*Can we make scientific predictions about the past?*
Thomas Lawson argues that “retrodiction” can guide the search for evidence of ancient religion by predicting what we should expect to find if particular hypotheses about ritual are correct.
0:00 Understanding Retrodiction
1:10 Ritual, Cave Paintings, and Difficult Access
2:47 The Limits of Retrodiction
*Ernest Thomas Lawson* is an honorary professor at the Institute of Cognition and Culture at Queen’s University Belfast. He is the executive editor of the Journal of Cognition and Culture and co-founder of the North American Association for the Study of Religion. He is a founding member and has served as the first President of the International Association for the Cognitive Science of Religion.
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Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.
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