Three evolutionary radiations shaped the evolution of global religious diversity.

Abstract

Religious diversity has had profound consequences in human history, but the dynamics of how it evolves remain unclear. One unresolved question is the extent to which religious denominations accumulate gradually or are generated in rapid bursts associated with specific historical events. Anecdotal evidence tends to favour the second view, but quantitative evidence on a global scale is lacking. Phylogenetic methods that treat religious denominations as evolving lineages can help to resolve this question. Here we apply computational phylogenetic methods to a purpose-built data set documenting 291 religious denominations and their genealogical relationships to derive dated phylogenies of three families of world religions – Indo-Iranian, Islamic, and Judeo-Christian. We model the birth of new denominations along the branches of these phylogenies, test for shifts in the birth rate, and draw tentative links between the shifts we find and religious history. We find evidence for birth rate shifts in the Islamic and Judeo-Christian families, corresponding to at least three separate events that have shaped global religious diversity.

Authors

Anastasia Ejova, Oliver Sheehan, Remco R. Bouckaert, Simon J. Greenhill, Jan Krátký, Silvie Kotherová, Jakub Cigán, Eva Kundtová Klocová, Radek Kundt, Joseph Watts, Joseph Bulbulia, Quentin D. Atkinson, Russell D. Gray

Citation

Ejova A, Sheehan O, Bouckaert R, Greenhill SJ, Krátký J, Kotherová S, Cigán J, Kundtová Klocová E, Kundt R, Watts J, Bulbulia J, Atkinson QD & Gray RD. 2025. Three evolutionary radiations shaped the evolution of global religious diversity. Evolutionary Human Sciences, 7, e43.

Published 15 December 2025

@article{Ejova2025,
  title = {Three evolutionary radiations shaped the evolution of global religious diversity.},
  author = {Ejova, Anastasia and Sheehan, Oliver and Bouckaert, Remco R. and Greenhill, Simon J. and Krátký, Jan and Kotherová, Silvie and Cigán, Jakub and Klocová, Eva Kundtová and Kundt, Radek and Watts, Joseph and Bulbulia, Joseph and Atkinson, Quentin D. and Gray, Russell D.},
  journal = {Evolutionary Human Sciences},
  volume = {7},
  publisher = {Cambridge University Press (CUP)},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1017/ehs.2025.10027},
  url = {https://simon.net.nz/articles/global-religious-diversity/},
}

1 citations · FWCI 1.9 · OpenAlex