Religion as an Adaptive System
Project summary: This project is aimed at uncovering the dynamics of the religious system. Religion may best be understood as an adaptive complex of traits incorporating cognitive, affective, behavioral, and developmental elements. These traits derive from pre-human ritual systems and were selected for in early hominin populations because they contributed to the ability of individuals to overcome ever present ecological challenges. By fostering cooperation and extending the communication and coordination of social relations across time and space, these traits served to maximize the potential resource base for early human populations, thereby benefiting individual fitness. The religious system is an exquisite complex adaptation that serves to support extensive human cooperation and coordination, and social life as we know it.
Funding: John Templeton Foundation
Publications:
| Forthcoming | Purzycki, Benjamin, Omar Haque, and Richard Sosis Extending Evolutionary Accounts of Religion beyond the Mind: Religions as Adaptive Systems, in The Evolution of Religion: Critical Perspectives and New Directions. |
| 2011 | Purzycki, Benjamin and Richard Sosis Our Gods: Variation in Supernatural Minds, in Essential Building Blocks of Human Nature, eds. Ulrich Frey, C. Stormer, K.P. Willfuhr, pp. 77- 93, New York: Springer. |
| 2010 | Finkel, Daniel, Paul Swartwout, and Richard Sosis The Socio-Religious Brain: A Developmental Model, Eds. R. Dunbar, C. Gamble, J. Gowlett. Proceedings of the British Academy 158: 287-312. |
| 2010 | Purzycki, Benjamin and Richard Sosis Religious Concepts as Necessary Components of the Adaptive Religious System, in Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Philosophy: Evolution and Religion, ed. Ulrich Frey, pp. 37-59, Marburg, Germany: Tectum Verlag. |
| 2009 | Sosis, Richard The Adaptationist-Byproduct Debate on the Evolution of Religion: Five Misunderstandings of the Adaptationist Program. Journal of Cognition and Culture 9: 315-332. |
| 2009 | Purzycki, Benjamin and Richard Sosis The Religious System as Adaptive: Cognitive Flexibility, Public Displays, and Acceptance, in The Biological Evolution of Religious Mind and Behavior, eds. Eckart Voland and Wulf Schiefenhovel, pp. 243-256, New York: Springer-Verlag Publishers. |
| 2009 | Sosis, Richard and Ulrich Schnabel The Adjusted Belief: What makes a religion successful? in The Pope in the Crossfire: Extrapolate back to Pius or the Council? (in German), ed. Til Galrev, pp. 165-167, Berlin: LIT Verlag. |
| 2008 | Sosis, Richard and Candace Alcorta Militants and Martyrs: Evolutionary Perspectives on Religion and Terrorism , In Natural Security: A Darwinian Approach to a Dangerous World, eds. R. Sagarin and T. Taylor, pp. 105-24, Berkeley: University of California Press. |
| 2005 | Alcorta, Candace and Richard Sosis Ritual, Emotion, and Sacred Symbols: The Evolution of Religion as an Adaptive Complex Human Nature 16:323-359. |
| 2004 | Sosis, Richard and Candace Alcorta Is Religion Adaptive? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27:749-750. |
