The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures

A New York Times science reporter makes a startling new case that religion has an evolutionary basis.

For the last 50,000 years, and probably much longer, people have practiced religion. Yet little attention has been given to the question of whether this universal human behavior might have been implanted in human nature. In this original and thought-provoking work, Nicholas Wade traces how religion grew to be so essential to early societies in their struggle for survival, how an instinct for faith became hardwired into human nature, and how it provided an impetus for law and government. The Faith Instinct offers an objective and nonpolemical exploration of humanity's quest for spiritual transcendence.

Author: Nicholas Wade
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 09/28/2010
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.39h x 5.53w x 0.69d
ISBN13: 9780143118190
ISBN10: 0143118196
BISAC Categories:
- Religion | Religion & Science
- Social Science | Sociology of Religion
- Science | Life Sciences | Evolution

About the Author
Nicholas Wade received a BA in natural sciences from King's College, Cambridge. He was the deputy editor of Nature magazine in London and then became that journal's Washington correspondent. He joined Science magazine in Washington as a reporter and later moved to The New York Times, where he has been an editorial writer, concentrating on issues of defense, space, science, medicine, technology, genetics, molecular biology, the environment, and public policy, a science reporter, and a science editor.