Dr. John Teehan, Hofstra University Professor, spoke on February 7, 2016 at the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island about “The Empathetic Ape: How Evolution Shaped the Human Capacity to Love.”

Dr. John Teehan explored the evolutionary basis for empathy, and consider the ways the capacity to love has been built into the very structures of our brain.

Dr. Teehan is Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion, Hofstra University. His main research focus is on the cognitive/evolutionary study of morality and religion, with a special interest in religious morality and religion’s role in conflict. He explored these topics in his book, In the Name of God: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Ethics and Violence (2010, Wiley-Blackwell). His work is concerned with the interaction of cognitive-evolutionary theories and the philosophy of religion, particularly as this relates to the Problem of Evil and questions of religious belief. He writes and lectures widely on these topics. Dr. Teehan is also on the editorial board of Evolutionary Psychological Science, and Associate Editor of Science, Religion and Culture.

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