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What makes a moral human being? Is it the ability to treat people fairly? Or is it, say, respect for authority and remaining loyal to one's group? A study conducted by social scientists at UC-Irvine, the University of Virginia and the University of Southern California suggests that the answers to these questions may depend on whether you're a political conservative or liberal. While liberals primarily construe morality in terms of ensuring fairness and reducing or mitigating harm, research suggests that for conservatives morality also includes loyalty, respect for authority, and purity. This means that, for the typical conservative, upholding power structures and protecting against contamination aren't just good common sense for social animals—they're matters of right and wrong, processed at some of the most fundamental levels within the brain.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, the bushy-bearded biologist known for being the first to articulate the theory of evolution by natural selection. His tome On the Origin of Species, published 150 years ago in 1859, forever changed how people think about their place in the world. But despite near-universal scientific acceptance of his theory, if Darwin were alive today he would find himself surrounded by enemies, particularly among religious believers in the United States.

Debate, or what might better be described as argument, about the place of “creation science” in the education of the youth has long been a mainstay in the public engagement of religious sentiment and science. Now this battleground appears to be shifting to the education of educators, at least in Texas. The Institute for Creation Research has filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that its civil rights were violated by a recent decision of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board denying their request to offer a master’s degree in science education. The Board says that the decision was made because the program did not meet “state academic standards” but the Institute counters that they were denied legal sanction to offer degrees in creation science education because of their stance on creationism. The entire curriculum proposed by the Institute reflects the idea that the Earth is around 6,000 years old and intentionally created as it appears today by a the God the Bible.

Does religion have a unique origin in the brain or is it simply neurological happenstance? In a recent review of the literature on “Evolutionary perspectives on religion” Boyer and Bergstrom (Annual Review of Anthropology 37 (October 2008):111–130) suggest that research on brain function indicates, "religious processes are not sui generis." According to the authors, “even though there is a strong social demand for explaining religion in terms of a unique ‘origin,’ evolutionary and cognitive models suggest that this project makes little sense. Religion denotes a variety of behaviors and cognitive processes likely with different evolutionary backgrounds” (124).

In a recent article published in Psychological Science, Michael Inzlicht, Ian McGregor, Jacob B. Hirsh, and Kyle Nash demonstrate that people who score very high on measures of religious zeal and conviction make fewer errors on a standard measure of cognitive conflict. As the authors themselves say, “That greater belief in God predicted less cortical activity along with greater behavioral accuracy, even after we controlled for closed-mindedness and conservatism, implies that conviction is not the product of a rigid need for certainty.”

Are religious beliefs fundamentally different, or are they simply the result of cognitive systems built for interactions with other human beings projected onto a supposed supernatural agent? A recent report by Dimitrios Kapogiannis Aron K. Barbey Michael Su, Giovanna Zamboni, Frank Krueger, and Jordan Grafman; entitled "Cognitive and Neural Foundations of Religious Belief," explored brain activation patterns when participants indicated their level of agreement with a series of statements reflecting supposed basic psychologic dimensions of religious belief. The authors found brain activation patterns for these dimensions of belief that matched those of previously known networks linked to social cognition and not uniquely religious networks. In short, the study suggests that there is no religious network in the brain as such, and that religion lives by borrowing the structures responsible for social cognition.

It may not be the most appropriate topic of discussion with your significant other on Valentine’s Day but advances in neuroscience are taking some of the mystery out of love. In a recent essay in Nature, Larry J. Young reflects on some of these developments and their possible implications for our social and biological evolution. Among the prospects for the not-so-distant-future are pharmaceuticals that could actually influence our feelings of connection and love with one another.

Many religious scientists and educated non-professionals claim to believe that the universe began with the Big Bang, and that this process is the result of divine action at the same time. However, is this kind of “dual belief system” actually possible? Can we maintain both of these ideas at once, or do we actually choose between them in different contexts? A recent study conducted by Jesse Preston of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago suggests that science and religion are unconsciously seen to be in conflict with each other.

Cities are exciting. There are the arts to stimulate the mind and countless opportunities for social interaction. Cities are also exhausting and frustrating places. Recent research suggests that the urban landscape contributes to significant impairment of mental functioning in several areas including memory, self-control, the ability to focus, and overall mood. We are more likely to be impulsive, have difficulty concentrating and be irritable in the city than we are in a natural environment with a variety of plant and animal life around us.

Recent polls conducted by the Gallup Organization (2006) as well as the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey" (2008; hereafter “Pew Survey”) have shown that women and older Americans are more likely to self identify with, and belong to, an organized religious tradition. According to the Pew Survey, all Christian traditions have a higher percentage of female membership and all other traditions have a higher percentage of male members than the national survey total. A majority of Americans self report as belonging to a Christian tradition. Many religious groups are disproportionately older than the total sample. For example, according to the Pew Survey, approximately half of all mainline Protestants and Jews are over 50 years old.

Despite many famous examples of contemporary atheism in the media, and often highly dubious claims of religions, widespread belief continues. Why? In a recent essay in the journal Nature, Pascal Boyer argues that religious belief is easier to maintain and acquire because we are predisposed to it by several cognitive traits.

People participate in religion because it makes them happy, right? Sure—plenty of studies have indicated a correlation between religious involvement and mental health, suggesting that religious commitment helps people find a sense of community, develop a support network, and weather life's ups and downs with a sense of perspective. But surprisingly, a new study done at Ohio State University suggests that the soothing effects of religious involvement might actually be reversed for people of certain ages and ethnic groups. While high levels of participation in religious communities were shown to match with higher levels of mental well-being in most U.S. adolescents, the researchers for the study found that highly religiously active Asian-American and Latino youth were more depressed, on average, than other members of their demographic groups.

Can human thought be understood as an elaborate form of computation? A quick survey of some of the most influential cognitive scientists (including Steven Pinker and Jerry Fodor) and philosophers of mind (including Daniel Dennett and Patricia Churchland) suggests that the answer is yes. This view is the “computational theory of mind” and is so widely held that it currently dominates the field of cognitive science. Even those who have argued for the importance of neurobiology for our understanding of mind have often asserted or assumed that “nervous systems are information processing machines” (Churchland, 1986, p. 36). The hot question of the moment is not, Is the brain a computer? but rather, What kind of computer is the brain?

As the saying goes, “In a sea storm, voyagers will pray to any God.” Is it true? According to researchers from the University of British Columbia it is, but only if the “voyagers” were religious to start with. Awareness of mortality intensifies belief in supernatural agents, but only in religious subjects. The researchers used four slightly different study designs (n=28, n=78, n=41, n=142). In each design participants were primed with death related contents using open-ended sentences. In non-religious subjects being primed with death related themes did not seem to increase belief in supernatural agents. Interestingly in religious subjects, belief in the supernatural increased even outside of the context of one’s own religion.

Would extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) mean the end of religion on Earth? While many non-religious people tend to think this is the case, religious believers seem to welcome such an encounter and see little threat to their beliefs according to a new report by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkley, California.

It seems that conversations about religion and cognitive science are heating up in the American Academy of Religion (AAR), the nation’s largest organization of religion scholars. At least that is what I have surmised from the most recent issue of the AAR’s Journal (June 2008), which devoted a substantial section (about 80 pages) to discussions of the import of the natural sciences for the study of religion. Two articles presented contrasting views of this import, and the authors of each article were given additional space to respond to one another.

Have you ever wanted to start believing in the supernatural? Now there is a research studies that suggest a way to inspire such beliefs. All you have to do is start feeling lonely.

The religious profile of the United States is changing as Protestants and Catholics shrink in proportion to non-Christian religions and the religiously unaffiliated. Yet people still believe in God or a higher power at the same high rates. This is the word from the latest massive survey from the Pew Charitable Trusts involving phone interviews of 35,000 Americans.

William James wrote, “The overcoming of the barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystical achievement."

Richard Dawkins said, "If you’ve had [a religious] experience, you may well find yourself believing firmly that it was real. But don’t expect the rest of us to take your word for it, especially if we have the slightest familiarity with the brain and its powerful workings.”

How can we adjudicate the conflict between affirmative and skeptical interpretations of religious experiences?

This project was dedicated to exploring important and controversial contemporary hypotheses about the relation between the brain, evolution, and religion. For example, does the human neurocognitive system exhibit specializations that support or mediate religious experience of various kinds? Are some core aspects of religious behaviors, beliefs, or experiences adaptive neurobehavioral systems? Or are they mere byproducts of an all-purpose big-brain cognitive system? That the brain somehow mediates some aspects of religiosity is a less controversial claim. But just how the brain manages that feat and what, if any, the implications are for biological anthropology, the neurosciences, theology, and society, remain unanswered questions.