Article contents
Supernatural agents may have provided adaptive social information
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 June 2005
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
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2004
- 3
- Cited by