Our Work

Evolution of Science and Religion subgrantees have been presenting their findings in a variety of academic conferences and publications. We’ve held two ‘internal’ conferences (Edinburgh 2022 and Dublin 2023), to give our 18 subgrantees opportunities to exchange ideas and present their projects to one another. Subgrantees have also organised symposia and preconferences in conjunction with the Association for Psychological Science (2022), Society for Personality and Social Psychology (2023), and Human Behavior and Evolution Society (2023). Finally, subgrantee findings are being published in a variety of peer-reviewed academic journals, including a special issue of Religion, Brain and Behavior, slated for 2024, that will be devoted entirely to subgrantee research. For more information about our presentations and publications, please visit the links below.

Conferences

Dublin

May 2023

Edinburgh

May 2022

Symposia

Annual Convention of the Association for Psychological Science (APS)

"Advancing Our Understanding of the Conjoint Influences of Religious Beliefs and Science Beliefs"

29 May 2022, Chicago

  • Visit the conventions website here.

  • The main organizer was Crystal Park, and presenters from our program included Crystal and Kathryn Johnson

  • "Crystal Park describes an online study of a nationally representative sample of 300 Americans’ beliefs in religion and science. Both similarly predicted world assumptions (e.g., benevolence), but religious beliefs much more strongly predicted global goals, values, and meaning in life. Latent profile analysis produced a three-profile solution; a profile of moderate science and religious beliefs represented half the sample while the remainder split evenly between predominantly religious beliefs and predominantly science beliefs."

    "Kathryn Johnson presents results of a three-wave study of relationships between faith and science mindsets and COVID-19 concern in 858 Americans conducted March-June 2020. Two directional relationships were tested: (Model 1) COVID-19 concern

    ➔ disease avoidance and self-protection motivations

    ➔ science and faith mindsets versus (Model 2) science and faith mindsets

    ➔ COVID-19 concern. Science mindsets increased whereas faith mindsets decreased during the early months of the pandemic, and only science mindset positively predicted COVID-19 concern, supporting Model 2."

    Download the full program here.

Annual Conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP)

"Religion and Spirituality Preconference"

22 February 2023, Atlanta

  • The main organizer was Kathryn Johnson, and presenters from our program included:

    Danica Wilbanks (a member of Josh Jackson's team at UNC, representing a project we funded): Supernatural Explanations Across the Globe Are More Common for Natural Than Social Phenomena

    Micheál de Barra: Supernatural Healing Practices are Associated to Diseases with Uncertain Causes and Unclear Mechanisms in a Corpus of Early 20th Century Irish Folklore

    Kathryn Johnson: Science and Faith Mindsets Influence Perceptions of Religion and Science as Conflicting, Dialectic, and Separate

    Carola Leicht: Atheist vs New Atheists, the Conflict Narrative and Perceptions of Religious Threat

    Michael Barlev: The Inventory of Non-Ordinary Experiences (INOE): Evidence of Validity in the United States and India

    Rebecka Hahnel-Peeters: Religion and Sexual Morality Across 13 Nations

  • Download the full program here.

Annual Conference of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES)

"The Evolution of Science and Religion as Meaning-Making Systems" (a two-part symposium held on consecutive days)

31 May - 01 June 2023, Palm Springs

  • Visit the conventions website here.

  • The main organizer was Michael Price, and symposium presenters from our program included:

    Danica Wilbanks (a member of Josh Jackson's team at UNC, representing a project we funded): Supernatural Explanations Across the Globe Are More Common for Natural Than Social Phenomena

    Edward H. Hagen (PhD supervisor of Aaron Lightner, representing a project we funded): Homo medicus: the evolution of shamanism

    Theodore Samore: Traditionalism, Religiosity, and COVID-19 precautionary behaviors across 27 societies

    Michael Price: Religiosity as an adaptive motivational system: A 54-country study

    Michael Barlev: Personal "religious" experiences as a path to religious belief

    Ze (Kevin) Hong: Ghosts, Divination, and Magic among the Nuosu: An Ethnographic Examination from Cognitive and Cultural Evolutionary Perspectives

    The conference also included a poster on research that we funded:

    Rebecka Hahnel-Peeters, Courtney Crosby, & David Buss: Religion and Sexual Morality Across 14 Nations

  • Download the convention schedule here.

Publications

Journal Articles

Park, C. L, David, A., & Burke, J.

Unique contributions of religious and science beliefs on meaning systems in a nationally representative American sample.

In Press, International Journal of Psychology

White, C. J. M., & Billet, M. I.

The roles of anthropomorphism, spirituality, and gratitude in pro-environmental attitudes

Jackson, J. C., Jasko, K., Abrams, S., Atkinson, T., Balkcom, E., Kruglanski, A., Gray, K., Halberstadt, J.

Religious People View Both Science and Religion as Less Epistemically Valuable Than Non-Religious People View Science. Religion, Brain, and Behavior.

Hong, Z., Slingerland, E., & Henrich, J.

Magic and Empiricism in Early Chinese Rainmaking – a Cultural Evolutionary analysis

Jackson, J. C., Yam, K. C., Tang, P., Liu, T., Shariff, A.

Exposure to robot preachers undermines religious commitment

Jackson, J. C., Yam, K. C., Tang, P., Sibley, C., Waytz, A.

Exposure to Automation Explains Religious Declines

Park, C. L, Kwan, J., & Gnall, K. E.

Associations of reliance on religion and on science to make sense of the world with health-related resources and behaviors

Theodore Samore, Daniel M. T. Fessler, et al.

Accordance and conflict between religious and scientific precautions against COVID-19 in 27 societies

2023 Preprint, Religion, Brain and Behavior (Special Issue)

Jackson, J. C., Wilbanks, D., Bastian, B., Watts, J., DiMaggio, N., Gray, K.

Supernatural explanations across 114 societies are more common for natural than social phenomena

3 April 2023, Nature Human Behavior

Johnson, K. A., Okun, M. A., & Moon, J. W.

The interaction of faith and science mindsets predicts perceptions of the relationship between religion and science

Theodore Samore, Daniel M. T. Fessler, et al.

Greater traditionalism predicts COVID-19 precautionary behaviors across 27 societies

Ze Hong.

Dream Interpretation from a Cognitive and Cultural Evolutionary Perspective: The Case of Oneiromancy in Traditional China

23 January 2022, Cognitive Science

Richard Sosis and Jordan Kiper

Sport as a Meaning-Making System: Insights from the Study of Religion

2022, Religions

Ze Hong

Ghost, Divination, and Magic among the Nuosu: An Ethnographic Examination from Cognitive and Cultural Evolutionary Perspectives

2022, Human Nature

Theodore Samore, Daniel M. T. Fessler, Adam Maxwell Sparks, Colin Holbrook

Of pathogens and party lines: Social conservatism positively associates with COVID-19 precautions among U.S. Democrats but not Republicans

2021, PLOS ONE

Johnson, K. A., Baraldi, A. N., Moon, J. W., Okun, M. A., & Cohen, A. B.

Faith and science mindsets as predictors of COVID-19 concern: A three-wave longitudinal study

Vucetich JA, EA Macdonald, D Burnham, JT Bruskotter, DD Johnson, DW Macdonald

Finding Purpose in the Conservation of Biodiversity by the Commingling of Science and Ethics.

2021, Animals

Books and Book Chapters

Jackson, J. C., Gray, K.

The divine projector: How human psychology shapes gods’ minds

Richard Sosis

The Ping Pong Player and the Professor: An Anthropologist Explores Fatherhood and Meaning in an Extraordinary Sport

Adam Baimel

Environmentalism and the gods