If you look in general at people who live in anarchy, they have quite high rates of death from either homicide or… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
The idea that boys want to sleep with their mothers strikes most men as the silliest thing they have ever heard. Obviously,… — 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
M.I.T. has a reputation for turning out Dilberts. They may be brilliant in what they do, but no one can understand what… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
I think it may not be a coincidence that the rise of printing and book publication and literacy and the phenomenon of… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
The strongest argument against totalitarianism may be a recognition of a universal human nature; that all humans have innate desires for life,… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
What is true for the emotions may also be true for the intellect. Some of our perplexities may come from a mismatch… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
Effective education may also require co-opting old faculties to deal with new demands. . . Because much of the content of education… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
In societies no less than individuals, acknowledging our limitations may ultimately be more humane than denying them. — 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
