Weird Science // Current

Miracle Fruit Tablets Turns Sour into Sweet

Thats right, eat something that is sour and these tablets will turn it into a sweet... more

JClem
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18 days ago
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Do some birds have magnetic eyes?

Scientists have discovered that birds like the European robin are able to navigate... more

richjm
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19 days ago
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Mind Control Advertising?

Trolling down the street in Manhattan, I suddenly hear a woman's voice. "Who's... more

jcwelker
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1 year ago
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Solitude contributes to a person's imagined intimacy with a TV character

If your best friend is a guy from "The Office" or a young doctor on "Grey's Anatomy,"... more

pjacobs51
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23 days ago
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Science's 25 extreme research experiments

Science has, and still does, conduct some of the most extreme experiments -- some... more

Skyscraper08
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25 days ago
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Unicycling clown fails to distract mobile phone users

This is my kind of science experiment. Researchers who wanted to explore the... more

richjm
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1 month ago
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US city of Houston to be shielded from extreme weather by giant dome?

With extreme weather conditions affecting the city of Houston, TX, scientists are... more

Skyscraper08
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1 month ago
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The Earth and Jupiter in the same picture - humbling or boring?

The thumbnail isn't much but click the link and you'll see this photograph of Earth... more

richjm
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1 month ago
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Did Evolution of Human Imagination 50,000 Years Ago Trigger Belief in God?

French-British anthropologist, Maurice Bloch, of the London School of Economics believes that humans alone practice religion because they're the only creatures to have evolved imagination. The development of imagination occurred at the time of the Upper Palaeolithic 'revolution' 40-50,000 years ago. Bloch challenges the popular notion that religion evolved and spread because it promoted social bonding, as has been argued by some anthropologists (Image is prehistoric rock painting from south of Spain).

According to Bloch's theory, initially humans had to develop the essential brain architecture to imagine things and beings that don't exist physically, and the possibility that people somehow survive on after their death.

Once this was acquired, we had access to a form of social interaction unavailable to any other creatures on the planet. Exclusively, humans could use what Bloch calls the "transcendental social" to unite with groups, such as nations and clans, or even with imaginary groups such as the dead. He explained that the transcendental social also permits humans to follow the idealized codes of conduct linked with religion.

"What the transcendental social requires is the ability to live very largely in the imagination," New Scientist magazine quoted him, as saying.

"One can be a member of a transcendental group, or a nation, even though one never comes in contact with the other members of it. Moreover, the composition of such groups, whether they are clans or nations, may equally include the living and the dead," he added.

He argues that no animals, not even our nearest relatives the chimpanzees, can do this. Instead, he says, they're restricted to the routine and Machiavellian social interactions of everyday life.

The reason for this, he says, is that they can't imagine beyond this immediate social circle, or backwards and forwards in time, in the same way that humans can.

Bloch believes our ancestors evolved the essential neural architecture to imagine before or around a time called the Upper Palaeological Revolution, the final sub-division of the Stone Age.

"The transcendental network can, with no problem, include the dead, ancestors and gods, as well as living role holders and members of essentialised groups," he said.

"Ancestors and gods are compatible with living elders or members of nations because all are equally mysterious invisible, in other words transcendental," he added.But Bloch argues that religion is only one expression of this exceptional ability to form bonds with non-existent or distant people or value-systems.

"Religious-like phenomena in general are an inseparable part of a key adaptation unique to modern humans, and this is the capacity to imagine other worlds, an adaptation that I argue is the very foundation of the sociality of modern human society," he said.

"Once we realize this omnipresence of the imaginary in the everyday, nothing special is left to explain concerning religion," he added.French-British anthropologist, Maurice Bloch, of the London School of Economics... more