Causal inference lies at the core of many scientific endeavours. Yet, answering causal
questions is challenging, especially when studying culture as a causal force. Against this …

We applaud the authors' impressive effort in compiling the Seshat database, as well as the
remarkable Analytic Narratives they produced on supernatural punishment. This project …

Evolutionary theories of religion frequently assume that the presence of moralizing gods is
positively associated with social complexity. An influential source of evidence for this …

The Cultural Evolution of Religion and Cooperation | The Oxford Handbook of Cultural
Evolution | Oxford Academic Skip to Main Content Oxford Academic Search Menu …

Psychological and cultural evolutionary accounts of human sociality propose that beliefs in
punitive and monitoring gods that care about moral norms facilitate cooperation. While there …

What explains the ubiquity and cultural success of prosocial religions? Leading accounts
argue that prosocial religions evolved because they help societies grow and promote group …

Purzycki and Sosis present an ambitious book that solidifies the importance of evolutionary
and systemic approaches to the study of complex cultural phenomena—in this case, the …

Evolutionary theories of religion frequently assume that the presence of moralizing gods is
positively associated with social complexity. An influential source of evidence for this …

One of the great mysteries of human cultural history is the upscaling of small-scale societies
to large-scale cooperative societies (Norenzayan et al., 2016; Powers et al., 2021; Henrich …

The relationship between religion and morality has been a steadfast topic of inquiry since
the dawn of the social sciences. Researchers have expended considerable effort …