The early essays in this volume proceed on the assumption that a compatibility system can be fashioned that will not only bring religious knowledge claims into harmony with scientific claims but will also show there to be a fundamental similarity of method in religious and scientific thinking. They are not, however, unambiguously successful. Consequently Professor Wiebe sets out in the succeeding essays to seek an understanding of the religion/science relationship that does not assume they must be compatible. That examination, in the final analysis, reveals a fundamental contradiction in the...

Religion is an evolutionary puzzle. It involves beliefs in counterfactual worlds and engagement in costly rituals. Yet religion is widespread across all human cultures and eras. This begs the question, why are so many people attracted to religion?

In The Attraction of Religion, essays by leading scholars in evolutionary psychology, anthropology, and religious studies demonstrate how religion may be related to evolutionary adaptations because religious commitments involve fitness-enhancing behaviours that promote reproduction, kinship, and social solidarity. Could it be that...