John C. Wathey is a retired computational biologist whose interests include evolutionary algorithms, the biology of nervous systems, and the biological roots of religion. He got his PhD from the Department of Neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego, and spent most of his career working on computer simulations of protein folding. His first book, The Illusion of God’s Presence, explores the evolution of the emotions and intuitions behind religious belief, emphasizing behavioral and psychological research. His latest book is The Phantom God: What Neuroscience Reveals about the Compulsion to Believe. It relates the motivating forces behind religiousness to the neural circuitry of embodiment, mother-infant attachment, adult sexual pair-bonding, addiction, selective attention, hallucinations, and many other neurological surprises.