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Why religion is better conceived as a complex system than a norm-enforcing institution
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 June 2014
Abstract
Although religions, as Smaldino demonstrates, provide informative examples of culturally evolved group-level traits, they are more accurately analyzed as complex adaptive systems than as norm-enforcing institutions. An adaptive systems approach to religion not only avoids various shortcomings of institutional approaches, but also offers additional explanatory advantages regarding the cultural evolution of group-level traits that emerge from religion.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014
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Why religion is better conceived as a complex system than a norm-enforcing institution
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The cultural evolution of emergent group-level traits