Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker
Steven Arthur "Steve" Pinkeris a Canadian-born American cognitive scientist, psychologist, linguist, and popular science author. He is Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, and is known for his advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth18 September 1954
CountryCanada
revenge war water
Most wars are not fought over shortages of resources such as food and water, but rather over conquest, revenge, and ideology.
compassion capacity reflexes
The human capacity for compassion is not a reflex that is triggered automatically by the presence of another living thing.
empowering way empowering-women
Societies that empower women are less violent in every way.
zero simple mind
The great appeal of the doctrine that the mind is a blank slate is the simple mathematical fact that zero equals zero.
art human-nature scholar
Many artists and scholars have pointed out that ultimately art depends on human nature.
believe men political
Feminism as a movement for political and social equity is important, but feminism as an academic clique committed to eccentric doctrines about human nature is not. Eliminating discrimination against women is important, but believing that women and men are born with indistinguishable minds is not. Freedom of choice is important, but ensuring that women make up exactly 50 percent of all professions is not. And eliminating sexual assaults is important, but advancing the theory that rapists are doing their part in a vast male conspiracy is not.
ideas giving people
If you give people literacy, bad ideas can be attacked and experiments tried, and lessons will accumulate.
mean emotional thinking
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.
numbers people world
Statisticians tell us that people underestimate the sheer number of coincidences that are bound to happen in a world governed by chance.
people childhood trying
The stirrings of morality emerge early in childhood. Toddlers spontaneously offer toys and help to others and try to comfort people they see in distress.
smart makeup judging
Nature is a hanging judge," goes an old saying. Many tragedies come from our physical and cognitive makeup. Our bodies are extraordinarily improbable arrangements of matter, with many ways for things to go wrong and only a few ways for things to go right. We are certain to die, and smart enough to know it. Our minds are adapted to a world that no longer exists, prone to misunderstandings correctable only by arduous education, and condemned to perplexity about the deepest questions we can ascertain.
thinking sides demon
In any dispute, each side thinks it's in the right and the other side is demons.
atheist views knowing
Knowing there is a world that will outlive you, there are people whose well-being depends on how you live your life, affects the way you live your life, whether or not you directly experience those effects. You want to be the kind of person who has the larger view, who takes other people's interests into account, who's dedicated to the principles that you can justify, like justice, knowledge, truth, beauty and morality.
religious doe today
The theory that religion is a force for peace, often heard among the religious right and its allies today, does not fit the facts of history.