Overview
- Is the first correct theory of religious evolution
- Is written by specialists in the Study of Religions as well as in Biology/Palaeontology
- Presents the state of research and a critique of current evolutionary accounts in the Study of Religions
Part of the book series: New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion (NASR, volume 6)
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Table of contents (15 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book presents a consecutive story on the evolution of religions. It starts with an analysis of evolution in biology and ends with a discussion of what a proper theory of religious evolution should look like. It discusses such questions as whether it is humankind or religion that evolves, how religions evolve, and what adaptation of religions means. Topics examined include inheritance and heredity, religio-speciation, hybridization, ontogenetics and epigenetics, phylogenetics, and systematics. Calling attention to unsolved problems and relating the evolutionary subject matter to appropriate material, the book integrates and interprets existing data. Based on the belief that an unequivocal stand is more likely to produce constructive criticism than evasion of an issue, the book chooses that interpretation of a controversial matter which seems most consistent with the emerging picture of the evolutionary process.
“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,” the evolutionary biologist and co-founder of the so-called New Synthesis in Evolutionary Biology, Theodosius Dobszhansky (1900-1975), wrote in his famous essay of 1973, opposing creationism in American society. Today, Dobszhansky’s statement is not only fully accepted in biology, but has become the scientific paradigm in disciplines such as psychology, archaeology and the study of religions. Yet in spite of this growing interest in evolutionary processes in religion and culture, the term "evolution" and the capability of an evolutionary account have to date still not been properly understood by scholars of the Humanities. This book closes that gap.Authors and Affiliations
About the authors
Davina Grojnowski completed her doctoral degree in the field of Theology and Religious Studies at King's College London, UK. She holds an Undergraduate degree in Classics, also from King’s, and a Master’s degree in Jewish Studies from the University of Oxford.Her research interests lie in the religious literature of the Second Temple period, including the representation of the body in religious thought, and the origins of religion. She has taught at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, and King's College London, UK.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Religious Speciation
Book Subtitle: How Religions Evolve
Authors: Ina Wunn, Davina Grojnowski
Series Title: New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04435-0
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-04434-3Published: 20 February 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-04435-0Published: 07 February 2019
Series ISSN: 2367-3494
Series E-ISSN: 2367-3508
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VIII, 280
Number of Illustrations: 7 b/w illustrations, 15 illustrations in colour
Topics: Religious Studies, general, Social Anthropology, Methodology of the Social Sciences