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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

Richard Sosis  and
Jordan Kiper
Richard Sosis
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-1176. richard.sosis@uconn.edujordan.kiper@uconn.eduhttp://www.anth.uconn.edu/faculty/sosis/
Jordan Kiper
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-1176. richard.sosis@uconn.edujordan.kiper@uconn.eduhttp://www.anth.uconn.edu/faculty/sosis/
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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.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , June 2014 , pp. 275 - 276
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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