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Steven Pinker Quotes

Steven Pinker quotes

Canadian Scientist September 18, 1954

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I believe that the rape-is-not-about-sex doctrine will go down in history as an example of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds. It is preposterous on the face of it, does not deserve its sanctity, is contradicted by a mass of evidence, and is getting in the way of the only morally relevant goal surrounding rape, the effort to stamp it out. Steven Pinker
The more you think about and interact with other people, the more you realize that it is untenable to privilege your interests over theirs, at least not if you want them to listen to you. You can’t say that my interests are special compared to yours any more than you can say that the particular spot that I am standing on is a unique part of the universe because I happen to be standing on it that very minute. Steven Pinker
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 for accomplishing with pinpoint precision and unerring reliability, the feat of sitting exactly where it is sitting. Nothing would prevent us from agreeing with the cognitive scientist Zenon Pylyshyn that rocks are smarter than cats because rocks have the sense to go away when you kick them. Steven Pinker
Just as blueprints don't necessarily specify blue buildings, selfish genes don't necessarily specify selfish organisms. As we shall see, sometimes the most selfish thing a gene can do is build a selfless brain. Genes are a play within a play, not the interior monologue of the players. Steven Pinker
People today sometimes get uncomfortable with empirical claims that seem to clash with their political assumptions, often because they haven't given much thought to the connections. Steven Pinker
Thanks to the redundancy of language, yxx cxn xndxrstxnd whxt x xm wrxtxng xvxn xf x rxplxcx xll thx vxwxls wxth xn "x" (t gts lttl hrdr f y dn't vn kn whr th vwls r) Steven Pinker
As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are clones. Steven Pinker
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. Steven Pinker
There has to be innate circuitry that does the learning, that creates the culture, that acquires the culture, and that responds to socialization. Steven Pinker
The more you think about and interact with other people, the more you realize that it is untenable to privilege your interests over theirs. Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker quote: "But in most cases even the possibility that the correlations..."
But in most cases even the possibility that the correlations reflect shared genes is taboo. Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker quote: "legal investigation. As Clinton noted, “My goal in this..."
legal investigation. As Clinton noted, “My goal in this deposition was to be truthful, but not particularly helpful. Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker quote: "Most intellectuals today have a phobia of any explanation of..."
Most intellectuals today have a phobia of any explanation of the mind that invokes genetics. Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker quote: "Personality and socialization aren't the same thing."
Personality and socialization aren't the same thing. Steven Pinker
Equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group. Steven Pinker

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