Researchers
Overview
Our Evolution of Science and Religion programme is composed of 18 subgrantee projects outlined below. They are led by researchers representing a variety of disciplines in the evolutionary and behavioural sciences and are composed of early and mid-career academics as well as senior scholars. Each project uses different approaches and methods to triangulate on the core question of how people form narratives about religion and science and how these perspectives shape their lives, activities, and outlooks.
Grantees
The greening of religions: A cross-cultural test of when, how, and with what consequences religious meaning systems are adapting to the social pressures of the climate crisis
Principal Investigator: Adam Baimel, Oxford Brookes University, UK
Nonordinary experiences as a royal road to belief in inherently "unbelievable" meaning- making frameworks
Principal Investigator: Michael Barlev, Arizona State University, USA
Sacred cures and scientific cures: Science and religion in the evolution of folk medicine
Principal Investigators: Dr Mícheál de Barra and Dr Aiyana Willard, Brunel University London
Sexual Morality, Evolution, and Religion
Principal Investigator: Rebecka Hahnel-Peeters, The University of Texas Austin
False Belief, Epistemology, and the Origin of Scientific Thinking
Principal Investigator: Kevin (Ze) Hong, Zhejiang University
The Evolution and Endurance of Religious Explanations
Principal Investigator: Joshua Conrad Jackson, Northwestern University
The Purpose of Belief: Optimism and the Adaptive Consequences of Scientific and Religious Meaning-Making Systems
Principal Investigators: Michael Price, Brunel University London and Dominic Johnson, University of Oxford
Fundamental Social Motivations Influence the Meaningfulness of Religion and Science
Principal Investigator: Kathryn A. Johnson, Arizona State University
Cooperation, Cohesion and Leadership in (new) atheism: using “science vs religion” narratives as an adaptive tool for meaning making
Principal Investigator: Carola Leicht, University of Kent
Investigating the Evolution of Science and Religion as Adaptive Knowledge Specialization
Principal Investigator: Aaron Lightner, Aarhus University
Coping with Natural Disasters Caused by Climate Change: Religious Meaning-Making and Adaptation
Principal Investigator: Dr. Shiri Noy, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Denison University
Dr. Linda Thunström, Department of Economics, University of Wyoming
Predominance or Balance of Scientific or Religious Influences on Meaning Systems in Understanding and Adaptive Behavior
Principal Investigator: Crystal L. Park, University of Connecticut
The Effects of Endogenous Psychologies and External Social Ecologies on Meaning-making Systems and Traditionalism in Tonga and the Tongan Diaspora in the United States
Principal Investigator: Theodore Samore, University of California, Los Angeles
Religion and Sport: An Ethnographic Study of the Adaptive Consequences of Syncretic Meaning Systems
Principal Investigator: Richard Sosis, University of Connecticut
I Believe in Scientists: Source evaluation and the acceptance of scientific information in three epistemologically distinct populations
Principal Investigator: Hugh Turpin, University of Oxford
Science, Religion And Purpose In Life As Meaning-Making Systems For Coexisting With Biodiversity
Principal Investigators: John Vucetich, Michigan Technological University and David Macdonald, WildCRU University of Oxford
The Evolution of Science and Religion as Meaning-Making Systems: Karma, Naturalistic Explanations for Misfortune, and Prosocial Behaviour
Principal Investigator: Cindel White, York University
Testing Hypotheses about Meaning Systems in Real-World Settings
Principal Investigator: David Sloan Wilson, Binghamton University