Intelligent Design and Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

John S.Wilkins, Department of Philosophy, University of Sydney, Australia

Contents: Introduction; Part I Adaptation: The cognitive and evolutionary psychology of religion, Joseph Bulbulia; A scientific definition of religion, James W. Dow; Are there any religions? An evolutionary exploration, Joseph Bulbulia; Why religion is nothing special but is central, Maurice Bloch. Part II Naturalization of Religion: The evolution of religion: 3 anthropological approaches, James W. Dow; Religion generalized and naturalized, Loyal Rue; Testing major evolutionary hypotheses about religion with a random sample, David Sloan Wilson; Exploring resources of naturalism: religiopoiesis, Ursula Goodenough; Myths as instructions from ancestors: the example of Oedipus, Lyle B Steadman and Craig T. Palmer. Part III Cognitive Science and Religion: A cognitive typology of religious actions, Justin L. Barrett and Brian Malley; Explaining religious ideas: elements of a cognitive approach, Pascal Boyer; Are children 'intuitive theists'? Reasoning about purpose and design in nature, Deborah Kelemen; Whence collective rituals? A cultural selection model of ritualized behavior, Pierre Liénard and Pascal Boyer; God, genes, and cognizing agents, Gregory R. Peterson; 'O Lord...you perceive my thoughts from afar': recursiveness and the evolution of supernatural agency, Jesse M. Bering and Dominic D.P. Johnson. Part IV Sociocultural Accounts: God is watching you: priming God concepts increases prosocial behavior in an anonymous economic game, Azim F. Shariff and Ara Norenzayan; The capacity for religious experience is an evolutionary adaptation to warfare, Allen D. MacNeill; Ritual, emotion, and sacred symbols, Candace S. Alcorta and Richard Sosis. Part V Intelligent Design: Intelligent design: the original version, Francisco J. Ayala; Intelligent design and probability reasoning, Elliott Sober; The intelligent-design movement: science or ideology? Gregory R. Peterson; The advantages of theft over toil: the design inference and arguing from ignorance, John S. Wilkins and Wesley R. Elsberry. Part VI Outcomes and Implications: Evolution and the meaning of life, William Grey; The possibility of meaning in human evolution, Barbara Forrest; Is the spell really broken? Bio-psychological explanations of religion and theistic belief, Justin L. Barrett; How firm a foundation? A response to Justin L Barrett's 'Is the spell really broken?', Howard J. Van Till; Name index.