92 Steven Pinker Quotes for You to Enjoy

Steven Pinker

Canadian Scientist

Born: Sep 18, 1954

Language Life People Think World You

Related authors: David Suzuki Frederick Banting Gad Saad Hans Selye Hugh Ross Orlando Aloysius Battista Sid Meier William Osler

An eye for beauty locks onto faces that show signs of health and fertility - just as one would predict if it had evolved to help the beholder find the fittest mate. Steven Pinker

Health Signs Beauty Predict Eye Locks Evolved Would Find Faces Onto Had Mate Fertility Fittest Just Beholder Show Help

Words let us say the things we want to say and also things we would be better off not having said. They let us know the things we need to know, and also things we wish we didn't. Steven Pinker

Words Better Wish Say Would Would-Be Having Better Off Know Also Said Off Want Us Let Us Things Need

The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child's peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration. Steven Pinker

Pre-state societies were far more violent than our own. Steven Pinker

Own Our More Were Than Far Societies Violent

People have long assumed that violence is necessary for political change. Rulers never cede power voluntarily, the argument goes, so progressives have no choice but to contemplate the use of force to bring about a better world, mindful of the trade-off between a small amount of violence now and acceptance of an unjust status quo indefinitely. Steven Pinker

Change Acceptance People World Better Political Long Argument Power Better World Unjust Assumed Progressives Mindful Rulers Indefinitely No Choice Status Status Quo About Small Never Voluntarily Between Contemplate Force Trade-Off Goes Quo Choice Use Now Amount Necessary Bring Violence

People know there is a difference between what you do and what you accept. There is a difference between me knowing that people swear, me hearing people swear and me swearing, and everyone accepting that this is something you can do as much as you like. Steven Pinker

Me You People Everyone Something Between Like Know Knowing Accept Accepting Hearing Difference Swear Swearing Much

I don't think aggression works like thirst or sleep. I think aggression is more elicited by particular situations. I think it can be mitigated. Steven Pinker

Think More Particular Like Situations Aggression Works Thirst Sleep

There's guilt about our treatment of native peoples in modern intellectual life, and an unwillingness to acknowledge there could be anything good about Western culture. Steven Pinker

Life Good Culture People Guilt Our About Could Intellectual Western Intellectual Life Western Culture Modern Native Anything Acknowledge Treatment

The decline of violence is a fractal phenomenon. You can see it over millennia, over centuries, over decades and over years. Steven Pinker

You See Over Years Decades Centuries Decline Millennia Violence Phenomenon

The actual organization of behavior goes on the level of the individual nerve cells and their connections, and we have a hundred billion nerve cells, probably a hundred trillion connections. It's just mind-boggling to think of all the different ways in which they're arranged in a baby's head. Steven Pinker

The connections I draw between human nature and political systems in my new book, for example, were prefigured in the debates during the Enlightenment and during the framing of the American Constitution. Steven Pinker

Why do people believe that there are dangerous implications of the idea that the mind is a product of the brain, that the brain is organized in part by the genome, and that the genome was shaped by natural selection? Steven Pinker

Natural People Dangerous Mind Believe Selection Shaped Part Idea Implications Genome Brain Natural Selection Product Organized Why

But in most cases even the possibility that the correlations reflect shared genes is taboo. Steven Pinker

Reflect Possibility Taboo Cases Shared Genes Most Even

Most intellectuals today have a phobia of any explanation of the mind that invokes genetics. Steven Pinker

Today Mind Phobia Genetics Most Intellectuals Any Explanation

I think this confusion leads intellectuals and artists themselves to believe that the elite arts and humanities are a kind of higher, exalted form of human endeavor. Steven Pinker

Confusion Endeavor Believe Humanities Think Kind Exalted Higher Leads Intellectuals Human Artists Arts Form Themselves Elite

Art works because it appeals to certain faculties of the mind. Music depends on details of the auditory system, painting and sculpture on the visual system. Poetry and literature depend on language. Steven Pinker

Music Art Language Mind Depend Painting System Visual Details Poetry Faculties Because Depends Literature Certain Sculpture Appeals Works

As individual people, embedded in our daily lives, of course we're interested in what makes one person different from another. We've got to hire one person and not another, marry one person and not another. Steven Pinker

Daily People Our Embedded Marry Individual Another Course Makes Got Hire Person Different Interested Lives Daily Lives

Consciousness turns out to consist of a maelstrom of events distributed across the brain. These events compete for attention, and as one process outshouts the others, the brain rationalizes the outcome after the fact and concocts the impression that a single self was in charge all along. Steven Pinker

There's a common criticism of evolutionary psychology that it's fatalistic and it dooms us to eternal strife, 'Why even try to work toward peace if we're just bloody killer apes and violence is in our genes?' Steven Pinker

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