ABSTRACT
Experimental methods, though relatively rarely used, have appeared in the study of religion for a very long time. One well-known experiment concerned whether a religiously dictated diet led to better health and well-being than a more robust but culturally typical diet. This experiment, conducted in the courts of Babylon under the reign of Nebuchanezzer, involved four young men in a ten-day treatment condition eating a religiously motivated vegetarian diet and an untold number of control subjects eating a different diet. The now famous fi nding reported in the fi rst chapter of the Book of Daniel is that those in the ‘religious diet’ treatment
condition were judged healthier looking and more robust after ten days. As exciting as this fi nding may be-particularly as it might contribute to the argument that religious practices may be adaptive in an evolutionary sense-this early experiment suffered from numerous methodological shortcomings. Nevertheless, it still serves as an illustration for experimental research methods.
