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
technology humanity violence
Technology, ideology, and social and cultural changes periodically throw out new forms of violence for humanity to contend with.
impact mind scales
The 9/11 strikes left an indelible impact on our minds, but in relative terms, the scale of casualties actually wasn't all that high.
brain mind bags
The brain is not a bag of traits. It's startlingly complex. There are few or no single genes with a consistent effect on the mind.
culture doe acquire
There has to be innate circuitry that does the learning, that creates the culture, that acquires the culture, and that responds to socialization.
sound creatures visuals
We are visual creatures. Visual things stay put, whereas sounds fade.
fun hockey bloodlust
We can make fun of hockey fans, but someone who enjoys Homer is indulging the same kind of vicarious bloodlust.
cowboy gun europe
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.
cat judging language
One can choose to obsess over prescriptive rules, but they have no more to do with human language than the criteria for judging cats at a cat show have to do with mammalian biology.
evolution behavior appeals
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.
motivation inspiration moral
Anything that makes it easier to imagine trading places with someone else increases your moral consideration for that other person.
world too-much morality
The world has far too much morality.
humanity calling overcoming
Overcoming naive impressions to figure out how things really work is one of humanity's highest callings.
technology simple people
As technology accumulates and people in more parts of the planet become interdependent, the hatred between them tends to decrease, for the simple reason that you can't kill someone and trade with him too.
laptops programming
My laptop has freed me to travel.