New! Sign up for our free email newsletter.
Science News
from research organizations

Complex societies gave birth to big gods, not the other way around [Update: Retraction Note]

Big data analyses suggest that moralizing gods are rather the product than the drivers of social complexity

Date:
March 20, 2019
Source:
Complexity Science Hub Vienna
Summary:
Big data analyses by an international research team suggest that moralizing gods are rather the product than the drivers of social complexity. [Update: See Retraction Note in journal reference below.]
Share:
FULL STORY

UPDATE:

See Retraction Note in the journal reference listed below (added July 7, 2021; updated July 22, 2021). 


Original News Release:

An international research team, including a member of the Complexity Science Hub Vienna, investigated the role of "big gods" in the rise of complex large-scale societies. Big gods are defined as moralizing deities who punish ethical transgressions. Contrary to prevailing theories, the team found that beliefs in big gods are a consequence, not a cause, of the evolution of complex societies. The results are published in the current issue of the journal Nature.

For their statistical analyses the researchers used the Seshat: Global History Databank, the most comprehensive, and constantly growing collection of historical and prehistorical data. Currently Seshat contains about 300,000 records on social complexity, religion, and other characteristics of 500 past societies, spanning 10,000 years of human history.

"It has been a debate for centuries why humans, unlike other animals, cooperate in large groups of genetically unrelated individuals," says Seshat director and co-author Peter Turchin from the University of Connecticut and the Complexity Science Hub Vienna. Factors such as agriculture, warfare, or religion have been proposed as main driving forces.

One prominent theory, the big or moralizing gods hypothesis, assumes that religious beliefs were key. According to this theory people are more likely to cooperate fairly if they believe in gods who will punish them if they don't. "To our surprise, our data strongly contradict this hypothesis," says lead author Harvey Whitehouse. "In almost every world region for which we have data, moralizing gods tended to follow, not precede, increases in social complexity." Even more so, standardized rituals tended on average to appear hundreds of years before gods who cared about human morality.

Such rituals create a collective identity and feelings of belonging that act as social glue, making people to behave more cooperatively. "Our results suggest that collective identities are more important to facilitate cooperation in societies than religious beliefs," says Harvey Whitehouse.

Big data: a new approach to social theories

Until recently it has been impossible to distinguish between cause and effect in social theories and history, as standardized quantitative data from throughout world history were missing. To address this problem, data and social scientist Peter Turchin, together with Harvey Whitehouse and Pieter François from the University of Oxford, founded Seshat in 2011. The multidisciplinary project integrates the expertise of historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, social scientists as well as data scientists into a state-of-the-art, open-access database. Dozens of experts throughout the world helped to assemble detailed data on social complexity and religious beliefs and practices from hundreds of independent political units ("polities"), beginning with Neolithic Anatolians (today Turkey) in 9600 BCE.

The complexity of a society can be estimated by social characteristics such as population, territory, and sophistication of government institutions and information systems. Religious data include the presence of beliefs in supernatural enforcement of reciprocity, fairness, and loyalty, and the frequency and standardization of religious rituals.

"Seshat allows researchers to analyze hundreds of variables relating to social complexity, religion, warfare, agriculture and other features of human culture and society that vary over time and space," explains Pieter François. "Now that the database is ready for analysis, we are poised to test a long list of theories about human history." This includes competing theories of how and why humans evolved to cooperate in large-scale societies of millions and more people.

"Seshat is an unprecedented collaboration between anthropologists, historians, archaeologists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and evolutionary scientists," says Patrick Savage, corresponding author of the article. "It shows how big data can revolutionize the study of human history."


Story Source:

Materials provided by Complexity Science Hub Vienna. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal References:

  1. Harvey Whitehouse, Pieter François, Patrick E. Savage, Thomas E. Currie, Kevin C. Feeney, Enrico Cioni, Rosalind Purcell, Robert M. Ross, Jennifer Larson, John Baines, Barend ter Haar, Alan Covey, Peter Turchin. RETRACTED ARTICLE: Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history. Nature, 2019; 568 (7751): 226 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1043-4
  2. Harvey Whitehouse, Pieter François, Patrick E. Savage, Thomas E. Currie, Kevin C. Feeney, Enrico Cioni, Rosalind Purcell, Robert M. Ross, Jennifer Larson, John Baines, Barend ter Haar, Alan Covey, Peter Turchin. Retraction Note: Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history. Nature, 2021; 595 (7866): 320 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03656-3

Cite This Page:

Complexity Science Hub Vienna. "Complex societies gave birth to big gods, not the other way around [Update: Retraction Note]." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 20 March 2019. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190320141116.htm>.
Complexity Science Hub Vienna. (2019, March 20). Complex societies gave birth to big gods, not the other way around [Update: Retraction Note]. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 3, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190320141116.htm
Complexity Science Hub Vienna. "Complex societies gave birth to big gods, not the other way around [Update: Retraction Note]." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190320141116.htm (accessed December 3, 2024).

Explore More

from ScienceDaily

RELATED STORIES