The Yale Faculty Roundtable

Virtual Faculty Roundtable

God and the human mind: how do cognitive science and neuroscience interface with religion?

january 27, 2021

7:00 PM

Join us for our next virtual Faculty Roundtable to discuss God and the Human Mind with panelists Tania Lombrozo, Jordan Grafman, and Justin Barrett. We will discuss some of the latest research regarding the cognitive science and neuroscience of religion and the potential implications of those findings for religious belief.

Featured panelists

Tania Lombrozo
Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor and Associate Chair of Psychology | Director, Concepts & Cognition Lab | Princeton University

Jordan Grafman
Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences | Director, Brain Injury Research, Shirley Ryan AbilityLab | Northwestern University

Justin Barrett
Founder/President, Blueprint 1543 | Editor, Oxford University Press Handbook for Cognitive Science of Religion (forthcoming).

Suggested Pre-event Readings & videos

1. Blog post by Tania Lombrozo: Are Scientific and religious explanations incompatible?https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2015/04/13/399309391/are-scientific-and-religious-explanations-incompatible

2. A short video interview with Tania Lombrozo:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz-KjWP8r9o

3. Article on Jordan Grafman’s research: New Research Reveals the Brain’s Role in Mystical Experiences

   https://www.sralab.org/articles/news/new-research-reveals-brains-role-mystical-experiences

Additional Readings

1. Plunkett, D., Buchak, L., & Lombrozo, T. (2020). When and why people think beliefs are “debunked” by scientific explanations of their origins. Mind and Language, 35(1), 3-28. https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12238

2. Cristofori, I., Bulbulia, J., Shaver, J. H., Wilson, M., Krueger, F., & Grafman, J. (2016). Neural correlates of mystical experience. Neuropsychologia, 80, 212-220. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.11.021