[red_admiral]

There is a lot more on the role of gods and magic in the book "The Secret of our Success" [1]. I'm not sure if all of the studies in there have been replicated, but it's certainly food for thought. One theory is that divination functioned as a kind of RNG for those cases when picking something at random was better than relying on your own bias, such as when and on which flank to attack an opposing army - where being unpredictable is a feature.

Another example from the book is that certain types of shark were taboo to pregnant women in ancient Polynesia; no-one could explain why except for things like "it would upset the gods otherwise". But it turns out that said animals' meat actually contain chemicals that are indeed bad to consume when you're pregnant.

I can also recommend Brett Deveraux' "Practical Polytheism" series [2]. One of his key quotes is "It is safe to assume that people in the past believed their religion." (Actually, I can recommend all of acoup.blog to HN readers, including the latest post on ChatGPT, but that's going off topic.)

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Our-Success-Evolution-Domestic... [2] https://acoup.blog/2019/10/25/collections-practical-polythei...

[Terretta]

> There is a lot more on the role of gods and magic in [this book] ... One theory is that divination functioned as a kind of RNG for those cases when picking something at random was better than relying on your own bias, such as when and on which flank to attack an opposing army - where being unpredictable is a feature.

Or, you could have discovered that stated about one scroll down from top of the article:

"And sometimes it is better to have a truly random decision than to continue to follow the predictable inclinations of one’s established prejudices. Surely, the enemy will not be able to predict a shaman’s completely random decision."