From ScienceDaily:
Belief in God and prejudice reduced by directing magnetic energy into the brain
The findings, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, reveal that people in whom the targeted brain region was temporarily shut down reported 32.8% less belief in God, angels, or heaven. They were also 28.5% more positive in their feelings toward an immigrant who criticised their country. Dr Izuma, from the University’s Department of Psychology, said: “People often turn to ideology when they are confronted by problems. We wanted to find out whether a brain region that is linked with solving concrete problems, like deciding how to move one’s body to overcome an obstacle, is also involved in solving abstract problems addressed by ideology.”
This interest in the brain basis of ideology led the team to focus on religion and nationalism.
Dr Izuma added: “We decided to remind people of death because previous research has shown that people turn to religion for comfort in the face of death. As expected, we found that when we experimentally turned down the posterior medial frontal cortex, people were less inclined to reach for comforting religious ideas despite having been reminded of death.” More.
I guess they had to do something to compete with the God helmet, right?
See also: Go to church? You’re infected with a devout microbe
The problem is, this stuff, like evolutionary psychology, is nearly impossible to spoof. The best one could manage is likely a Sokal hoax, but the right person might find it fun.
See also: Evolutionary conundrum: is religion a useful, useless, or harmful adaptation?
and
Imagine a world of religions that naturalism might indeed be able to explain
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