382 research outputs found
An Edge Discussion of BEYOND BELIEF: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival Salk Institue, La Jolla November 5-7, 2006 (S. Atran, N. Humphrey, S. Harris, D. Dennett, C. Porco, N. Chomsky)
No full textAn Edge Discussion of BEYOND BELIEF: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival Salk Institue, La Jolla November 5-7, 2006Scott Atran: I find it fascinating that brilliant scientists and philosophers have no clue how to deal with the basic irrationality of human life and society other than to insist against all reason and evidence that things ought to be rational and evidence based. [more...] Nicholas Humphrey: Scott Atran's warning against scientific triumphalism is interesting and persuasive — and a wonderful piece to have on Edge. [more...] Sam Harris: Atran makes insupportable claims about religion as though they were self-evident: like "religious beliefs are not false in the usual sense of failing to meet truth conditions"; they are, rather, like "poetic metaphors" which are "literally senseless." How many devout Christians or Muslims would recognize their own faith in this neutered creed? [more...] Daniel C. Dennett: Scientists who are atheists — surely a much larger proportion than the general public realizes — have a difficult unsolved problem of how to balance their allegiance to the truth against their appreciation of the social impact of some truths and hence the need for diplomacy and reticence. Not surprisingly, most scientists "solve" this problem with silence, but silence can be just as culpable as lying. [more...] Scott Atran: And while I'm on the subject of religious beliefs and their contents, and how they are transmitted, let me address the view, first proposed by Dawkins and popularized by Dennett, that religions are composed of memes. [more...] Carolyn Porco: Imagine my shock to see my tongue-in-cheek call for a 'Church of Science' taken with utter seriousness by Atran, and publications such as The Boston Herald, i.e., as a call for an organization as dogmatic and as unaccepting of criticism as most formal religions are today....I meant nothing of the kind. [more...] Noam Chomsky: On the ordinary problems of human life, science tells us very little, and scientists as people are surely no guide. In fact they are often the worst guide, because they often tend to focus, laser-like, on their professional interests and know very little about the world. [more...
An Edge Discussion of BEYOND BELIEF: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival Salk Institue, La Jolla November 5-7, 2006 (S. Atran, N. Humphrey, S. Harris, D. Dennett, C. Porco, N. Chomsky)
No full textAn Edge Discussion of BEYOND BELIEF: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival Salk Institue, La Jolla November 5-7, 2006Scott Atran: I find it fascinating that brilliant scientists and philosophers have no clue how to deal with the basic irrationality of human life and society other than to insist against all reason and evidence that things ought to be rational and evidence based. [more...] Nicholas Humphrey: Scott Atran's warning against scientific triumphalism is interesting and persuasive — and a wonderful piece to have on Edge. [more...] Sam Harris: Atran makes insupportable claims about religion as though they were self-evident: like "religious beliefs are not false in the usual sense of failing to meet truth conditions"; they are, rather, like "poetic metaphors" which are "literally senseless." How many devout Christians or Muslims would recognize their own faith in this neutered creed? [more...] Daniel C. Dennett: Scientists who are atheists — surely a much larger proportion than the general public realizes — have a difficult unsolved problem of how to balance their allegiance to the truth against their appreciation of the social impact of some truths and hence the need for diplomacy and reticence. Not surprisingly, most scientists "solve" this problem with silence, but silence can be just as culpable as lying. [more...] Scott Atran: And while I'm on the subject of religious beliefs and their contents, and how they are transmitted, let me address the view, first proposed by Dawkins and popularized by Dennett, that religions are composed of memes. [more...] Carolyn Porco: Imagine my shock to see my tongue-in-cheek call for a 'Church of Science' taken with utter seriousness by Atran, and publications such as The Boston Herald, i.e., as a call for an organization as dogmatic and as unaccepting of criticism as most formal religions are today....I meant nothing of the kind. [more...] Noam Chomsky: On the ordinary problems of human life, science tells us very little, and scientists as people are surely no guide. In fact they are often the worst guide, because they often tend to focus, laser-like, on their professional interests and know very little about the world. [more...
Démembrement social et remembrement agraire dans un village palestinien
No full textAtran Scott. Démembrement social et remembrement agraire dans un village palestinien. In: L'Homme, 1985, tome 25 n°96. pp. 111-135
Constraints on a Theory of Hominid Tool-Making Behavior
No full textAtran Scott. Constraints on a Theory of Hominid Tool-Making Behavior. In: L'Homme, 1982, tome 22 n°2. pp. 35-68
Conf * Scott Atran * Will to fight * 2 février 2017
No full text2 février 2017 - Will to Fight: Devoted Actors and the Spiritual Dimension of Human Conflict - Scott Atran http://www.fmsh.fr/fr/recherche/27825 Maison Suger | 17h-19h 16/18 rue Suger 75006 Paris Inscription obligatoir
A dialogue on why Western youth are attracted to ISIS
No full textInternational audienceScott Atran is an anthropologist who emphasizes direct observation of human behavior and the interpretation of the meanings that people give to their experiences. Since his speech to the UN, Scott Atran acquired new findings about the ways in which Muslim youths are joining ISIS that show some markedly different recruitment patterns. In psychological experiments on the frontlines in northern Iraq with Kurdish fighters of the Peshmerga and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), with captured ISIS fighters, and with Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda) fighters from Syria, people have a good initial indication of willingness to fight. Two principal factors interact to predict readiness to make costly sacrifices. The first factor is perception of relative commitment of one's own group versus those of the enemy to a sacred cause. The second factor in predicting willingness to fight is the degree of fusion with one's comrades
A dialogue on why Western youth are attracted to ISIS
No full textInternational audienceScott Atran is an anthropologist who emphasizes direct observation of human behavior and the interpretation of the meanings that people give to their experiences. Since his speech to the UN, Scott Atran acquired new findings about the ways in which Muslim youths are joining ISIS that show some markedly different recruitment patterns. In psychological experiments on the frontlines in northern Iraq with Kurdish fighters of the Peshmerga and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), with captured ISIS fighters, and with Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda) fighters from Syria, people have a good initial indication of willingness to fight. Two principal factors interact to predict readiness to make costly sacrifices. The first factor is perception of relative commitment of one's own group versus those of the enemy to a sacred cause. The second factor in predicting willingness to fight is the degree of fusion with one's comrades
Evolution and Devolution of Knowledge: A Tale of Two Biologies
No full textAnthropological inquiry suggests that all societies classify animals and plants in similar ways. Paradoxically, in the same cultures that have seen large advances in biological science, citizenry's practical knowledge of nature has dramatically diminished. Here we describe historical, cross-cultural and developmental research on how people ordinarily conceptualize organic nature (folkbiology), concentrating on cognitive consequences associated with knowledge devolution. We show that results on psychological studies of categorization and reasoning from “standard populations” fail to generalize to humanity at large. Usual populations (Euro-American college students) have impoverished experience with nature, which yields misleading results about knowledge acquisition and the ontogenetic relationship between folkbiology and folkpsychology. We also show that groups living in the same habitat can manifest strikingly distinct behaviors, cognitions and social relations relative to it. This has novel implications for environmental decision making and management, including commons problems.
Scott Atran. — Fondements de l’Histoire naturelle. Pour une anthropologie de la science, Paris, Editions Complexes, 1986, (Collection «Le genre humain»)
No full textJamin Jean. Scott Atran. — Fondements de l’Histoire naturelle. Pour une anthropologie de la science, Paris, Editions Complexes, 1986, (Collection «Le genre humain»). In: Gradhiva : revue d'histoire et d'archives de l'anthropologie, n°2, 1987. p. 65
Small Groups Find Fatal Purpose Through the Web
No full textPress Release Terrorism: Suicide attackers spurred by Internet and lack of ties (p620) Would-be suicide bombers are encouraged to carry out their plans because they tend to live in small groups with fervent political opinions, say the authors of a Correspondence in this week's Nature. Previous analyses have tended to assume that such attackers are focused on clear political aims, such as the emancipation of their native country, but many militants cite more general reasons for their actions, such as fighting against a perceived global evil. Scott Atran and Jessica Stern point to interviews with would-be suicide bombers and their supporters, and conclude that terrorist inclinations are fostered in people who feel humiliated, either through their own experiences or by empathizing with perceived victims of ill-treatment, such as the Abu Ghraib prisoners frequently depicted in the media. These drives can overcome rational self-interest and are not consistent with the dispassionate cost-benefit analyses often attributed to organized suicide bombers, Atran and Stern argue. Instead these impulses are fostered through isolation from the host society, perhaps through emigration, which leads to a situation in which people can be influenced by a small, strongly ideological social network. The effect is strengthened by access to the Internet, the authors point out - over the past five years, Islamic 'jihadi' websites have swelled in number from fewer than 20 to more than 4,000
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