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Quote by Steven Pinker

“Parents provide their children with genes as well as an environment, so the fact that talkative parents have kids with good language skills could simply mean that and that the same genes that make parents talkative make children articulate.”

Quote by Steven Pinker

Author

Steven Pinker is a renowned cognitive psychologist, linguist, and author. His research focuses on language, cognition, and human behavior, particularly the relationship between language and thought. Pinker is known for his in-depth research on the evolution of language and his contributions to the field of cognitive science. more

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“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.”

“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?'”

Ifs Trying Common Psychology Violence Eternal Criticism Genes Killers Bloody Strife Doom Evolutionary Psychology Apes

Author:Steven Pinker

“Whenever you speak to someone, you are presuming the two of you have a certain degree of familiarity - which your words might alter. So every sentence has to do two things at once: convey a message and continue to negotiate that relationship.”

Two Might Certain Speak Degrees Messages Sentences Two Things Familiarity Presuming

Author:Steven Pinker

“A decent government with an effective, but not gratuitously violent, police force and a fair court system are essential. This deters and incapacitates psychopaths, bullies and hotheads - and if it earns the confidence of the people, they don't have to become violent in self-defence.”

People Ifs Self Government Force Essentials Fairs Police Court Violent Decent Bully Defence Psychopath Police Force Self Defence Court System Hotheads

Author:Steven Pinker

“A word is an arbitrary label - that's the foundation of linguistics. But many people think otherwise. They believe in word magic: that uttering a spell, incantation, curse, or prayer can change the world. Don't snicker: Would you ever say, 'Nothing has gone wrong yet' without looking for wood to knock?”

People Thinking World Believe Prayer Gone Magic Foundation Woods Labels Curse Changing The World Spells Arbitrary Linguistics Snickers

Author:Steven Pinker

“Academics lack perspective. In a debate on whether the world is round, they would argue, 'No,' because it's an oblate spheroid. They suffer from 'the curse of knowledge': the inability to imagine what it's like not to know something that they know.”

Knows World Suffering Imagine Perspective Rounds Arguing Debate Curse Inability World Is Round

Author:Steven Pinker

“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.”

America One Thing Gun Europe West Miles Anarchy Packs Cowboy Cliche Miles Away Sheriffs Wild West Cowboy Movie

Author:Steven Pinker

“An enormous amount of scientific language is metaphorical. We talk about a genetic code, where code originally meant a cipher; we talk about the solar system model of the atom as though the atom were like a sun and moon and planets.”

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Author:Steven Pinker

“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.”

Ifs Helping Shows Eye Faces Mates Locks Fertility Beholder

Book:The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

Source: The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

“As a graduate student, I wrote a long paper connecting the dots between mathematical models of learning and language development in children. It was published in a major journal.”

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Author:Steven Pinker