Please bring a potluck dinner item, finger foods, drinks, etc, but hey, please come without if you don't have time. We probably won't eat till 7:00, or so, so don't worry about being exactly on time. Your company's more important than your food. After dinner, those that wish can settle down and have some discussion.

Discussion topics:

• Tribalism, not religion.
  
• Well, we all had a mighty nice time at the big Darwin revival recently. The eminent Reverend Dawkins came to town and preached a rousing sermon about Darwin and evolution that had the congregation on its feet. We were all well moved. And for the communion he gave signatures to all who waited to keep as relics of the event, and there were other relics for sale from the vendors. … ;)

  I must confess I was really caught up in the moment, like many others, some of which you can view here: http://tinyurl.com/dj... (Turn up the volume to get the real effect of being there. It was a huge ovation at the start). One can only imagine the trepidation of those sitting amongst the throng who hold contrary opinions about Prof. Dawkins and the subject matter. I’m sure it was eye-opening for them. The presentation and Q&A were, of course, entirely civil, except for an outburst by one person toward the end, which you can also see online.

  How would an anthropologist describe the events above? I mean, we all enjoy thinking about our science and it makes good sense to us, of course. But how do we differ from and what do we share with supernatural believers, in terms of our behavior? This is something we all have to consider as a part of keeping ourselves honest and keeping our sense of perspective.

  E. O. Wilson, the eminent evolutionary biologist and originator of sociobiology, uses the term tribalism instead of religion to describe the group behaviors that we all seem to share, such as that described above.

  You can hear Prof. Wilson discuss tribalism and religion here:
  http://www.youtube.co...

  And you can view the entire wide-ranging 3 hour interview on CSPAN here:
  http://www.booktv.org...

  And here is an article by Wilson that discusses the tribalism toward the end.
  http://harvardmagazin...

  Here is general information on tribalism.
  http://en.wikipedia.o...
  http://www.google.com...

• Future activities brainstorming