corpus) and Korean (Sam & Parkers) in progress. Audiobook forthcoming from Random House Audio Available at Amazon (US / Canada) or the Random House site A deeply original exploration of […]
On the Turning Tide – Ben Purzycki on This View of Life
This year’s Society for the Scientific Study of Religion meeting in Boston (November 8-10) hosted the 6th consecutive suite of sessions devoted to biological and evolutionary approaches to religion (the BEAR sessions) organized by Jay Feierman. Jay has worked tirelessly to keep the conversation going and this year’s sessions included three sections with presenters whose work represents cutting […]
Ara Norenzayan on BBC's "The Forum"
Ara Norenzayan was recently on BBC’s interview program “The Forum”, talking about religion and his new book, Big Gods. Listen here.
Ara Norenzayan on The Terry Project
The Future of the Christian Church Panelists: Douglas Todd is a Vancouver-based journalist, speaker and an author. He writes on spirituality, ethics and diversity for the Vancouver Sun. He’s also behind the popular blog, the Search, which takes on controversial topics such as race, sex, and religion. John G. Stackhouse, a professor of theology and culture […]
Cultural Evolution – Strungmann Forum Reports
Overview Over the past few decades, a growing body of research has emerged from a variety of disciplines to highlight the importance of cultural evolution in understanding human behavior. Wider application of these insights, however, has been hampered by traditional disciplinary boundaries. To remedy this, in this volume leading researchers from theoretical biology, developmental and […]