The Covid-19 pandemic has shed light on the multiple layers of health inequities that exist in the areas of maternal, mental, geriatric, and child health. Patient narratives, surveys, and health outcomes data reported by hospitals illustrate how rising healthcare costs…
Threads of both vaccine development and vaccine resistance can be found throughout the course of American history. Hesitancy over vaccine development was prominent before the first vaccine was created, and continues to grow today despite technological advancements and refined experimentation.…
Cognitive Science of Religion The Colloquium, convened by Dr. Wesley J. Wildman, meets weekly for interdisciplinary discussions of the scientific study of religion. The group is a friendly and supportive environment for people making their way in the scientific study…
The first season of our podcast DigEthix, hosted by CMAC Doctoral Fellow Seth Villegas, has wrapped. The podcast breaks down issues of ethics and technology from both a technical and sociopolitical perspective. Our goal is to help the next generation…
Wesley Wildman, Connor Wood, Catherine Caldwell-Harris, Aimee S. Radom, Nicholas DiDonato Psychology of Religion Abstract: The Multidimensional Religious Ideology (MRI) scale is a new 43-item measure that quantifies conservative versus liberal aspects of religious ideology. The MRI focuses on recurring…
In 2017, CMAC Researchers Jonathan Morgan, Connor Wood, and Catherine Caldwell-Harris published their paper “Reflective Thought, Religious Belief, and the Social Foundations Hypothesis” as a chapter in the book The New Reflectionism edited by Gordon Pennycook. In 2021, AI bots…
Patrick McNamara, Wesley J Wildman, George Hodulik, David Rohr SLEEP Advances Study Objectives: To test and extend Levin & Nielsen’s (2007) Affective Network Dysfunction (AND) model with nightmare disorder (ND) image characteristics, and then to implement the extension as a computational simulation, the…
Spirit tech refers to brain-based technologies used to guide spiritual enhancement. The future of spirituality is here and growing. Empowered by knowledge, we can help shape how communities will embrace and apply these technologies. Neurofeedback-guided meditation Meditation techniques have been…
There are many connections to be uncovered at the intersection of academia, scientific data, and 21st century communications. When sharing our research, we aim to employ culturally competent communications. This is crucial when it comes to communicating the complicated and…
CMAC is excited to introduce DIGETHIX – a public education and communication project that provides publicly available discussions on issues involving technology and ethics. The goal of DIGETHIX is to promote high-level, practical ethical analysis through conversations with scholars and industry experts,…
In the summer of 2020, CMAC brought on our first full-time demographer, Rachel Bacon. Rachel is working on the Modeling Religious Change project, adapting traditional demography methods to cooperate with cutting edge methods in computational simulation. Following the release of…
Ryan Cragun, Kevin McCaffree, Ivan Puga-Gonzalez, Wesley Wildman, F. LeRon Shults Secularism and Nonreligion Abstract: Statistical models attempting to predict who will disaffiliate from religions have typically accounted for less than 15% of the variation in religious affiliations, suggesting that…
Last year, Rachel Bacon started at CMAC as a Postdoctoral Fellow working full-time on the Modeling Religious Change project. She has a wide variety of academic experience in sociology and demographics of religion. We’re excited to introduce you to Rachel!…
One of the first questions that comes up when talking about new spiritual services like deep brain stimulation or hallucinogenic experiences is: are they the real deal? Are these experiences authentic? Isn’t there some important difference between a nun who…
From hallucinogenic drugs to deep brain stimulation, we are constantly finding new ways to foster or deepen spiritual experiences. The sheer range of technology available today that aims to create, guide, and optimize spiritual experiences is dizzying. You may be…
Wesley J. Wildman, Saikou Y. Diallo, George Hodulik, Andrew Page, Andreas Tolk, and Neha Gondal Complexity January 2021 Overview: Operating universities under pandemic conditions is a complex undertaking. The Artificial University (TAU) responds to this need. TAU is a configurable,…
Saikou Diallo, F. LeRon Shults, Wesley J. Wildman AI & Society August 2020 Abstract: Public policies are designed to have an impact on particular societies, yet policy-oriented computer models and simulations often focus more on articulating the policies to be applied than…
Earlier this year, we welcomed George Hodulik to the CMAC team as a Creative Solutions Designer. George comes to CMAC with years of technical experience in software engineering and an eagerness to do more good with data. Find out a…
Across the globe and throughout history, religiosity has been the norm. But occasionally, you find times or places where supernatural worldviews fade among a large portion of the population. Right now, for example, most of Northern Europe, Scandinavia, and many…
Kate J. Stockly and Wesley J. Wildman About the book: From psychedelic tourism to techno-geek psychonauts, spiritual seeking has finally merged with high-tech entrepreneurism. Most people are still not aware of these technologies of spirituality, let alone how they are…