Steven Pinker Quotes - Page 5

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The indispensability of reason does not imply that individual people are always rational or are unswayed by passion and illusion. It only means that people are capable of reason, and that a community of people who choose to perfect this faculty and to exercise it openly and fairly can collectively reason their way to sounder conclusions in the long run. As Lincoln observed, you can fool all of the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

Steven Pinker

Running, Passion, Mean

Steven Pinker (2011). “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined”, p.211, Penguin

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Evolutionary psychologists seem to want to unmask our noblest motives as ultimately self-interested - to show that our love for children, compassion for the unfortunate and sense of justice are just tactics in a Darwinian struggle to perpetuate our genes.

Steven Pinker

Children, Struggle, Compassion

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Humans are so innately hardwired for language that they can no more suppress their ability to learn and use language than they can suppress the instinct to pull a hand back from a hot surface.

Steven Pinker

Hands, Hot, Use

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Northeastern and most coastal states will vote for the candidate who is more closely aligned with international cooperation and engagement, secularism and science, gun control, individual freedom in culture and sexuality, and a greater role for the government in protecting the environment and ensuring economic equality.

Steven Pinker

Gun, Government, Culture

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The more you think about and interact with other people, the more you realize that it is untenable to privilege your interests over theirs, at least not if you want them to listen to you. You can’t say that my interests are special compared to yours any more than you can say that the particular spot that I am standing on is a unique part of the universe because I happen to be standing on it that very minute.

Steven Pinker

Unique, Thinking, People

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Commerce is a noble profession, and Jews should get over any self-hatred they might harbor from contemplating the capitalist spirit of diaspora Judaism.

Steven Pinker

Self, Hatred, Noble

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I have never been a fan of science fiction. For me, fiction has to explore the combinatorial possibilities of people interacting under the constraints imposed by our biology and history. When an author is free to suspend the constraints, it's tennis without a net.

Steven Pinker

People, Tennis, Fans

"Dangerous minds, lethal machines" by Steven Pinker, www.theguardian.com. August 26, 2004.

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Art works because it appeals to certain faculties of the mind. Music depends on details of the auditory system, painting and sculpture on the visual system. Poetry and literature depend on language.

Steven Pinker

Art, Mind, Details

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As an experimental psychologist, I have been trained not to believe anything unless it can be demonstrated in the laboratory on rats or sophomores.

Steven Pinker

Believe, Rats, Sophomore

Steven Pinker (2015). “Words and Rules: The Ingredients Of Language”, p.84, Basic Books

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Parents provide their children with genes as well as an environment, so the fact that talkative parents have kids with good language skills could simply mean that and that the same genes that make parents talkative make children articulate.

Steven Pinker

Children, Mean, Kids

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The costs of an ignorance of science are nor just practical ones like misbegotten policies, forgone cures, and a unilateral disarmament in national competitiveness. There is a moral cost as well. It is an astonishing fact about our species that we understand so much about the history of the universe. the forces that make it tick, the stuff it's made of; the origin of living things, and the machinery of life. A failure to nurture this knowledge shows a philistine indifference to the magnificent achievements humanity is capable of; like allowing a great work of art to molder in a warehouse.

Steven Pinker

Art, Ignorance, Achievement

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I think the reason that swearing is both so offensive and so attractive is that it is a way to push people's emotional buttons, and especially their negative emotional buttons. Because words soak up emotional connotations and are processed involuntarily by the listener, you can't will yourself not to treat the word in terms of what it means.

Steven Pinker

Mean, Thinking, Emotional

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If anything, Powerpoint, if used well, would ideally reflect the way we think.

Steven Pinker

Thinking, Way, Used

"The Man Who Invented PowerPoint". Interview with Clay Chandler, bento.hult.edu.

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Just as blueprints don't necessarily specify blue buildings, selfish genes don't necessarily specify selfish organisms. As we shall see, sometimes the most selfish thing a gene can do is build a selfless brain. Genes are a play within a play, not the interior monologue of the players.

Steven Pinker

Selfish, Player, Blue

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Thinking is a physical process, the human brain is not exempt from evolution

Steven Pinker

Thinking, Brain, Evolution

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Gossip is certainly one of the things that language is useful for, because it's always handy to know who needs a favor, who can offer a favor, who's available, who's under the protection of a jealous spouse. And being the first to get a piece of gossip is like engaging in insider trading: You can capitalize on an opportunity before anyone else can.

Steven Pinker

Jealous, Opportunity, Gossip

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When people talk, they lay lines on each other, do a lot of role playing, sidestep, shilly-shally and engage in all manner of vagueness and innuendo. We do this and expect others to do it, yet at the same time we profess to long for the plain truth, for people to say what they mean, simple as that. Such hypocrisy is a human universal.

Steven Pinker

Mean, Simple, Long

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Much of what is today called "social criticism" consists of members of the upper classes denouncing the tastes of the lower classes (bawdy entertainment, fast food, plentiful consumer goods) while considering themselves egalitarians.

Steven Pinker

Class, Criticism, Entertainment

Steven Pinker (2003). “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature”, p.370, Penguin

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A...reason we are so-so scientists is that our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not.

Steven Pinker

Brain, Sometimes, Truth Is

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Technology, ideology, and social and cultural changes periodically throw out new forms of violence for humanity to contend with.

Steven Pinker

Technology, Humanity, Violence

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Semantics is about the relation of words to thoughts, but it also about the relation of words to other human concerns. Semantics is about the relation of words to reality - the way that speakers commit themselves to a shared understanding of the truth, and the way their thoughts are anchored to things and situations in the world.

Steven Pinker

Reality, Understanding, World

Steven Pinker (2007). “The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature”, p.18, Penguin

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Of course the theory of evolution would be vacuous if it offered a glib explanation for every inexplicable act.

Steven Pinker

Theory Of Evolution, Atheism, Would Be

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Effective education may also require co-opting old faculties to deal with new demands. . . Because much of the content of education is not cognitively natural, the process of mastering it may not always be easy and pleasant, notwithstanding the mantra that learning is fun.

Steven Pinker

Fun, Demand, May

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With violence, as with so many other concerns, human nature is the problem, but human nature is also the solution.

Steven Pinker

Violence, Problem, Human Nature

"What Comes Naturally" by Louis Menand, www.newyorker.com. November 25, 2002.

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The rules of friendship are tacit, unconscious; they are not rational. In business, though, you have to think rationally.

Steven Pinker

Thinking, Rational, Unconscious

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Born: September 18, 1954
Occupation: Psychologist
Cite this Page: Citation

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