This paper considers religion in relation to four recurrent traits: belief systems incorporating supernatural agents and counterintuitive concepts, communal ritual, separation of the sacred and the profane, and adolescence as a preferred developmental period for religious transmission. These co-occurring traits are viewed as an adaptive complex that offers clues to the evolution of religion from its nonhuman ritual roots. We consider the critical element differentiating religious from non-human ritual to be the conditioned association of emotion and abstract symbols. We propose (...) neurophysiological mechanisms underlying such associations and argue that the brain plasticity of human adolescence constitutes an “experience expectant” developmental period for ritual conditioning of sacred symbols. We suggest that such symbols evolved to solve an ecological problem by extending communication and coordination of social relations across time and space. (shrink)

We argue that religious ritual's ability to facilitate communication and the pervasiveness of its basic characteristics across societies, as well as its precedence in other social species, suggests that religious behavior is more than a mere by-product. Religious constructs constitute associationally conditioned mnemonics that trigger neuroendocrine responses which motivate religious behaviors. The adaptive value of these constructs resides in their utility as memorable and emotionally evocative primes.

Legaz Lacamba, L. José Ignacio de Alcorta, filósofo de nuestro tiempo.--Semblanza del profesor Alcorta.--Rodríguez Resina, A. El realismo trascendental, introducción a la filosofía de J. I. de Alcorta.

Juslin & Vll (J&V) advance our understanding of the proximate mechanisms underlying emotional responses to music, but fail to integrate their findings into a comprehensive evolutionary model that addresses the adaptive functions of these responses. Here we offer such a model by examining the ontogenetic relationship between music, ritual, and symbolic abstraction and their role in facilitating social coordination and cooperation.

Humankind faces a wide range of threats to its security and safety, from terrorist groups and cybercriminals to disease pandemics and climate change. All these threats share one characteristic: they are constantly changing. Decision-makers can never be sure whether the next tropical storm will be as violent as the last, or whether Taliban insurgents will use a roadside improvised explosive device or a suicide bomber for their next attack. Therefore, many of our security systems — those that are resistant to (...) change, or that try to eliminate all risk — are doomed. Firewalls have failed to protect computers from hackers for 40 years; screening airline passengers for liquids didn't prevent Umar Abdulmutallab from taking a powdered incendiary onto a plane; and so cumbersome is the military procurement cycle that heavy armoured vehicles designed to repel improvised explosive attacks were deployed in Iraq a full three years after soldiers had identified the need. (shrink)