Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T21:03:55.711Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Enjoying your cultural cheesecake: Why believers are sincere and shamans are not charlatans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2018

Maarten Boudry
Maarten Boudry*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium. [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Cultural evolution explains not just when people tend to develop superstitions, but also what forms these beliefs take. Beliefs that are more resilient in the face of apparent refutations and more susceptible to occasional confirmation stand a greater chance of cultural success. This argument helps to dispel the impression that shamans are mere charlatans and believers are “faking it.”

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 41 , 2018 , e70
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Boudry, M. & Coyne, J. (2016) Disbelief in belief: On the cognitive status of supernatural beliefs. Philosophical Psychology 29(4):601–15.Google Scholar
Boudry, M. & De Smedt, J. (2011) In mysterious ways: On petitionary prayer and subtle forms of supernatural causation. Religion 41(3):449–69.Google Scholar
Boyer, P. (1994) The naturalness of religious ideas: A cognitive theory of religion. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Boyer, P. & Bergstrom, B. (2008) Evolutionary perspectives on religion. Annual Review of Anthropology 37:111–30.Google Scholar
Chaves, M. (2010) Rain dances in the dry season: Overcoming the religious congruence fallacy. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 49(1):1–14.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (2006) Breaking the spell: Religion as a natural phenomenon. Viking/Penguin.Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1937) Witchcraft, oracles and magic among the Azande. Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
France, A. (1894) Le Jardin d'Épicure. Available at: http://www.pitbook.com/textes/pdf/jardin_epicure.pdf.Google Scholar
Humphrey, N. (1995) Soul searching: Human nature and supernatural belief. Chatto & Windus.Google Scholar
Legare, C. H. & Souza, A. L. (2012) Evaluating ritual efficacy: Evidence from the supernatural. Cognition 124(1):1–15. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2012.03.004.Google Scholar
Tambiah, S. J. (1990) Magic, science and religion and the scope of rationality. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar