The magazine of the european research area European Commission Copenhagen, a missed chance?

 

  Public management of deviancy

 

 

http://ec.europa.eu/research/

social-sciences/projects/052_en.html

  

CRCC

  

www.ub.edu/ospdh/en/page/

crime-repression-cost-context-crcc

  

Crimprev

 

 31 partners – 10 countries  

(BE-DE-ES-FR-GR-IT-NL-PT-SL-UK)

  

www.gern-cnrs.com/gern/index.

php?id=4

   

Bibliography on the subject

 http://prison.eu.org/rubrique210.html

PRISONS

© Shutt

erst

ock/Igorsk

y

---

38 research

*

eu No. 63 | APRIL 2010

C

an science explain religion? Science 

and religion take what have always 

been seen as radically different 

views of reality. Throughout history 

there has been heated debate over their many 

divergences, sometimes fruitful but at other 

times controversial, and as much a source of 

misunderstanding as of emulation. For many 

years scientists working in fields as diverse as 

history, anthropology, biology, neuroscience 

and psychology have been attempting to top-

ple religion from its pedestal in order to arrive 

at an empirical understanding and establish 

a scientific body of knowledge on the subject. 

The Explaining Religion (EXREL) project falls 

within this framework and is one of the most 

ambitious projects in the field of the new cogni-

tive science of religion. Its aim, according to 

project coordinator and anthropologist Harvey 

Whitehouse, is “to explain how religious systems 

are created and transmitted and to understand 

the causes of religious variants.” EXREL is a multi-

disciplinary platform, coordinated by Oxford 

University (UK), bringing together 10 European 

teams at the leading edge of research in a range 

of fields (biology, psychology, anthropology 

and religious history), which are collaborating 

to explore the origins of religion. 

Familiar universals

The cornerstone of this interdisciplinary 

research project, which will last for three years 

(2008-2010), is the idea that religious thinking 

and behaviour share a set of universal charac-

teristics, including belief in God, spirits or ances-

tors, the practice of rituals charged with symbolic 

significance, belief in an afterlife, the attribution 

of misfortune or chance to transcendental 

causes, crediting the authorship of written or 

other types of testimony to a divine entity and 

the endowment of natural characteristics with 

an intentional design.

“It is remarkable to find that, irrespective of 

their cultural environment, people have arrived 

at similar sets of ideas throughout the world”, 

says Harvey Whitehouse. There has been no 

systematic study of the origins of these recur-

ring themes throughout history and cultures, 

a shortcoming that EXREL proposes to rectify. 

He believes that the thoughts and beliefs com-

monly grouped under the term religion are 

rooted in the evolution of human history and 

are the product of characteristics inherent 

in  the cognitive development of our brain 

architecture. This is currently the dominant 

Taxpayers’ money should not be spent on bizarre things like defining God, 

quotes British newspaper the Daily Telegraph (

1

). The newspaper reports 

criticisms by UK campaign group the Taxpayers' Alliance that some European 

Commission – funded projects are costly, wild and unnecessary. Their list 

includes Explaining Religion (EXREL), a programme that has been awarded 

a grant of nearly EUR 2 million. The programme seeks not to “define God”, 

as the campaign group claims, but “to understand both what is universal 

and cross-culturally variant in religious traditions as well as the cognitive 

mechanisms that undergird religious thinking and behaviour”.

Where does religious thoug