The naturalness of religion and the unnaturalness of science
- ISBN: 0262112493
Abstract
The author explores the relationships between science and religion, and how explanation is related to the naturalness of each, given both the character and content of human cognition as well as the social framework in which it takes place. The author draws 2 chief conclusions. First, although scientists and children may be cognitively similar, and thus scientific thought a cognitively natural activity in some respects, there are more significant respects in which the scientific thinking and scientific activity are unnatural. Scientific theories typically challenge existing, unexamined views about the nature of the world, and the forms of thought and the resulting products of the practices associated with religion leads one to view religion, by contrast, as natural in the very respects that science is not. Religious thinking and practices make use of deeply embedded cognitive predispositions concerning explanation, such as the tendency to anthropomorphize, to find narrative explanations that are easy to memorize and transmit, and to employ ontological categories that are easy to recognize. These conclusions may help explain the persistance of religion as well as raise concerns about the future pursuit of science. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved) (from the book)
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