Why Rites of Passage Are Painful
At the podcast "How God Works," I discuss the worldwide phenomenon of painful adolescent rites of passage with psychologist David DeSteno.
View ArticleMore Signal, Less Noise
A while back, I left formal academia. In the post where I announced that decision, I promised that I’d start writing here more frequently again, since I’d be free from the crushing pressure to...
View ArticleThe Natural History of Music
I’m teaching a course on the evolution of music through Scholarium in January and February. Or, more accurately, I’m teaching about the origins of human rhythm — our unique ability to “keep together in...
View ArticleThe Catholic Latin Mass is a Strong Credibility-Enhancing Display
Pope Francis recently restricted the Catholic Tridentine Latin mass. The resulting firestorm of controversy may help illuminate why so many people don’t believe what their churches teach.
View ArticleMusic and Dance in Human Evolution
Humans everywhere play music and dance. But other animals don't — so where did these unique abilities come from? New research provides some suggestions.
View ArticleIs Academia a Failed Initiation Rite?
Now that I’m (mostly) outside the world of American higher education, I’ve been looking in at it from a slight remove, mulling on where it’s working and where I think it’s struggling. One area where...
View ArticleRitual, Play, and the Landscape of Value
Back in October, I was privileged to give the keynote talk at a Toronto School of Theology conference on how ritual and play structure "Value and Valuing." My argument? Animal ritualization and human...
View ArticleIs Your Society Good for (Biological) Fitness?
Back in September, I described a computer model my collaborator Rich Sosis and I built that simulates religious communities as complex adaptive systems. The model married complex-systems theory to...
View ArticleReligions as Complex Adaptive Systems
A shouting match is often perversely compelling in the same way that a road accident is: it’s ugly, but it commands your attention. Very occasionally, however, a viciously heated conversation manages...
View ArticleWhy Humans Imitate. And Imitate. And Imitate.
Life in 21st-century America – or any wealthy Western nation, really – is a nonstop celebration of individualism and nonconformity. To sell Sketchers, you dream up ads showing hip young people striking...
View ArticleExtreme Rituals and Health: A Surprising Match
With the possible exception of scrolling through Twitter, it’s hard to imagine an activity less conducive to mind-body health than shoving metal spikes through your cheeks before walking up a steep...
View ArticleWhat Distinguishes Humans from Chimps? Vocal Learning and Ritual.
The neuroscientist Björn Merker argues that humans, unlike chimpanzees, have "ritual culture" – culture that depends on over-imitation and intensive social learning. Interestingly, this means we have...
View ArticleNew Project: Synthesizing Empirical Findings and Theory in the Scientific...
There are a lot of fields of study in the modern university. You could major in biology or German literature. You could study philosophy, chemistry, or neuroscience, or delve into Slavic languages. But...
View ArticleDoes Marching to the Same Rhythm Always Unite Us? Our New Study Says No
We humans love rhythm. Music, dancing, clapping, singing – no matter what form it comes in, rhythmic unity is a staple of our social lives. Recently, psychologists and cognitive scientists have found...
View ArticleA Cognitive (and Social) View of Ritual
Imagine two scenes. In the first, a person chucks a book casually on a table, leaving it open to the page she was reading, before walking into another room. In the second, she raises the book...
View ArticleWhy I Left the Humanities for the Sciences
I didn’t start out as a scientist. As an undergraduate, I majored in English, of all things. On the side I studied German language and literature. My early academic days were filled with iambic...
View ArticleWhy meaning is more important for humans than comfort
Religion does many things. It can form bonds between people, foment conflicts, and inspire people to sacrifice for higher causes. But one of the most important things that religions do is create...
View ArticleElitism Is a Problem. Being Elite Is the Solution.
It’s almost 2018. We survived the past year, but it was a stormy one. Global politics are more unstable than at any time since the height of the Cold War, and maybe before that. Populist leaders are...
View ArticleHow Religion Is Like Play
Is religion a form of play? I asked this question in a recent article in Orbiter, a new online magazine that tackles the relationship between science and meaning. Taking an evolutionary biological...
View ArticleRituals boost self-control
Maybe you’ve heard of the “marshmallow experiment” for testing people’s self-control. In this classic psychology study, scientists offered young children a choice: either eat a single marshmallow...
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