Religion Devolving?

Abstract

This article highlights several of the valuable contributions in Religion Evolving by Benjamin Purzycki and Richard Sosis (2022) and offers some material and methodological reflections that are intended to complement their efforts. Their book offers a clear and useful operationalization of religion, emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to the phenomena in question, and makes great strides in overcoming the polarizing debate between proponents of the “by-product” and “adaptationist” camps in the cognitive and evolutionary science of religion. The bulk of the current article argues for the importance of building on their efforts by also attending to the conditions under which – and the mechanisms by which – religion can become “maladaptive” in contemporary contexts.