HENRY - The human evolution news relay
Entries in the ' religion ' category
Written May 20, 2008 in creationism-is-stupid, religion, science
Despite a court-ordered ban on the teaching of creationism in US schools, about one in eight high-school biology teachers still teach it as valid science, a survey reveals. And, although almost all teachers also taught evolution, those with less training in science – and especially evolutionary biology – tend to devote less class time to [...]
Justin Barrett in the Journal of Cognition and Culture (paywall only, sorry folks):
Through the lenses of cognitive science of religion, successful god concepts must possess a number of features. God concepts must be (1) counterintuitive, (2) an intentional agent, (3) possessing strategic information, (4) able to act in the human world in detectable ways and [...]
Justin Barrett and Brian Malley have a rather intriguing paper out in the Journal of Cognition and Culture: A Cognitive Typology of Religious Actions (doi:10.1163/156853707X208486):
The rapid but disproportionate growth of the cognitive science of religion in some areas, coupled with the desire to meaningfully connect with more traditional, function-inspired classifications, has left the field with [...]
Written November 15, 2007 in creationism-is-stupid, dinosaurs, evolution, humor, religion, stupidity
In short: John Scalzi takes a day trip to the Creationism Museum, and mercilessly mocks the stupidity therein. The photos he took are amazing, and includes what may just possibly be the coolest photo ever:
Image © John Scalzi 2007
Written October 2, 2007 in anthropology, birds, human prehistory, humor, language, linguistics, misc, music, non-human, psychology, religion, science, stupidity
Ok. Time for a catch up post. There’s just not enough hours in the day…
1: Native Language Governs The Way Toddlers Interpret Speech Sounds:
Toddlers are learning language skills earlier than expected and by the age of 18 months understand enough of the lexicon of their own language to recognize how speakers use sounds to convey [...]
Jonathan Haidt at talks about moral psychology and the misunderstanding of religion at Edge:
In what follows I will take it for granted that religion is a part of the natural world that is appropriately studied by the the methods of science. Whether or not God exists (…), religiosity is an enormously important fact about our species.There must be some combination of evolutionary, developmental, neuropsychological, and anthropological theories that can explain why human religious practices take the various forms that they do, many of which are so similar across cultures and eras.
It’s an excellent article that takes a cutting edge approach to the psychology of religion. Go check it out.
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Finally! a real competitor to John Frum - Prince Philip:
Legend had it that there was a clutch of villages on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu which - as bizarre as it may seem - worshipped Prince Philip as a god.
How and why they had chosen the Duke of Edinburgh, I had no idea. I [...]
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