by Alexandra Maryanski (Editor), Anders Klostergaard Petersen (Editor), Alexandra Maryanski (Editor), Anders Klostergaard Petersen (Editor), Armin W. Geertz (Editor), Jonathan Turner (Author)
Written by leading theorists and empirical researchers, this book presents new ways of addressing the old question: Why did religion first emerge and then continue to evolve in all human societies? The authors of the book-each with a different background across the social sciences and humanities-assimilate conceptual leads and empirical findings from anthropology, evolutionary biology, evolutionary sociology, neurology, primate behavioral studies, explanations of human interaction and group dynamics, and a wide range of religious scholarship to construct a deeper and more powerful explanation of the origins and subsequent evolutionary development of religions than can currently be found in what is now vast literature. While explaining religion has been a central question in many disciplines for a long time, this book draws upon a much wider array of literature to develop a robust and cross-disciplinary analysis of religion. The book remains true to its subtitle by emphasizing an array of both biological and sociocultural forms of selection dynamics that are fundamental to explaining religion as a universal institution in human societies. In addition to Darwinian selection, which can explain the biology and neurology of religion, the book outlines a set of four additional types of sociocultural natural selection that can fill out the explanation of why religion first emerged as an institutional system in human societies, and why it has continued to evolve over the last 300,000 years of societal evolution. These sociocultural forms of natural selection are labeled by the names of the early sociologists who first emphasized them, and they can be seen as a necessary supplement to the type of natural selection theorized by Charles Darwin. Explanations of religion that remain in the shadow cast by Darwin's great insights will, it is argued, remain narrow and incomplete when explaining a robust sociocultural phenomenon like religion.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 304
Edition: 1
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 29 Aug 2017
ISBN 10: 1138080926
ISBN 13: 9781138080928
Turner et al.'s account is easily the best of those that attempt to place religion in the context of biological evolution. The book's grounding in the physiological literature, especially on the brain organs and connections involved in emotion, memory, gesture, and language, combined with a mastery of the details of hominid evolution, makes for an impressive statement. Further combined with Turner's comprehensive theory of the elements of human social interaction and institutions, this is a strong statement not just of how human evolution happened, but also the problems that had to be surmounted.
Randall Collins, University of Pennsylvania, USA
This book is bold in attributing to religion a central role in human biological and social evolution. By considering the details of violent processes of selection and the agency of political and religious elites, religion is shown to be both a cause and a tool of social evolution.
Joerg Rupke, Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt, Germany
At a time when social scientific interest in social evolution and religion has been renewed, this book stands out in its careful, adept, and insightful ability to eschew overly simple biological or psychological explanations for religiosity or the growth of complex religious institutions. Ultimately, its strength rests on two key contributions. First, the exhaustive and provocative examination of primate and human evolution, the biological roots of religiosity, and, importantly, the consequences religiosity had on our evolution. Second, the delineation of three types of sociocultural selection - Spencerian, Durkheim, and Marxian - that offer compelling evidence for evolution beyond our genes and provide powerful theoretical explanations for a wider range of historical developments including politics, economics, and law.
Seth Abrutyn, University of British Columbia, Canada
The authors present a novel synthesis of evolutionary and sociological theory, backed by authoritative historical evidence from a variety of fields. This is an important book for scholars interested in the evolution and institutionalization of religion. It takes a very different approach from the more cognitive approach of Robert Bellah, and, as such, creates a useful tension between two fruitful schools of theory and research in this area.
Merlin Donald, Professor Emeritus, Queen's University, Canada, and author of Origins of the Modern Mind
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