Hood, Bruce - Supersense

13.

R. Baillargeon, A. Needham, and J. DeVos, ‘The Development of Young Infants’ Intuitions About Support’, Early Development and Parenting 1 (1992): 69–78.

14.

A. Shtulman and S. Carey, ‘Improbable or Impossible? How Children Reason About the Possibility of Extraordinary Events’, Child Development 78 (2007): 1015–32.

15.

D. C. Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (Allen Lane, 2005).

16.

A. Tversky and D. Kahneman, ‘Extension Versus Intuitive Reasoning: The Conjunction Fallacy in Probability Judgement’, Psychological Review 90 (1983): 293–315.

17.

For details of the survey, see Zoological Society of London, ‘Nation’s Phobias Revealed’, 27 October, 2005, available at: http:// www.zsl.org/info/media/ press-releases/null,1780, PR.html.

18.

J. B. Watson and R. Raynor, ‘Conditioned Emotional Reactions’, Journal of Experimental Psychology 3 (1920): 1–14.

19.

M. E. P. Seligman, ‘Phobias and Preparedness’, Behaviour Therapy 2 (1971): 307–20. In reviewing all the experimental data, Rich McNally concluded that, while various aspects of Seligman’s theory are questionable, his one unquestionable assertion is that ‘most phobias are associated with threats of evolutionary significance’. R. McNally, ‘Preparedness and Phobias: A Review’, Psychological Bulletin 101 (1987): 283–303.

20.

S. Atran, In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (Oxford University Press, 2002).

21.

P. Boyer, Religion Explained: The Human Instincts That Fashion Gods, Spirits, and Ancestors (William Heinemann, 2001).

22.

R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (Penguin Books, 1986), p. 316.

23.

L. Rozenblit and F. C. Keil, ‘The Misunderstood Limits of Folk Science: An Illusion of Explanatory Depth’, Cognitive Science 26 (2002): 521–62.

24.

H. Spencer, Principles of Biology (Williams & Norgate, 1864).

25.

E. M. Evans, ‘Conceptual Change and Evolutionary Biology: A Developmental Analysis’, in Handbook of Research on Conceptual Change , edited by S. Vosniadou (Taylor & Francis Group, 2008).

26.

The majority of reef fish change sex at some point in their life, and in fact, those that do not are in the minority (source: Aaron Rice, Davidson College).

27.

Human embryos start out as female and, in the absence of a Y chromosome, continue to develop as female.

28.

Cladistics is the science of mapping the comparative genetic code of all living things to trace the tree of life. For an accessible introduction, read S. Jones, Almost Like a Whale (Doubleday, 1999).

29.

For an extensive web resource on creation myths, try ‘Magic Tails’, available at: www. magictails.com/ creationlinks.html.

30.

E.M. Evans, ‘The Emergence of Beliefs About the Origins of Species in School-Age Children’, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly: A Journal of Developmental Psychology 46 (2000): 221–54.

31.

Cited in Dawkins, The God Delusion , p. 102.

32.

Carnegie Commission, National Survey of Higher Education: Faculty Study (McGraw-Hill, 1969).

33.

Following his recent recovery, Dennett thanked friends who prayed for him: ‘Thanks, I appreciate it, but did you also sacrifice a goat?’; see www. edge.org/3rd_culture/ dennett06/ dennett06_index.html.

34.

E. H. Ecklund and C. P. Scheitle, ‘Religion Among Academic Scientists: Distinctions, Disciplines, and Demographics’, Social Problems 54 (2007): 289–307.

35.

Jan Walsh, Living TV Paranormal Report (Consumer Analysis Group, 2002).

36.

S. Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (W. W. Norton, 2004).

37.

Meera Nanda has been one of the more eloquent critics of Sam Harris; see ‘Trading Faith for Spirituality: The Mystifications of Sam Harris’ posted 16 December, 2006, http:// www.sacw.net/free/ Trading%20Faith% 20 for%20Spirituality_%20The%20 Mystifications%20of%20 Sam%20Harris.html.

38.

Dennett, Breaking the Spell p. 21.

39.

P. Zuckerman, ‘Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns’, in Cambridge Companion to Atheism , edited by M. Martin (Cambridge University Press, 2005).

40.

E. H. Lenneberg, Biological Foundations of Language (Wiley, 1967).

41.

D. S. Lundsay, P. C. Jack, and M. A. Christian, ‘Other-Race Perception’, Journal of Applied Psychology 76 (1991): 587–9.

42.

After only about twelve hours of accumulated exposure to their own mother’s face: newborns show a preference for her face compared to other mothers: I. W. R. Bushnell, ‘The Origins of Face Perception’, in The Development of Sensory, Motor, and Cognitive Capacities in Early Infancy: From Perception to Cognition , edited by F. Simion and G. Butterworth. (Psychology Press/Hove, 1998).

43.

D. J. Kelly, P. C. Quinn, A. M. Slater, K. Lee, L. Ge, and O. Pascalis, ‘The Other-Race Effect Develops During Infancy’, Psychological Science 18 (2007): 1084–9.

44.

The interview with Peter and Christopher Hitchens can be found at http:// www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/ today/listenagain/ram/ today4_20070619.ram.

45.

T. J. Bouchard Jr., M. McGue, D. Lykken, and A. Tellegen, ‘Intrinsic and Extrinsic Religiousness: Genetic and Environmental Influences and Personality Correlates’, Twin Research 2 (1999): 88–98.

46.

K. M. Kirk, L. J. Eaves, and N. G. Martin, ‘Self-transcendence as a Measure of Spirituality in a Sample of Older Australian Twins’, Twin Research 2 (1999): 81–7; L. B. Koenig, M. McGue, R. F. Krueger, and T. J. Bouchard Jr., ‘Genetic and Environmental Influences on Religiousness: Findings for Retrospective and Current Religiousness Ratings’, Journal of Personality 73 (2005): 471–88.

47.

D. Hamer, The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired into Our Genes (Doubleday, 2004).

48.

A. Newberg, E. D’Aquili, and V. Rause, Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief (Ballantine Books, 2001).

49.

Isaac Bashevis Singer, quoted by Stefan Kanfer in ‘Isaac Singer’s Promised City’, City Journal , Summer, 1997, http:// www.city-journal.org/html/ 7_3_urbanities-issac.html.

50.

M. Hutson, ‘Magical Thinking: Even Hard-core Sceptics Can’t Help but Find Sympathy in the Fabric of the Universe’, Psychology Today (March–April 2008). I e-mailed Lori Blanc, and she confirmed the reports in the press.

51.

D. Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness (HarperCollins, 2006).

CHAPTER FOUR

1.

W. James, Principles of Psychology (1890; reprint, Harvard University Press, 1983).

2.

See also J. B. Watson, Behaviourism , rev. edn (University of Chicago Press, 1930).

3.

A. Jolly, Lucy’s Legacy: Sex and Intelligence in Human Evolution (Harvard University Press, 1999).

4.

I am indebted to the neuropathologist Seth Love for confirming that there is reactivation of infantile reflexes following brain damage.

5.

J. Atkinson, B. Hood, J. Wattam-Bell, S. Anker, and J. Tricklebank, ‘Development of Orientation Discrimination in Infancy’, Perception 17 (1988), 587–95.

6.

A. J. DeCasper and M. J. Spence, ‘Prenatal Maternal Speech Influences Newborns’ Perception of Speech Sounds’, Infant Behaviour and Development 9 (1986): 133–50.

7.

P. G. Hepper, ‘Fetal “Soap” Addiction’, The Lancet (11 June, 1988); 1347–8.