This year’s meeting of the International Association for the Cognitive Science of Religion is going to take place at the end of June in Aarhus, Denmark. I’ll be giving a talk there which is basically outlining my overall approach. Many of those who will be there will have heard bits and pieces of it befo… [Read more…]
December 26, 2010
My usual after-conference report has been somewhat delayed by a little thing called Christmas. The turkey, cake and other comestibles are now where they should be, however: So there is a chance to write a few words about the meeting in Brno. The conference’s title was almost as long as the conference itself – Twenty… [Read more…]
November 27, 2010
Last year, Ryan McKay and Dan Dennett published a BBS target article claiming that it is unlikely that religion could be functional. Ryan has now published a new paper – The Wrath of God – in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B in which he and his coauthors conclude that their results support a… [Read more…]
November 20, 2010
The question of whether religion is natural has been discussed in many journal articles and pubs. This is particularly the case since the appearance of New Atheism as a social movement. What has been lacking is an article that brings the various strands of discussion together and explains in what sense atheism and/or religion can… [Read more…]
October 15, 2010
For the last couple of years I have been arguing on this blog for a dual inheritance account of religion. Earlier this year Scott Atran and Joe Henrich published in Biological Theory a paper that, I believe, is the most sophisticated dual inheritance account currently available. Now, it turns out that this paper – “The… [Read more…]
October 15, 2010
Next week, on Tuesday the 19th, I am going to give a paper at the Psychology Department of Warsaw University. I have been teaching Philosophy of Science as well as Judgement and Decision Making within their Psychology in English programme but this will be the first time that I’ll present my research to that department.… [Read more…]
October 8, 2010
During the course of working on my book I have written a couple of outlines that bear witness to how the project has slowly changed. The latest outline is likely to be close to the final version as more than half the book is now written. Those who have seen the previous outlines will see… [Read more…]
September 6, 2010
There’s something that doesn’t get mentioned often enough by academics. When you’re an academic your work is often a whole lot of fun. For example, the two day conference I just attended in Bristol was in some ways a very serious affair but at the same time thoroughly enjoyable, both intellectually and socially. I mean… [Read more…]
August 11, 2010
It is only a few weeks till the Bristol meeting. The talk I plan to give there is a much improved version of the talk I gave in Aarhus. It will, in effect, run through much of what I plan to explain in the central three chapters of my book. So, I will be moving… [Read more…]
February 27, 2012
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