The manufacture of hope : religion, eschatology and the culture of optimism

This article builds on earlier research, which concludes that societies cannot sustain themselves without cultures of optimism. These cultures are reproduced by a complex of ‘optimism promoters’, all of which can be seen to be engaged in a kind of unstated or ‘implicit’ cultural policy, with the production of optimism as one of its goals. The institution of religion is part of this complex. Its role in the production of optimism is the focus of this article, with particular reference to soteriology (theories of salvation) and eschatology. From a ‘detached’ and ‘functionalist’ perspective, it analyses how religions manufacture hope through (1) the production of meaning; (2) through their models of divine justice; and (3) through theories of ultimate destiny. These matters are discussed in relation to Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. The article concludes that the optimisms of religion are of a quite different order from those promoted by other institutions

General discussion

SCOPUS: cp.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Conceptual barriers to progress within evolutionary biology

In spite of its success, Neo-Darwinism is faced with major conceptual barriers to further progress, deriving directly from its metaphysical foundations. Most importantly, neo-Darwinism fails to recognize a fundamental cause of evolutionary change, “niche construction”. This failure restricts the generality of evolutionary theory, and introduces inaccuracies. It also hinders the integration of evolutionary biology with neighbouring disciplines, including ecosystem ecology, developmental biology, and the human sciences. Ecology is forced to become a divided discipline, developmental biology is stubbornly difficult to reconcile with evolutionary theory, and the majority of biologists and social scientists are still unhappy with evolutionary accounts of human behaviour. The incorporation of niche construction as both a cause and a product of evolution removes these disciplinary boundaries while greatly generalizing the explanatory power of evolutionary theory