This ambitious, interdisciplinary book seeks to explain the origins of religion using our knowledge of the evolution of cognition. A cognitive anthropologist and psychologist, Scott Atran argues that religion is a by-product of human evolution just as the
In This Explains Everything, John Brockman, founder and publisher of Edge.org, asked experts in numerous fields and disciplines to come up with their favorite explanations for everyday occurrences. Why do we recognize patterns? Is there such a thing as po
“Atran explores the way terrorists think of themselves and teaches us, at last, intelligent ways to think about terrorists.”—Christopher Dickey, Newsweek Middle East Editor and author of Securing the City Talking to the Enemy by Scott Atran is an e