Scott Atran

Scott Atran is one of those rare scholars who refuses the comfort of the desk. Born in New York in 1952 and trained at Columbia, this American-French anthropologist studies why people believe and why they will die for a cause, the most intractable question in human conflict. He cofounded a center at Oxford devoted precisely to that. What moves me is that he does not theorize from afar; he goes to the front lines and actually listens to fighters and zealots. A Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society directing research across continents, he uses scholarship to mend the world's wounds. I hold him in high regard.

Name (English)

Scott Atran

Name (Japanese)

スコット・アトラン

Reading

すこっと・あとらん

Born

January 1, 1952 (age 74)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Capricorn / Dragon

Origin

New York City, New York, United States

Occupation

anthropologist / political scientist / researcher / psychologist

University

Columbia University

Awards & achievements

• Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society

Motto

Private

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B9%E3%82%B3%E3%83%83%E3%83%88%E3%83%BB%E3%82%A2%E3%83%88%E3%83%A9%E3%83%B3

Tags

• New York
• anthropologist
• political scientist
• researcher

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.