scholarly journals Big Gods did not drive the rise of big societies throughout world history

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harvey Whitehouse ◽  
Pieter François ◽  
Daniel Hoyer ◽  
Kevin Chekov Feeney ◽  
Enrico Cioni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Complexity ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
World History ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
Global History ◽  
Time Resolved ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Analyze Data ◽  
Supernatural Punishment

The origins of religion and of complex societies represent evolutionary puzzles. The ‘Big Gods Hypothesis’ offers a solution to both puzzles by proposing that beliefs in moralizing supernatural punishment culturally evolved to facilitate cooperation among strangers in large-scale societies. Although previous research has suggested an association between the presence of Big Gods and big societies, the relationship between the two is disputed, and attempts to establish causality have been hampered by limitations in the availability of detailed global longitudinal data. To address these issues, we analyze data in the Seshat Global History Databank that coded 309 past societies for variables capturing beliefs in moralizing supernatural punisment and social complexity. The longitudinal (time-resolved) nature of Seshat data enables us to test evolutionary hypotheses about processes generating social change and distinguish between competing causal scenarios. We find that beliefs in moralizing supernatural punishment only appear after the largest increases in social complexity and that a formal analysis designed to test for causal relationships failed to detect a statistically significant effect of moralizing supernatural punishment on social complexity.

scholarly journals Explaining the Rise of Moralizing Religions: A test of competing hypotheses using the Seshat Databank

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Turchin ◽  
Harvey Whitehouse ◽  
Pieter François ◽  
Daniel Hoyer ◽  
Selin Nugent ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Complexity ◽  
World History ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Animal Husbandry ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
Global History ◽  
Differences Of Opinion ◽  
Intense Debate

The causes, consequences, and timing of the rise of moralizing religions in world history have been the focus of intense debate. Progress has been limited by the availability of quantitative data to test competing theories, by divergent ideas regarding both predictor and outcomes variables, and by differences of opinion over methodology. To address all these problems, we utilize Seshat: Global History Databank, a vast storehouse of information designed to test theories concerning the drivers of social complexity in world history. In addition to the Big Gods hypothesis, which proposes that moralizing religion contributed to the success of increasingly large-scale complex societies, we consider the role of warfare, animal husbandry, and affluence in the rise of moralizing religions. Using a broad range of nuanced measures of moralizing religion, we find strong support for previous research showing that institutions endorsing beliefs in supernatural enforcement arise after, not before, the sharpest rises in social complexity in world history. In addition, our analyses suggest that intergroup warfare, supported by resource availability, played a significant role in driving the rise of both social complexity and moralizing religions. The data, methods, and results presented in this paper have been made publicly available online for others to inspect and critique, allowing additional analyses to be run and alternative assumptions to be tested, in parallel with peer review and prior to publication.

scholarly journals Killing the Priest-King: Addressing Egalitarianism in the Indus Civilization

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam S. Green
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Complexity ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
Complex Society ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Indus Civilization ◽  
The Past

Abstract The cities of the Indus civilization were expansive and planned with large-scale architecture and sophisticated Bronze Age technologies. Despite these hallmarks of social complexity, the Indus lacks clear evidence for elaborate tombs, individual-aggrandizing monuments, large temples, and palaces. Its first excavators suggested that the Indus civilization was far more egalitarian than other early complex societies, and after nearly a century of investigation, clear evidence for a ruling class of managerial elites has yet to materialize. The conspicuous lack of political and economic inequality noted by Mohenjo-daro’s initial excavators was basically correct. This is not because the Indus civilization was not a complex society, rather, it is because there are common assumptions about distributions of wealth, hierarchies of power, specialization, and urbanism in the past that are simply incorrect. The Indus civilization reveals that a ruling class is not a prerequisite for social complexity.

Doctrinal Ritual, Identification, and Social Complexity

2021 ◽  
pp. 106-126
Author(s):  
Harvey Whitehouse
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Complexity ◽  
World History ◽  
Peer To Peer ◽  
Human Sacrifice ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Political Association ◽  
The Way

The doctrinal mode appears to have first emerged in world history with the advent of farming, helping to establish the first truly large-scale societies, in which identification with group categories became increasingly important, paving the way for new forms of political association. Many of the first states dominated by new doctrinal religions appear to have fostered extreme forms of inequality, epitomized by the deification of rulers and cruel practices, such as human sacrifice. But once societies exceeded a certain threshold in scale and complexity, the empires that seemed best able to flourish were those that adopted more ethical forms of doctrinal religion, mobilizing strong norms enforced as much by peer-to-peer policing as by top-down coercion.

scholarly journals The Transition of A Community: World History’s Shared Future for Mankind

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 195-198
Author(s):  
Libo Fang
Keyword(s):  
World History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Innovative Development ◽  
Global History ◽  
Important Link ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Common Future

The community with a shared future for mankind is taken from one of the theoretical sources, which is the innovative development of global history theory in contemporary times, which is Marx’s world history theory. A community with a shared future for humanity, on the other hand, is not the end shape of world history, but it is an important link in its growth. World history, on the other hand, being the theoretical source of a community with a shared future for mankind, includes logical stipulations on such a society. Clarifying the relationship between a community with a common future for mankind and global history, as well as accurately grasping the community’s transitional position in world history, is beneficial to better encouraging the development of a community with a shared future for mankind.

scholarly journals A new era in the study of global history is born but it needs to be nurtured

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harvey Whitehouse ◽  
Pieter François ◽  
Patrick E. Savage ◽  
Thomas E. Currie ◽  
Kevin Feeney ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
World History ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Good Faith ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
Global History ◽  
New Era ◽  
Research Assistants

In this issue, Slingerland et al. criticize the quality of the data from Seshat: Global History Databank utilized in our Nature paper entitled “Complex Societies Precede Moralizing Gods throughout World History”. Their critique centres around the roles played by research assistants and experts in procuring and curating data, periodization structure, and so-called ‘data pasting’ and ‘data filling’. We show that these criticisms are based on misunderstandings or misrepresentations of the methods used by Seshat researchers. Overall, their critique does not call into question any of our main findings, but it does highlight various shortcomings of Slingerland et al.’s rival database project. Our collective efforts to code and quantify features of global history hold out the promise of a new era in the study of global history but only if critique can be conducted in good faith, rivalries kept in check, and both promises and pitfalls of open science fully recognized.

scholarly journals Coding, causality, and statistical craft: The emergence and evolutionary drivers of moralistic supernatural punishment remain unresolved

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Grant Purzycki ◽  
Theiss Bendixen ◽  
Aaron Lightner
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Causal Inference ◽  
Social Complexity ◽  
Target Article ◽  
Data Production ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Supernatural Punishment

The target article from Turchin et al. assesses the relationship between social complexity and moralistic supernatural punishment. In our evaluation of their project, we argue that each step of its workflow -- from data production and theory to modeling and reporting -- makes it impossible to test the hypothesis that its authors claim they are testing. We focus our discussion on three important classes of issues: problems of data, analysis, and causal inference.

Relationship between total plasma homocysteine and the risk of aneurysms – a meta-analysis

VASA ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Hanji Zhang ◽  
Dexin Yin ◽  
Yue Zhao ◽  
Yezhou Li ◽  
Dejiang Yao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Total Plasma ◽  
Control Groups ◽  
Randomized Controlled ◽  
Randomized Controlled Studies ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Healthy Participants

Summary: Our meta-analysis focused on the relationship between homocysteine (Hcy) level and the incidence of aneurysms and looked at the relationship between smoking, hypertension and aneurysms. A systematic literature search of Pubmed, Web of Science, and Embase databases (up to March 31, 2020) resulted in the identification of 19 studies, including 2,629 aneurysm patients and 6,497 healthy participants. Combined analysis of the included studies showed that number of smoking, hypertension and hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy) in aneurysm patients was higher than that in the control groups, and the total plasma Hcy level in aneurysm patients was also higher. These findings suggest that smoking, hypertension and HHcy may be risk factors for the development and progression of aneurysms. Although the heterogeneity of meta-analysis was significant, it was found that the heterogeneity might come from the difference between race and disease species through subgroup analysis. Large-scale randomized controlled studies of single species and single disease species are needed in the future to supplement the accuracy of the results.

New ''Cold War''

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-34
Author(s):  
Vladimir Batiuk
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Ideological Struggle ◽  
Nuclear Arms Race ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Nuclear Arms

In this article, the ''Cold War'' is understood as a situation where the relationship between the leading States is determined by ideological confrontation and, at the same time, the presence of nuclear weapons precludes the development of this confrontation into a large-scale armed conflict. Such a situation has developed in the years 1945–1989, during the first Cold War. We see that something similar is repeated in our time-with all the new nuances in the ideological struggle and in the nuclear arms race.

Investigating Diseases and Chemicals in COVID-19 Literature with Text Mining (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Karami ◽  
Brandon Bookstaver ◽  
Melissa Nolan
Keyword(s):  
Text Mining ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Topic Modeling ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Clinical Manifestations ◽  
International Health ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Strategic Plans ◽  
Funding Agencies ◽  
The Relationship

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted nearly all aspects of life and has posed significant threats to international health and the economy. Given the rapidly unfolding nature of the current pandemic, there is an urgent need to streamline literature synthesis of the growing scientific research to elucidate targeted solutions. While traditional systematic literature review studies provide valuable insights, these studies have restrictions, including analyzing a limited number of papers, having various biases, being time-consuming and labor-intensive, focusing on a few topics, incapable of trend analysis, and lack of data-driven tools. OBJECTIVE This study fills the mentioned restrictions in the literature and practice by analyzing two biomedical concepts, clinical manifestations of disease and therapeutic chemical compounds, with text mining methods in a corpus containing COVID-19 research papers and find associations between the two biomedical concepts. METHODS This research has collected papers representing COVID-19 pre-prints and peer-reviewed research published in 2020. We used frequency analysis to find highly frequent manifestations and therapeutic chemicals, representing the importance of the two biomedical concepts. This study also applied topic modeling to find the relationship between the two biomedical concepts. RESULTS We analyzed 9,298 research papers published through May 5, 2020 and found 3,645 disease-related and 2,434 chemical-related articles. The most frequent clinical manifestations of disease terminology included COVID-19, SARS, cancer, pneumonia, fever, and cough. The most frequent chemical-related terminology included Lopinavir, Ritonavir, Oxygen, Chloroquine, Remdesivir, and water. Topic modeling provided 25 categories showing relationships between our two overarching categories. These categories represent statistically significant associations between multiple aspects of each category, some connections of which were novel and not previously identified by the scientific community. CONCLUSIONS Appreciation of this context is vital due to the lack of a systematic large-scale literature review survey and the importance of fast literature review during the current COVID-19 pandemic for developing treatments. This study is beneficial to researchers for obtaining a macro-level picture of literature, to educators for knowing the scope of literature, to journals for exploring most discussed disease symptoms and pharmaceutical targets, and to policymakers and funding agencies for creating scientific strategic plans regarding COVID-19.

scholarly journals Strategic resources and smallholder performance at the bottom of the pyramid

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Olthaar ◽  
Wilfred Dolfsma ◽  
Clemens Lutz ◽  
Florian Noseleit
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Agricultural Economics ◽  
Local Market ◽  
Bottom Of The Pyramid ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Strategic Resources ◽  
Relative Contribution ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Resource Based Theory

In a competitive business environment at the Bottom of the Pyramid smallholders supplying global value chains may be thought to be at the whims of downstream large-scale players and local market forces, leaving no room for strategic entrepreneurial behavior. In such a context we test the relationship between the use of strategic resources and firm performance. We adopt the Resource Based Theory and show that seemingly homogenous smallholders deploy resources differently and, consequently, some do outperform others. We argue that the ‘resource-based theory’ results in a more fine-grained understanding of smallholder performance than approaches generally applied in agricultural economics. We develop a mixed-method approach that allows one to pinpoint relevant, industry-specific resources, and allows for empirical identification of the relative contribution of each resource to competitive advantage. The results show that proper use of quality labor, storage facilities, time of selling, and availability of animals are key capabilities.

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