Patrick Savage, Associate Professor, Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University, Harvey White, University of Oxford, UK, said that the evolution of the complexity of human society may have resulted in the birth of religions and beliefs around the world. It was found by a large-scale big data analysis by Professor Haus and Professor Peter Turchin of the University of Connecticut.The research results were published in the English scientific journal "Nature".
According to Keio University, the International Collaborative Research Group has collected more than 1 historical records of human evolution over 20 years from more than 400 countries around the world, built an open access database named "Seshut", and analyzed big data. I proceeded.
As a result, he found that religious belief in God was the result of the evolution of social complexity and not the cause.In the past, the hypothesis that people came to cooperate by worshiping God and a large-scale society was formed was predominant, but the result was overturned.
Religious rituals in particular tended to appear hundreds of years before the birth of God's faith.The research group believes that collective action through religious ceremonies encouraged people's cooperation and contributed to the formation of a large-scale human society.
In the future, the research group will proceed with large-scale big data analysis on hypotheses that have not been scientifically proven, such as the formation of human society and agriculture, and the causal relationship between wars.
Paper information:[Nature] Complex societies preceded moralizing gods throughout world history
