“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”
With this famous sentence, Jean-Jacques Rousseau begins his masterful critique of political power. Less well known is another sentence from The Social Contract (1762): “No State has ever been founded without Religion serving as its base.”
My reading of history is that Rousseau was right. State-formation [...]
Tags:China·civic religion·disciplina·divination·Dominique Briquel·Etruria·Etruscan·Etruscan books·haruspices·haruspicy·J.G. Frazer·Jean-Jacques Rousseau·magic·politics·power·prodigia·religion·Roman·Roman epistemology·Rome·Romulus·science·Shang Dynasty·state formation·Tages Against Jesus
The standard origins story of cultural anthropology includes two founders: Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917) and Henry Lewis Morgan (1818-1881). Unlike most founders, Tylor and Morgan are not widely acclaimed or accorded much honor. They have been relegated to a minor place in history because of their belief in progressive cultural evolution, a paradigm that combined [...]
Tags:animism·barbarism·civilization·cultural evolution·Darwin·Edward Burnett Tylor·Franz Boas·Henry Lewis Morgan·Herbert Spencer·J.G. Frazer: His Life and Work·magic·primitive·Robert Ackerman·science·survivals·The Golden Bough
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
– Marcel Proust
This morning I recalled the taste of a bit of madeleine dunked in a linden-flower tea which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know why this memory made me so happy). What [...]
Tags:archival·Daniel Engber·data·evolutionary religious studies·history·Marcel·memory·originality·Proust·publication·rediscovery·repetition·research·science·synthesis
In a recent essay on the cult of David Foster Wallace, Nathan Heller notes that DFW’s mature work deals with the crisis of contemporary pluralism: “how to think intelligently and truthfully about the world when that world is full of intelligent and truthful people who adhere to irreconcilable schools of thought.” While Heller [...]
Tags:Alan Sokal·Catholic·confirmation bias·David Foster Wallace·evolutionary psychologist·fantasy·group level selection·group size·Jesus·language·Matt Rossano·Nathan Heller·natural law·Panglossian·parsimony·pluralism·Pope Benedict·postmodernism·resurrection·science·storytelling·supernatural selection·technology·truth·wish fulfillment
In 1902, Rudyard Kipling published his wonderfully imaginative Just So Stories. What child does not thrill to learn “How the Camel Got His Hump” or “How the Leopard Got His Spots“? When I was six years old, my grandmother read “How the Whale Got His Throat” to me and I swallowed it hook, line, and [...]
Tags:adaptationist·desire·empiricism·epigenetic·evolutionary psychology·imagination·Jaak Panksepp·Jonah·Jules Panksepp·Just So Stories·modules·myth·neuroscience·Panglossian·Rudyard Kipling·science·seven deadly sins·Seven Sins·spandrels·speculation·storytelling·tales·whale·wish fulfillment
As I noted in Supernaturalism and the Paranormal, it is possible that experiences typically categorized as “paranormal,” if they can be measured and verified, have some relationship to religion. People who have such experiences might be inclined to attribute them to the realm of the supernatural. How a person categorizes supernatural experience — as either [...]
Tags:Bach·Benedict Carey·Charles Judd·Cornell University·Daryl Bem·dogma·Douglas Hofstadter·Escher·ESP·extrasensory perception·Godel·paradigm shift·paranormal·peer review·precognition·Ray Hyman·replication·science·skepticism·statistics·Thomas Kuhn
Anthropologists are at it again: engaged in fruitless and unproductive arguments about whether the discipline is a “science.” The furor revolves around proposed changes to the American Anthropological Association’s mission statement:
The purposes of the Association shall be to advance anthropology as the science that studies public understanding of humankind in all its aspects, through This [...]
Tags:AAA·American Anthropological Association·anthropology·archaeology·biological anthropology·cultural anthropology·four field anthropology·holistic anthropology·humanities·linguistics·science
During an hour long conversation (transcript included), NPR’s Ira Flatow discusses the science of morals with several guests, including Steven Pinker, Sam Harris, and Simon Blackburn. Although I want to be encouraged (and there are many excellent observations), I fear that the “science/morals” debate bears many resemblances to the moribund “science/religion” debate.
Tags:ethics·false dichotomy·Ira Flatow·morals·Sam Harris·science·Steven Pinker·Talk of the Nation·values
The Guardian has posted an encouraging story about studying anthropology and what people do with anthropology degrees.
Assuming that one is truly dedicated to four-field anthropology, the following certainly rings of truth: “Anthropology has been described as the most scientific of the humanities and the most humanistic of the sciences.”
Unfortunately for most anthropology graduate students, the [...]
Tags:anthropology degree·archaeology·biological anthropology·cultural anthropology·four field anthropology·holistic anthropology·humanities·linguistics·science
Over at ABC News, Ki Mae Heussner reports on a Diane Sawyer interview of the renowned physicist Stephen Hawking with this contentious headline: “Stephen Hawking on Religion: Science Will Win.” This is an unfortunate banner. During the interview, Sawyer asked if religion and science could be reconciled. Hawking’s response was profoundly unhelpful:
“There is a fundamental [...]
Tags:animism·anthropomorphic·anthropomorphism·Babylon·Babylonian high god·city-states·Diane Sawyer·earthly kings·gods·Hebrews·hunter-gatherers·Judaism·Ki Mae Heussner·Levant·Mesopotamia·Neolithic·Neolithic Revolution·religion·Roy Rosenberg·science·spirits·spiritual kings·Stephen Hawking·supernatural thinking·Yahweh·Yahweh Becomes King
