ISSR Project: Religion and the Social Brain, by Fraser Watts
ISSR is currently running a major research project on Religion and the Social Brain, directed by Michael J. Reiss and co-ordinated by myself, with a grant of £759,320 from the Templeton Religion Trust. The ‘social brain’ theory of human evolution has been developed by Robin Dunbar, a Fellow of ISSR, who is one of the key researchers on the project. Other ISSR Fellows working on it are Léon Turner and Miguel Farias. There are subgrants to the University of Oxford and to Coventry University. ‘Social Brain’ is a broad approach to human evolution, unlike the Cognitive Science of Religion which focuses specifically on religion. There is an outline of the Social Brain theory in Dunbar’s Pelican Introduction to Human Evolution. Though he takes a view of how and