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religion and reason as natural phenomena
Abstract for the Brno workshop
The lovely people at Levyna in Brno have been very busy. The research centre has its own website and they’re about to host a research workshop to which I’m about to head off. To fit in with the general theme, I have decided to present a paper which takes a step back from the approach […]
Abstract for IACSR meeting
February 27, 2012
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 […]
New blog on cognitive science of religion
February 3, 2012
Robert McCauley, who is the President of the International Association for the Cognitive Science of Religion and one of the central figures in cognitive science of religion has begun writing a blog for Psychology Now. The blog has the same title as Bob’s recent OUP book – Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not. […]
Posted in: cognitive science of religion
Review of Westerhoff’s Twelve Examples of Illusion
February 1, 2012
There are people who seem to really enjoy writing very harsh reviews. I find myself left with a sour taste in my mouth afterwards. And so it is with my review of Westerhoff’s recent book published by Oxford University Press. The review is going to be in the journal Religion but it is already up […]
Which conferences to attend?
January 22, 2012
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 […]
Werewolves in scientist’s clothing
January 14, 2012
Reminded by a point I raised in my last post, I realised that I have apparently failed to mention an article of mine that is forthcoming in a University of Chicago volume edited by Massimo Pigliucci and Maarten Boudry – The Philosophy of Pseudoscience. I have now put an almost final draft of that paper on […]
On Astrology
January 12, 2012
An old post of mine – from the middle of 2007 – has recently been replied to by someone who takes their astrology very seriously. Anthony Louis, who has published books on astrology and tarot, runs quite an active blog on the topics. His somewhat curious response is quite short so I’ll quote it in […]
Malinowski’s magic, Skinner’s superstition
January 11, 2012
Just finished a first draft of an article that is to go into a volume edited by Dimitris Xygalatas and William McCorkle. The volume is to be called Mental Culture: Toward a Cognitive Science of Religion and is to show how modern cognitive science of religion is connected back to traditional approaches to the study […]
Spaghetti, cumulative cultural evolution and ritual traditions
December 9, 2011
Back in 2009 I went to a European Human Behaviour and Evolution Conference in St Andrews. One of the highlights of that conference and definitely the bit of it that has stuck in my mind was a paper presented by Christine Caldwell. Caldwell talked about a methodology that she’s been using to test claims about […]
What next?
December 7, 2011
I started at the Konrad Lorenz Institute in June 2007, just about four and a half years ago. My project, at the beginning, was to look at superstitions and to try to understand them as cognitive, evolved phenomena. Fairly quickly, I came to the conclusion that superstitions were cognitive byproducts. Soon thereafter I came into […]
Just Another Deisidaimon 
February 28, 2012
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