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religion and reason as natural phenomena
Browsing All Posts filed under »Psychology«
Which conferences to attend?
This is a question I always ask myself at the beginning of every year. With a few years of experience behind me I think I am in something of a position to make a judgement as to which of the many conferences that take place every year are the most likely to be valuable to […]
Beyond Disbelief: preliminary report
September 24, 2010
Not long ago I placed on this blog information about a web survey of nonbelievers that was carried out by a couple of academics from the University of Waterloo. The results are now in and Cheyne and Britton have produced a preliminary report that makes for interesting reading. I quote just the final paragraph as […]
Survey of Unbelievers
August 25, 2010
Fred Britton, who works in the psychology department at the University of Waterloo has contacted me and asked that I put up the following information regarding an on-line study that is looking for participants and, in particular, agnostic participants: Dr. Allan Cheyne (Psychology Dept., University of Waterloo) and I are conducting a web survey of […]
Diets and deities
August 4, 2010
While working on the book I was struck by what feels like an enlightening comparison between what we eat and what we believe. People’s diets are usually determined by three different kinds of considerations. The first is purely physiological – certain substances are necessary for the proper functioning of human bodies while others are toxic. […]
Is postdecisional dissonance functional?
July 25, 2010
Last semester I taught Judgement and Decision Making using the Scott Plous book The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making. I found the book quite frustrating in that it followed the “rhetoric of irrationality” that is currently favoured within JDM right up to the last chapter where it took a more critical view of this […]
Dual system theories demolished
July 14, 2010
The most thorough critique that one can offer for any particular position should, it seems to me, contain two elements. The first should be the standard argument showing why it is that the position under attack is fallacious. The second, but often forgotten, element is an explanation for why it is that some people, often […]
Language as social coordination
May 11, 2010
A colleague of mine at Warsaw University is organising an international conference on language that is going to include a number of people that are well known to me, including a number of past key-speakers from various Kazimierz Workshops. The conference emphasizes the biological nature of language, underscoring its coordinative function. The aim of the […]
Abstract for talk in Aarhus
May 10, 2010
On May 21st I will be giving a talk in Aarhus to the Religion, Cognition and Culture people in Aarhus. Here is the abstract: Explaining the magic/religion distinction using a dual inheritance model The dual inheritance model of religion seeks to explain it as based upon cognitive byproducts that have been co-opted for prosocial functions. […]
ESF funding application
May 10, 2010
It’s another of those cases where I wish I were more superstitious. I have submitted an application to the European Science Foundation for funding to organise a workshop on dual inheritance models of religion and now have to wait till November to find out if my application was successful. The attraction to cross my fingers […]
A couple of older posts about religion
February 6, 2010
I am getting ready to head off to Budapest, where I am going to give a talk to the Philosophy crowd at the Central European University this Tuesday. I have been trawling the net for some things and come across again a couple of posts about religion that I found most interesting when I’d originally […]
Just Another Deisidaimon 
January 22, 2012
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