Richard Sosis
James Barnett Professor of Humanistic Anthropology and Director of the Evolution, Cognition, and Culture Program at the University of Connecticut.
Religion Editor
Richard Sosis is James Barnett Professor of Humanistic Anthropology at the University of Connecticut. His work has focused on the evolution of religion and cooperation, with particular interests in ritual, magic, religious fertility, and the dynamics of religious systems. To explore these issues, he has conducted fieldwork with remote cooperative fishers in the Federated States of Micronesia and with various communities throughout Israel. He is cofounder and coeditor of the journal Religion, Brain & Behavior, which publishes research on the bio-cultural study of religion.
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Richard Sosis
Authored by
Richard Sosis
November 14, 2023
Why Religious Extremism is Maladaptive
Religious systems that lose their adaptability become dangerous to the societies in which they exist, and to themselves, because they absolutize the relative.
July 21, 2016
Religion through an Evolutionary Lens: A Conversation about Dominic Johnson’s “God is Watching You”
Dominic Johnson's new book present an new look at religion by suggesting that the same underlying scientific perspective—evolution and natural selection—can lead to a very different stance on religion from Richard Dawkins and other New Atheists.
May 17, 2018
On Morals, Rituals, and Obligations
“… breach of obligation may be ‘one of the few, if not, indeed, the only act that is always and everywhere held to be immoral’.”