This essay reviews recent research on religious conversion, particularly within the context of "new" religious movements. It addresses three fundamental issues pertinent to the study of conversion: first, the conceptualization and nature of conversion; second, the analytic status of converts' accounts; and third, the causes of conversion. The chapter concludes with a proposed agenda for subsequent research on conversion and related topics.

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Sociologists tend to eschew biological explanations of human social behavior. Accordingly, when evolutionary biologists began to apply neo-Darwinian theory to the study of human social behavior, the reactions of sociologists typically ranged from indifference to overt hostility. Since the mid-1960s, however, neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory has stimulated a ''second Darwinian revolution'' in traditional social scientific conceptions of human nature and social behavior, even while most sociologists remain largely uninformed about neo-Darwinian theory and research. This article traces sociology's long-standing isolation from the life sciences, especially evolutionary biology, to divergence in the metatheoretical assumptions that typify conventional sociological thought versus contemporary evolutionary biology. We conclude with a discussion of the recent emergence of a nascent ''evolutionary sociology'' that integrates sociobiological reasoning with contemporary sociological thought.