Steven Pinker Quotes - Page 7

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• The elegant study... is consistent with the themes of modern cognitive neuroscience . Every aspect of thought and emotion is rooted in brain structure and function, including many psychological disorders and, presumably, genius. The study confirms that the brain is a modular system comprising multiple intelligences, mostly nonverbal.

  Steven Pinker

  Psychological Disorders, Brain, Genius

  "On Einstein's brain". The New York Times, June 24, 1999.

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• The strongest argument against totalitarianism may be a recognition of a universal human nature; that all humans have innate desires for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of the blank slate... is a totalitarian's dream.

  Steven Pinker

  Dream, Pursuit Of Happiness, Desire

  "Steven Pinker: the optimistic voice of science" by Andrew Anthony, www.theguardian.com. September 17, 2011.

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• Evolution is an indispensable component of any satisfying explanation of our psychology.

  Steven Pinker

  Psychology, Evolution, Indispensable

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• I do look for openings where I can overturn popular misconceptions, but unlike Christopher Hitchens, I am neither a contrarian nor a lone heretic. I like to have a significant number of academics watching my back.

  Steven Pinker

  Numbers, Looks, Significant

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• If crime is going down, you shouldn't be increasing resources for crime prevention. Or you should be taking note of what has worked and concentrate the crime-prevention methods on policies that have a track record of success.

  Steven Pinker

  Track, Records, Prevention

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• Something about the topic of consciousness makes people, like the White Queen in Through The Looking Glass, believe six impossible things before breakfast.

  Steven Pinker

  Queens, Believe, Impossible Things

  Steven Pinker (2009). “How the Mind Works”, p.133, W. W. Norton & Company

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• We often feel that a clever aphorism captures a truth that would require pages to defend in any other way.

  Steven Pinker

  Clever, Pages, Way

  Steven Pinker (2009). “How the Mind Works”, p.549, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Personality and socialization aren't the same thing.

  Steven Pinker

  Personality, Socialization

  "A biological understanding of human nature". Edge Interview, www.edge.org. September 18, 2017.

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• Students do everything on laptops these days, so I definitely think electronic books are a trend that's going to expand.

  Steven Pinker

  Book, Thinking, Trends

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• Education is a technology that tries to make up for what the human mind is
  innately bad at. Children don't have to go to school to learn how to walk,
  talk, recognize objects, or remember the personalities of their friends,
  even though these tasks are much harder than reading, adding, or
  remembering dates in history. They do have to go to school to learn written
  language, arithmetic, and science, because those bodies of knowledge and
  skill were invented too recently for any species-wide knack for them to
  have evolved.

  Steven Pinker

  Children, Reading, School

  "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature". Book by Steven Pinker, 2002.

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• I don't think aggression works like thirst or sleep. I think aggression is more elicited by particular situations. I think it can be mitigated.

  Steven Pinker

  Sleep, Thinking, Situation

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• As women are empowered, violence can come down, for a number of reasons. By all measures, men are the more violent gender.

  Steven Pinker

  Men, Numbers, Violence

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• But the newest research is showing that many properties of the brain are genetically organized, and don't depend on information coming in from the senses.

  Steven Pinker

  Gmos, Perception, Brain

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• I think this confusion leads intellectuals and artists themselves to believe that the elite arts and humanities are a kind of higher, exalted form of human endeavor.

  Steven Pinker

  Art, Believe, Thinking

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• Everyone's pedigree merges into everyone else's pedigree. So if you go back far enough, everyone is related.

  Steven Pinker

  Enough, Pedigree, Related

  "Surprising Family Trees!". abcnews.go.com. October 18, 2007.

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• Genetically influenced behavior is not necessarily good and not necessarily unchangeable. Explanations of bad behavior that appeal to genes do not absolve a person any more than do explanations that appeal to upbringing.

  Steven Pinker

  Evolution, Behavior, Genes

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• Language pedants hew to an oral tradition of shibboleths that have no basis in logic or style, that have been defied by great writers for centuries, and that have been disavowed by every thoughtful usage manual.

  Steven Pinker

  Thoughtful, Style, Oral Tradition

  "Oaf of Office" by Steven Pinker, www.nytimes.com. January 21, 2009.

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• As every student in Philosophy 101 learns, nothing can force me to believe that anyone except me is conscious. This power to deny that other people have feelings is not just an academic exercise but an all-too-common vice, as we see in the long history of human cruelty.

  Steven Pinker

  Philosophy, Believe, Exercise

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• People today sometimes get uncomfortable with empirical claims that seem to clash with their political assumptions, often because they haven't given much thought to the connections.

  Steven Pinker

  People, Political, Connections

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• People have long assumed that violence is necessary for political change. Rulers never cede power voluntarily, the argument goes, so progressives have no choice but to contemplate the use of force to bring about a better world, mindful of the trade-off between a small amount of violence now and acceptance of an unjust status quo indefinitely.

  Steven Pinker

  Acceptance, Long, People

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• America had, for one thing, lived in anarchy for - until much more recently than Europe. We had the Wild West, where the cliche of the cowboy movies was the nearest sheriff is 90 miles away, and so you had to pack a gun and defend yourself.

  Steven Pinker

  Gun, Cowboy, Europe

  "Is Human Violence On The Wane?". "Science Friday" with Ira Flatow, www.npr.org. October 7, 2011.

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• An eye for beauty locks onto faces that show signs of health and fertility - just as one would predict if it had evolved to help the beholder find the fittest mate.

  Steven Pinker

  Eye, Locks, Fertility

  Steven Pinker (2003). “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature”, p.85, Penguin

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• As a graduate student, I wrote a long paper connecting the dots between mathematical models of learning and language development in children. It was published in a major journal.

  Steven Pinker

  Children, Long, Dots

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• the mind is a neural computer

  Steven Pinker

  Mind, Computer

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• Genes are a play within a play, not the interior monologue of the players.

  Steven Pinker

  Player, Genes, Monologues

  Steven Pinker (2009). “How the Mind Works”, p.44, W. W. Norton & Company

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