A...reason we are so-so scientists is that our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes truth is adaptive, but sometimes… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
Evolutionary psychology is one of four sciences that are bringing human nature back into the picture. — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“The researchers argued that an orderly environment fosters a sense of responsibility not so much by deterrence (since Groningen police rarely penalize… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“the political scientist James Payne suggests that ancient peoples put a low value on other people’s lives because pain and death were… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
By exploring the political and moral colorings of discoveries about what makes us tick, we can have a more honest science and… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
Why is it surprising that scientists might have long hair and wear cowboy boots? In fields like neuroscience, where the events you… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“The Scientific Revolution had revealed that everyday experience is a narrow slice of a vast continuum of scales from the microscopic to… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“Some people think that evolutionary psychology claims to have discovered that human nature is selfish and wicked. But they are flattering the… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
An enormous amount of scientific language is metaphorical. We talk about a genetic code, where code originally meant a cipher; we talk… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“What could be more fundamental to our sense of meaning and purpose than a conception of whether the strivings of the human… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
The costs of an ignorance of science are nor just practical ones like misbegotten policies, forgone cures, and a unilateral disarmament in… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
Northeastern and most coastal states will vote for the candidate who is more closely aligned with international cooperation and engagement, secularism and… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“Language-lovers know that there is a word for every fear. Are you afraid of wine? Then you have oenophobia. Tremulous about train… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
Space and force pervade language. Many cognitive scientists (including me) have concluded from their research on language that a handful of concepts… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“Strunk was born in 1869, and today’s writers cannot base their craft exclusively on the advice of a man who developed his… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“The Darwinian approach to sex is often attacked as being antifeminist, but that is just wrong. Indeed, the accusation is baffling on… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
Maybe philosophical problems are hard not because they are divine or irreducible or meaningless or workaday science, but because the mind of… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“The media and intelligentsia were partly complicit in Trump's depiction of the world as a dystopia headed for even greater disaster. 'Charge… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“cademics and intellectuals are culture vultures. In a gathering of today’s elite, it is perfectly acceptable to laugh that you barely passed… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“The unstated premise that nature is nice lies behind many of the objections to the Darwinian theory of human sexuality. Carefree sex… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“Many textbooks point out that no animal has evolved wheels and cite the fact as an example of how evolution is often… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“Many people think that the theory of the selfish gene says that “animals try to spread their genes.” That misstates the facts… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
It's natural to think that living things must be the handiwork of a designer. But it was also natural to think that… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“I suggested that a better understanding of human nature in the light of modern science can point the way to an approach… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
I have never been a fan of science fiction. For me, fiction has to explore the combinatorial possibilities of people interacting under… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“Science is thus a paradigm for how we ought to gain knowledge—not the particular methods or institutions of science but its value… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“It's natural to think that living things must be the handiwork of a designer. But it was also natural to think that… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“Many people implicitly believe in the Hydraulic Theory of Violence: that humans harbor an inner drive toward aggression (a death instinct or… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
When a scientist considers all high-tech mental machinery needed to arrange words into ordinary sentences, prescriptive rules are, at best, inconsequential little… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
Forcing modern speakers of English to not - whoops, not to split an infinitive because it isn't done in Latin makes about as much… — Steven Pinker Copy Share
Consistent style prevents presentation from getting in the way of content. — Steven Pinker Copy Share
The supposedly immaterial soul, we now know, can be bisected with a knife, altered by chemicals, started or stopped by electricity, and extinguished by… — Steven Pinker Copy Share
I've never argued that humans are massively hot-wired. What I was trying to point out was that you can't understand how we learn unless… — Steven Pinker Copy Share
As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are clones. — Steven Pinker Copy Share
Since violence is largely a male pastime, cultures that empower women tend to move away from the glorification of violence and are less likely… — Steven Pinker Copy Share
When it comes to explaining human thought and behavior, the possibility that heredity plays any role at all still has the power to shock.… — Steven Pinker Copy Share
Morality is not just any old topic in psychology but close to our conception of the meaning of life. Moral goodness is what gives… — Steven Pinker Copy Share
“The biblical story of the binding of Isaac shows that human sacrifice was far from unthinkable in the 1st millennium BCE. The Israelites boasted… — Steven Pinker Copy Share
Part of the bargain of being alive is that one takes a chance at dying a premature or painful death, be it from violence,… — Steven Pinker Copy Share
In fact, without a specification of a creature's goals, the very idea of intelligence is meaningless. A toadstool could be given a genius award… — Steven Pinker Copy Share
“The obvious cure for the tragic shortcomings of human intuition in a high-tech world is education. And this offers priorities for educational policy: to… — Steven Pinker Copy Share
If you look in general at people who live in anarchy, they have quite high rates of death from either homicide or warfare or… — Steven Pinker Copy Share
“In some eras, self-control defines the paragon of a decent person: a grown-up, a person of dignity, a lady or a gentleman, a mensch.… — Steven Pinker Copy Share
Knowledge is a continuous fabric, in which ideas are connected to other ideas. Reason-free zones, in which people can assert arbitrary beliefs safe from… — Steven Pinker Copy Share
