Understanding cause-and-effect relationships is essential for credible research and informed decision-making. The Data Analyst’s Guide to Cause and Effect offers a clear, practical roadmap for answering causal questions using both experimental and observational data.Built around the EEESI workflow—Estimand, Estimator, Estimate, Simulation-based Inference—this book provides a systematic approach to defining, estimating, and validating causal effects. Readers will le...

Discover Earth as you've never seen it before, in this stunning and unique collection of satellite images that offer an unexpected look at our planet. A perfect gift for young National Geographic fans and atlas enthusiasts!When astronauts look down at our planet and see its vibrant surface shining against the blackness of space, they experience the Overview Effect--a sense of awe, an awareness that everything is interconnected, and an overwhelming desire t...

A stunning and unique collection of satellite images of Earth that offer an unexpected look at humanity, derived from the wildly popular Daily Overview Instagram project.Inspired by the “Overview Effect”—a sensation that astronauts experience when given the opportunity to look down and view the Earth as a whole—the breathtaking, high definition satellite photographs in OVERVIEW offer a new way to look at the landscape that we have shaped. More than 200 ima...

A stunning and unique collection of satellite images of Earth that offer an unexpected look at humanity, derived from the wildly popular Daily Overview Instagram project.Inspired by the “Overview Effect”—a sensation that astronauts experience when given the opportunity to look down and view the Earth as a whole—the breathtaking, high definition satellite photographs in OVERVIEW offer a new way to look at the landscape that we have shaped. More than 200 ima...

This method involves research participants listing what they know or think about the researcher’s topic of interest. While researchers typically report these free-list analyses in isolation, this book incorporates them with other analytical methods and demonstrates how ethnographic free-lists and the study of cultural models can be useful to a broad social science audience. The first half of the book covers descriptive methods, and the second half incorporates insights from the early chapt...

The relationship between religion and morality has been a steadfast topic of inquiry since the dawn of the social sciences. This Element probes how the social sciences have addressed this relationship by detailing how theory and method have evolved over the past few generations. Sections 1 and 2 examine the historical roots of cross-cultural inquiry and Section 3 addresses the empirical tools developed to address cross-cultural patterns statistically. Sections 4-6 address how the contempor...

This volume assesses the role of religion in cooperation and prosocial behaviour using ethnographic and experimental methods across eight different field sites. The first of two volumes presents results from the first phase of the Evolution of Religion and Morality (ERM) Project.Using a unique combination of both experimental and ethnographic methods, the ERM project addresses pressing questions from the burgeoning cultural evolutionary sciences of religion:What is th...

This volume draws on a unique dataset to answer pressing questions about human religiosity. Building upon the first volume in this series, it presents results from the second phase of the Evolution of Religion and Morality (ERM) project.The second volume investigates key questions in the evolutionary and cognitive sciences of religion and highlights cultural variability and context specificity of diverse religious systems. Chapters draw on a dataset comprising 2,228 participants fr...

Why are humans obsessed with divine minds? What do gods know and what do they care about? What happens to us and our relationships when gods are involved?Drawing from neuroscience, evolutionary, cultural, and applied anthropology, social psychology, religious studies, philosophy, technology, and cognitive and political sciences, The Minds of Gods probes these questions from a multitude of naturalistic perspectives. Each chapter offers brief intellectual histories of their ...

A scientist integrates evolutionary biology, genetics, psychology, economics, and more to explore the development and workings of human societies."There is no good reason why human societies should not be described and explained with the same precision and success as the rest of nature." Thus argues evolutionary psychologist Pascal Boyer in this uniquely innovative book.Integrating recent insights from evolutionary biology, genetics, psychol...

A radical exploration of how rituals have influenced history over thousands of years. From infancy, we copy those around us in order to be like others, to be one with the tribe. Other primates will copy behaviour that leads to transparent benefits, such as access to food, but only humans promiscuously copy actions that have no obvious instrumental purpose. The copying of causally opaque behaviour (rituals) has allowed cultural groups to proliferate over time and space. The...

An expansive look at how culture shapes our emotions—and how we can benefit, as individuals and a society, from less anger and more shameThe world today is full of anger. Everywhere we look, we see values clashing and tempers rising, in ways that seem frenzied, aimless, and cruel. At the same time, we witness political leaders and others who lack any sense of shame, even as they display carelessness with the truth and the common good. In How to Do Things with E...