title: Religious groups as adaptive units.
abstract: This essay provides a sketch of religion as a set of biologically and culturally evolved adaptations that enable human groups to function as adaptive units. Recent developments in evolutionary biology make such a group-level interpretation of religion more plausible than in the past. A brief survey of relevant concepts is followed by a relatively detailed interpretation of Calvinism as a religious system in which explicit behavioral prescriptions, beliefs about God and his relationship with people, and numerous social control mechanisms combined to change the city of Geneva from a collection of warring factions to a unified population.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Binghamton University, Binghamton, New York 13902-6000, USA.
authors.forename: D S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Wilson
mesh_terms: D003468:Cultural Evolution; D005602:France; D006126:Group Processes; D049669:History, 16th Century; D006801:Humans; D033303:Protestantism / Q000266:history; D012072:Religious Philosophies / Q000266:history*