The Natural Origins of Obligation
The evolutionary developmental psychologist Michael Tomasello argues that, while other animals experience sympathy, the specific moral feeling of obligation emerged only in humans, and is based on...
View ArticleWhen the Social Order Has Legitimacy – Or Not
It might not seem like it at this exact moment, but despite the coronavirus lockdowns and, well, riots, the United States and other Western countries are pretty decent places to live, as far as world...
View ArticleRacism and the Professional Class
I’ve been hesitant to say anything about the recent protests and nationwide conversation about American racism and policing that erupted from the horrific murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. This is...
View ArticleReligious Experience and Homo Duplex
Where does religious experience come from? In a new article, I combine Durkheim's concept of Homo Duplex, Victor Turner's concept of antistructure, and a healthy dose of contemporary social cognitive...
View ArticleThe Human Need for Culture
Some interesting battle lines have formed in the past few months.* We Americans had gotten used to thinking of ourselves as polarized between the Blue Tribe and the Red Tribe. But in recent years,...
View ArticleReligions as Complex Adaptive Systems
A shouting match is often perversely compelling in the same way that a road accident is: it’s ugly, but it commands your attention. Very occasionally, however, a viciously heated conversation manages...
View ArticleIs Your Society Good for (Biological) Fitness?
Back in September, I described a computer model my collaborator Rich Sosis and I built that simulates religious communities as complex adaptive systems. The model married complex-systems theory to...
View ArticleThe Voice of Scientific Authority Is Aghast…and Clueless
It took four days after the 2020 U.S. presidential election for the country to identify a clear winner. The delay shouldn’t be terribly surprising, given the complications of a coronavirus pandemic,...
View ArticleRitual, Play, and the Landscape of Value
Back in October, I was privileged to give the keynote talk at a Toronto School of Theology conference on how ritual and play structure "Value and Valuing." My argument? Animal ritualization and human...
View ArticleAcademia and I Have Decided to Leave Each Other
Even stronger than the feeling of regret is the giddy anticipation of what comes next, combined with the enormous relief of leaving a profession whose future looks increasingly cloudy, and where the...
View ArticleThe Symbolism of Old Gods and the U.S. Capitol Assault
On January 6th, 2021, a herd of conspiracy maniacs stormed the United States Capitol. A zealot with Norse pagan tattoos is now the face of Christianism.
View ArticleIs Academia a Failed Initiation Rite?
Now that I’m (mostly) outside the world of American higher education, I’ve been looking in at it from a slight remove, mulling on where it’s working and where I think it’s struggling. One area where...
View ArticleThe End of the Conflict Between Religion and Science
Religion and science used to be at each other's throats, especially in the heady days of New Atheism. But now postmodernism might have swallowed them both.
View ArticleThe Joys and Challenges of Interdisciplinary Research
Academia can be a fiercely jealous environment — jealous, that is, of the boundaries between disciplines. Rather than “scientists,” you’ll find physicists and oceanographers, biologists and chemists,...
View ArticleThe Myth of the Egalitarian Noble Savage
Are hunter-gatherer societies really the original egalitarian society? One anthropologist argues against the myth of the leaderless noble savage.
View ArticleMusic and Dance in Human Evolution
Humans everywhere play music and dance. But other animals don't — so where did these unique abilities come from? New research provides some suggestions.
View ArticleThe Catholic Latin Mass is a Strong Credibility-Enhancing Display
Pope Francis recently restricted the Catholic Tridentine Latin mass. The resulting firestorm of controversy may help illuminate why so many people don’t believe what their churches teach.
View ArticleFaith and the Evolutionary Predicament
The "scientific image" of humans offered by evolutionary biology is cold, impersonal, alienating…and objective. But reality is more than objectivity.
View ArticleGeophysicist Dorian Abbot Loses MIT Lecture Thanks to Twitter Mob
University of Chicago geophysicist Dorian Abbot was disinvited from giving a lecture on exoplanets at MIT because of his outspoken opinions about how universities should prioritize diversity, equity,...
View ArticleThe Natural History of Music
I’m teaching a course on the evolution of music through Scholarium in January and February. Or, more accurately, I’m teaching about the origins of human rhythm — our unique ability to “keep together in...
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