Testing the Big Gods hypothesis with global historical data: a review and “retake”

Whitehouse, Harvey; François, Pieter; Savage, Patrick E.; Hoyer, Daniel; Feeney, Kevin; Cioni, Enrico; Purcell, Rosalind; Larson, Jennifer; Baines, John; Haar, Barend ter; Covey, Alan; Turchin, Peter

doi:10.1080/2153599x.2022.2074085

Cited by 18 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 101 publications

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“…Beheim et al (2019) show that the data used by the critics may be unreliable. The accuracy of the data was also challenged by Slingerland et al (2020) to which Whitehouse et al (2022) replied admitting serious shortcomings of the database but claiming that the main results of their first paper still hold after mistakes have been corrected. This heated debate attests to the fact that the evolution of religion has become an active field of research which is, however, only marginally relevant here.…”

Section: Religion As Endogenous Religion As Determined By Geographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Determinants of social norms II – religion and family as mediators

Voigt

2024

Journal of Institutional Economics

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It is now abundantly clear that social norms channel behaviour and impact economic development. This insight leads to the question: How do social norms evolve? In a companion paper (Voigt (2023). Journal of Institutional Economics, 20), I survey studies showing that geographical conditions can have direct and long-lasting effects on social norms. This paper goes one step further: It surveys studies that show how different geographical conditions affect both religious beliefs as well as traditions of family organization and how these, in turn, affect social norms.

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Section: Religion As Endogenous Religion As Determined By Geographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Determinants of social norms II – religion and family as mediators

Voigt

2024

Journal of Institutional Economics

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“…However, for our purposes of characterizing religious practices and their evolution, such fine divisions of religious groups are counterproductive. Shared practices are central to the way religions unify otherwise unconnected and anonymous people into a community (Matthews 2012;Whitehouse et al 2019Whitehouse et al , 2022, and people generally conceive of themselves as experiencing shared identity with others in the same denominational family rather than only feeling religious identity at the level of congregations (Kosmin and Keysar 2006).…”

Section: Construction Of An Evolutionary Tree For Religionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2018; Sosis 2003, 2009; Sosis and Bressler 2003; Sosis and Ruffle 2004; Whitehouse et al. 2019, 2022). Few studies, however, have examined the cultural evolution of a less socially conspicuous form of supernatural beliefs and behavior: magic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Multiple studies have applied a cultural evolutionary perspective to human religious behavior and belief (Bulbulia 2004(Bulbulia , 2012Irons 2001;Johnson 2005;Laurin et al 2012;Matthews 2012;Matthews et al 2013;Purzycki et al 2016;Shaver et al 2018;Sosis 2003Sosis , 2009Sosis and Bressler 2003;Sosis and Ruffle 2004;Whitehouse et al 2019Whitehouse et al , 2022. Few studies, however, have examined the cultural evolution of a less socially conspicuous form of supernatural beliefs and behavior: magic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Magic, Religion, and Science: Secularization Trends and Continued Coexistence

Matthews

Hertzog

Kyritsis

et al. 2022

Scientific Study of Religion

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While multiple studies have applied cultural evolutionary perspectives to the study of religion, few studies have examined the cultural evolutionary dynamics of a more secretive but equally ubiquitous form of supernatural belief: magic. We conducted two studies, an American nationally representative survey and a comparative phylogenetic analysis of religious traditions, to test three hypothesized cultural evolutionary drivers for beliefs in magic. We find the greatest support for the hypothesis that magic is employed when it provides its users benefits that are distinct from those provided by either science or religion, some support for secularization (broadly conceived) trends applying to magic, and no evidence that innate and unavoidable features of human cognition are primary drivers of the cultural evolution of magical beliefs. We conclude by suggesting specific hypothesized benefits for magic that may account for the evolution of humanity's facultative (i.e., context-dependent) use of magical beliefs.

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“…After correcting the error, our conclusion that Big Gods did not drive the rise of big societies throughout world history remains unchanged. The corrected version of the paper (Whitehouse et al 2022) and a target article building on our initial investigations of moralizing supernatural punishment and reward (MSP) (Turchin et al 2022), have been published in Religion, Brain and Behavior.The three responses here are equally relevant to our corrected version.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Moralizing Supernatural Punishment and Reward: A Response to Critics

Larson¹,

Whitehouse²,

François³

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

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In this contribution we respond to three critiques of our 2019 article ‘Complex Societies Precede Moralizing Gods throughout World History.’ We clarify that our research does not, as our critics suppose, support the claim that moralizing gods played a decisive role in the development of complex societies. Indeed our goal was to test this claim and we found it wanting. Our methods ‘reduce’ neither religion or social complexity in the ways claimed, while our tentative conclusions about the relationship between frequent, routinized ritual and social cohesion are supported by much research beyond the paper under discussion. In the Roman Empire, many forms of collective ritual contributed to the propagation of Romanitas. We have never claimed that this depended on absolute uniformity of belief. Other misconceptions about our supposedly ‘inattentive’ qualitative analysis result from misreadings of information in our open-access database, which functions as an evolving set of information relevant to specific research questions rather than a general encyclopedia. Despite these disagreements, we continue to maintain that neither qualitative historical methods nor quantitative analytic approaches alone can produce satisfying answers to causal questions about world history. The best approach, we argue, is to integrate the insights from humanities with ‘Big Data’ analyses from social science, and we welcome continued engagement and collaboration across traditional disciplinary boundaries.

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Testing the Big Gods hypothesis with global historical data: a review and “retake”

Cited by 18 publications

References 101 publications

Determinants of social norms II – religion and family as mediators

Determinants of social norms II – religion and family as mediators

Magic, Religion, and Science: Secularization Trends and Continued Coexistence

Moralizing Supernatural Punishment and Reward: A Response to Critics

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