Some Vision Impairments in the Cognitive Science of Religion

Authors

  • Benjamin Grant Purzycki Aarhus University
  • Theiss Bendixen Aarhus University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.20621

Keywords:

cognitive science of religion, behavioral ecology of religion, anthropology

Abstract

In this review, we discuss three vision impairments in the cognitive science of religious beliefs. We first assess the CSR’s improvements upon previous generations’ “mindblindness.” We also address “contextblindness,” the CSR’s relative lack of focus on the extant environment’s role in the formation and retention of religious beliefs. Finally, we address the problem of the CSR’s “ecoblindness,” that is, ignoring how beliefs are aligned with the distribution of resources.

References

Atran, S. (2002). In gods we trust: The evolutionary landscape of religion. Oxford University Press.

Atran, S., Medin, D., Ross, N., Lynch, E., Coley, J., Ek’, E. U., & Vapnarsky, V. (1999). Folkecology and commons management in the Maya lowlands. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 96(13), 7598–7603. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.96.13.7598

Atran, S., Medin, D., Ross, N., Lynch, E., Vapnarsky, V., Ek’, E. U., Coley, J., Timura, C., & Baran, M. (2002). Folkecology, cultural epidemiology, and the Spirit of the Commons: A garden experiment in the Maya lowlands, 1991–2001. Current Anthropology, 43(3), 421–450. https://doi.org/10.1086/339528

Barkow, J. H., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1992). The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. Oxford University Press.

Barrett, H. C. (2015). The shape of thought: How mental adaptations evolve. Oxford University Press.

Barrett, J. L., & Keil, F. C. (1996). Conceptualizing a nonnatural entity: Anthropomorphism in god concepts. Cognitive Psychology, 31(3), 219–247. https://doi.org/10.1006/cogp.1996.0017

Barrett, J. L., Shaw, R. D., Pfeiffer, J., & Grimes, J. (2019). Where the gods dwell: A research report. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 19(1–2), 131–146. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685373-12340051

Batchelder, W. H., & Anders, R. (2012). Cultural consensus theory: Comparing different concepts of cultural truth. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 56(5), 316–332. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmp.2012.06.002

Bendixen, T., & Purzycki, B. G. (2020). Peering into the minds of gods: What cross-cultural variation in gods’ concerns can tell us about the evolution of religion. Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion, 5(2), 142–165. https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.40951

———. (2021). Competing forces account for the stability and evolution of religious beliefs. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 31(4): 307–312. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508619.2020.1844969

Boyer, P. (1994). Cognitive constraints on cultural representations: Natural ontologies and religious ideas. In L. A. Hirschfeld, & S. A. Gelman (Eds.). Mapping the mind: Domain specificity in cognition and culture (pp. 391–411). Cambridge University Press.

———. (2020). Why divination?: Evolved psychology and strategic interaction in the production of truth. Current Anthropology, 61(1), 100–123. https://doi.org/10.1086/706879

Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. The MIT Press.

Diallo, S. Y., Wildman, W., Shults, F. L., & Tolk, A. (Eds.). (2019). Human simulation: Perspectives, insights, and applications. Berlin: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17090-5

Fodor, J. A. (1983). The modularity of mind: An essay on faculty psychology. MIT Press.

Geertz, A. W. (2020). How did ignorance become fact in American Religious Studies?: A reluctant reply to Ivan Strenski. Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni, 86(1), 365–403.

Gervais, W. M., & Henrich, J. (2010). The Zeus Problem: Why representational content biases cannot explain faith in gods. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 10(3), 383–389. https://doi.org/10.1163/156853710X531249

Gonce, L., Upal, M. A., Slone, D. J., & Tweney, D. R. (2006). Role of context in the recall of counterintuitive concepts. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 6(3), 521–547. https://doi.org/10.1163/156853706778554959

Guthrie, S. E. (1980). A cognitive theory of religion. Current Anthropology, 21(2), 181–203. https://doi.org/10.1086/202429

Kendal, R. L., Boogert, N. J., Rendell, L., Laland, K. N., Webster, M., & Jones, P. L. (2018). Social learning strategies: Bridge-building between fields. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22(7), 651–665. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2018.04.003

Lane, J. (2018). Strengthening the supernatural punishment hypothesis through computer modeling. Religion, Brain and Behavior, 8(3), 290–300. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2017.1302977

Lansing, J. S. (1987). Balinese “water temples” and the management of irrigation. American Anthropologist, 89(2), 326–341. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1987.89.2.02a00030

Lansing, J. S., & Kremer, J. N. (1993). Emergent properties of Balinese water temple networks: Coadaptation on a rugged fitness landscape. American Anthropologist, 95(1), 97–114. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1993.95.1.02a00050

Lansing, J. S., & Miller, J. H. (2005). Cooperation, games, and ecological feedback: Some insights from Bali. Current Anthropology, 46(2), 328–334. https://doi.org/10.1086/428790

Lansing, J. S., Thurner, S., Chung, N. N., Coudurier-Curveur, A., Karakas, Ç., Fesenmyer, K. A., & Chew, L. Y. (2017). Adaptive self-organization of Bali’s ancient rice terraces. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(25), 6504–6509. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1605369114

le Guen, O., Iliev, R., Lois, X., Atran, S., & Medin, D. L. (2013). A garden experiment revisited: Inter-generational change in environmental perception and management of the Maya Lowlands, Guatemala. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 19(4), 771–794. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12064

Margolis, E., & Laurence, S. (2013). In defense of nativism. Philosophical Studies, 165, 693–718. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-9972-x

McCauley, R. N., & Lawson, E. T. (2002). Bringing ritual to mind: Psychological foundations of cultural forms. Cambridge University Press.

McNamara, P. (2014). The neuroscience of religious experience. Cambridge University Press.

Purzycki, B. G. (2013a). Toward a cognitive ecology of religious concepts: Evidence from the Tyva Republic. Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion, 1(1), 99–120.

———. (2013b). The minds of gods: A comparative study of supernatural agency. Cognition, 129(1), 163–179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2013.06.010

Purzycki, B. G., Finkel, D. N., Shaver, J., Wales, N., Cohen, A. B., & Sosis, R. (2012). What does God know? Supernatural agents’ access to socially strategic and non-strategic information. Cognitive Science, 36(5), 846–869. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1551-6709.2012.01242.x

Purzycki, B. G., & Willard, A. K. (2016). MCI theory: A critical discussion. Religion, Brain and Behavior, 6(3), 207–248. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2015.1024915

Schjoedt, U. (2009). The religious brain: A general introduction to the experimental neuroscience of religion. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, 21(3), 310–339. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006809X460347

Shaver, J. H. (2012). The behavioral ecology of Fijian religion [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Storrs: University of Connecticut.

Slone, D. J. (2004). Theological incorrectness: Why religious people believe what they shouldn’t. Oxford University Press.

Slone, D. J., & McCorkle, W. W., Jr. (2019). The cognitive science of religion: A methodological introduction to key empirical studies. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Sørensen, J. (2007). A cognitive theory of magic. Lanham: Rowman Altamira.

Sørensen, J., & Petersen, A. K. (Eds.). (2021). Theoretical and empirical investigations of divination and magic: Manipulating the divine. Brill.

Sosis, R., & Bulbulia, J. (2011). The behavioral ecology of religion: The benefits and costs of one evolutionary approach. Religion, 41(3), 341–362. https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2011.604514

Sperber, D. (1996). Explaining culture: A naturalistic approach. Wiley-Blackwell.

———. (1997). Intuitive and reflective beliefs. Mind and Language, 12(1): 67–83. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0017.1997.tb00062.x

Upal, M. A. (2010). An alternative account of the minimal counterintuitiveness effect. Cognitive Systems Research, 11(2), 194–203. https://doi.org/16/j.cogsys.2009.08.003

Watts, F., & Turner, L. P. (Eds.). (2014). Evolution, religion, and cognitive science: Critical and constructive essays. Oxford University Press.

White, C. (2021). An introduction to the cognitive science of religion: Connecting evolution, brain, cognition and culture. Routledge.

Whitehouse, H. (2004). Modes of religiosity: A cognitive theory of religious transmission. Lanham: AltaMira Press.

Wildman, W., & Sosis, R. (2010). Stability of groups with costly beliefs and practices. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 14(3), 6.

Willard, A. K., Henrich, J., & Norenzayan, A. (2016). Memory and belief in the transmission of counterintuitive content. Human Nature, 27(3), 221–243. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-016-9259-6

Wood, C., & Shaver, J. H. (2018). Religion, evolution, and the basis of institutions: The institutional cognition model of religion. Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture, 2(2), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.26613/esic.2.2.89

Wood, C., & Sosis, R. (2019). Simulating religions as adaptive systems. In S. Y. Diallo, W. J. Wildman, F. L. Shults, & A. Tolk (Eds.). Human simulation: Perspectives, insights, and applications (pp. 209–232). Berlin: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17090-5_12

Published

2022-04-20

Issue

Section

Book Panel

How to Cite

Purzycki, B. G. ., & Bendixen, T. . (2022). Some Vision Impairments in the Cognitive Science of Religion. Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion, 7(2), 167–177. https://doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.20621