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Supernatural agents may have provided adaptive social information

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2005

Jesse M. Bering  and
Todd K. Shackelford
Jesse M. Bering*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR72701http://www.uark.edu/psyc/fbering.html
Todd K. Shackelford*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, Davie, FL33314http://www.psy.fau.edu/tshackelford
*
[email protected]
[email protected]
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Abstract:

Atran & Norenzayan's (A&N's) target article effectively combines the insights of evolutionary biology and interdisciplinary cognitive science, neither of which alone yields sufficient explanatory power to help us fully understand the complexities of supernatural belief. Although the authors' ideas echo those of other researchers, they are perhaps the most squarely grounded in neo-Darwinian terms to date. Nevertheless, A&N overlook the possibility that the tendency to infer supernatural agents' communicative intent behind natural events served an ancestrally adaptive function.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 27 , Issue 6 , December 2004 , pp. 732 - 733
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2004

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