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1、Marburg Journal of Religion: Volume 15 (2010) Editor:Jay R. Feierman Year:2009 Title:The Biology of Religious Behavior: The Evolutionary Origins of Faith and Religion Publisher:Praeger Frederick City:Santa Barbara, Californien Number of Pages:301 pages Price:43,99 ISBN:978-0313364303 Review: In rece
2、nt years, interdisciplinary studies on the evolution of religion (commonly defined as behavior towards supernatural agents) made some encouraging progress, with two European conferences leading to shared projects and publications. In September 2007, a range of scientists from diverse fields convened
3、 at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg (HWK) in Delmenhorst, Germany, exploring “The Biological Evolution of Religious Mind and Behavior” (Springer 2009) especially from empirical perspectives. Among the participants, zoologist Jay R. Feierman advocated a deeper understanding of the “behavioral” side of
4、religion, organizing another conference in July 2008 at Bologna University, leading to the volume “The Biology of Religious Behavior” reviewed here. Owing to this perspective, the volume is structured according to the five-step concept of Nobel Laureate ethologist Niko Tinbergen (1907-1988): 1. Desc
5、ribe the behavior. 2. Explore its evolutionary history. 3. Explore its development in the individual life-cycle. 4. Explore the behaviors immediate, mechanistic causes. 5. Explore the adaptive (reproductive and survival) potentials of the behavior. The volume offers an exciting read, running the who
6、le gamut from seriously empirical to wildly speculative. Chapter 1, the description of religious behavior, is opened by sociologist Stephen K. Sanderson showing that religious behavior is evolving in socioecological contexts. Analogous to, e.g., music or speech, religious behavior turns out to be a
7、biocultural trait that adapts to factors such as population density, economics and the availability of scripture. While already accepted in the field, it was a wise choice to put Sandersons contribution at the beginning, because he explains to new readers that “evolution” doesnt mean a linear progre
8、ssion in biology or culture (as wrongly assumed by early evolutionists in the scientific study of religion as Tylor or Frazer), but is a process of interaction with the respective environments. Chapter 2 has been written by Craig Palmer, Lyle Steadman and Ryan Ellsworth who emphasize the importance
9、of mythological talk in a field which had long been dominated by neurological and genetic perspectives on biological traditions. They rightfully point out that the link between nature 1 Marburg Journal of Religion: Volume 15 (2010) and culture is to be found in the “descendant leaving success” those
10、 cultural traditions handed down to many offspring (e.g. a God commanding to be fruitful and multiply), in turn benefiting the biological foundations of a behavior (such as speech or the readiness to accept supernatural claims). Mythological talk is therefore as important as are the genetic or cogni
11、tive aspects of religious life. Chapter 3, by Thomas Ellis, focuses on ocular behavior the “exchange” of gazes between natural agents and the depictions of the supernatural ones -, a concrete, new and tremendously valuable aspect of ethological description. As Ellis is an assistant professor of reli
12、gion, his contribution is an example that progress in evolutionary studies on religion is depending on cultural specialists, too. Offering surprising metaphors in contrast, Magnus S. Magnusson seeks analogies between biological and cultural traditions of information in Chapter 4, especially in the c
13、omparison of DNA and Holy Scriptures. Starting the second main part of the book, the evolutionary history of religious behavior is addressed by the editor, Jay R. Feierman in Chapter 5. He offers another “modular” approach, which tries to explore the evolution of religious behavior by disentangling
14、elements that in evolutionary combination lead to the emergence of new behaviors. His thorough theoretical arguments deserve to be tested on the basis of archaeological samples, as they have been brought forth recently i.e. by David Lahti and Matt Rossano in the Springer book (2009). The development
15、 of religious behavior in individuals is explored by Benjamin Abelow contributing Chapter 6. The author speculates whether religious traditions might reflect childhood experiences of corporal punishment. Offered as open-minded “food for thought” (Abelow), the hypothesis oscillates between psychologi
16、cal trauma theory, historical hypothesis and the possible role of corporal punishment in the perseverance of (bio-)cultural traditions. Chapter 7, by evolutionary anthropologist Candace S. Alcorta, is combining insights from neurological, cultural and sociological studies concerning “the adolescent brain” and rites of passage, comparing religious and musical structures and emphasizing powerful points of biocultural interactions with socioecological conditions in individual biographies
