# Harvey Whitehouse Back to [[Religion, Trust and Civilization]] · [[Research and Evidence]] · [[Authors/@Kristof_Poland/Post Analyses/Post Analysis - Kristof_Poland on God and Chesterton's Fence (2026-10-24)|Essay analysis]] **Role:** Anthropologist, University of Oxford; Seshat co-founder - Lead author of "Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history," *Nature* (2019), **retracted Jul 7, 2021** after Beheim et al. showed problems in its missing-data coding ✔. - The Seshat team's 2022 re-analysis (*Religion, Brain & Behavior*) again argues that complexity came first ✔. - He is the main counterweight to the essay's claim that a watching God came first and enabled scale. Key: ✔ confirmed this session · ◻ standard knowledge, not opened this session · ⚠️ unconfirmed.