Explaining Religion

Il progetto, coordinato da Harvey Whitehouse del Centre for Anthropology and Mind dell’Università di Oxford coinvolge una decina di dipartimenti universitari di Antropologia e Filosofia di varie università europee. Interessante vedere i progetti di ricerca e leggere gli articoli che parlano del progetto, comparsi su New Scientist e sull’Economist. In quest’ultimo articolo, prima si ricorda quanti milioni di euro costa

Il progetto, coordinato da Harvey Whitehouse del Centre for Anthropology and Mind dell’Università di Oxford coinvolge una decina di dipartimenti universitari di Antropologia e Filosofia di varie università europee. Interessante vedere i progetti di ricerca e leggere gli articoli che parlano del progetto, comparsi su New Scientist e sull’Economist.

In quest’ultimo articolo, prima si ricorda quanti milioni di euro costa il CERN e poi si evidenzia come: “The €2m, by contrast, will be spent on the search for God Himself—or, rather, for the biological reasons why so many people believe in God, gods and religion in general. “Explaining Religion”, as the project is known, is the largest-ever scientific study of the subject. It began last September, will run for three years, and involves scholars from 14 universities and a range of disciplines from psychology to economics. And it is merely the latest manifestation of a growing tendency for science to poke its nose into the God business. Religion cries out for a biological explanation. It is a ubiquitous phenomenon— arguably one of the species markers of Homo sapiens—but a puzzling one. It has none of the obvious benefits of that other marker of humanity, language. Nevertheless, it consumes huge amounts of resources. Moreover, unlike language, it is the subject of violent disagreements. Science has, however, made significant progress in understanding the biology of language, from where it is processed in the brain to exactly how it communicates meaning. Time, therefore, to put religion under the microscope as well”.

Anche il Manifesto ha trattato l’argomento in un articolo dal titolo “Quegli scienziati alla ricerca di dio”.

Daniele Formenti

Fonte dell’immagine: Wikimedia Commons