I think that a failure of statistical thinking is the major intellectual shortcoming of our universities, journalism and intellectual culture. — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
There has to be innate circuitry that does the learning, that creates the culture, that acquires the culture, and that responds to… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“The essence of a culture of honor is that it does not sanction predatory or instrumental violence, but only retaliation after an… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
There's guilt about our treatment of native peoples in modern intellectual life, and an unwillingness to acknowledge there could be anything good… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
Since violence is largely a male pastime, cultures that empower women tend to move away from the glorification of violence and are… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
In culture after culture, people believe that the soul lives on after death, that rituals can change the physical world and divine… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
Obviously no language is innate. Take any kid from any race, bring them up in any culture and they will learn the… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
The moral, then, is that familiar categories of behavior - marriage customs, food taboos, folk superstitions, and so on - certainly do… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
Morality, then, is not a set of arbitrary regulations dictated by a vengeful deity and written down in a book; nor is… — 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
“This so-called culture war, I suspect, is the product of a history in which white America took two different paths to civilization.… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“But traditional cultures can change, too, and more dramatically than most people realize. Preserving cultural diversity is considered a supreme virtue today,… — 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
“Cas Wouters, inspired by conversations with Elias late in his life, suggests that we are living through a new phase in the… — 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 Image
Consistent style prevents presentation from getting in the way of content. — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are clones. — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
