Quotes by Steven Pinker

About Steven Pinker:

Steven Arthur Pinker is a Canadian-born American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, 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.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The decline of violence isn't a steady inclined plane from an original state of maximal and universal bloodshed. Technology, ideology, and social and cultural changes periodically throw out new forms of violence for humanity to contend with.

Steven Pinker

Technology, ideology, and social and cultural changes periodically throw out new forms of violence for humanity to contend with.

Steven Pinker

Most wars are not fought over shortages of resources such as food and water, but rather over conquest, revenge, and ideology.

Steven Pinker

You could think of an ecosystem as a bunch of antagonistic arms races, almost: Everything that an animal depends upon for food is the body part of some other animal or plant who would just as soon keep that body part for itself.

Steven Pinker

I think that a failure of statistical thinking is the major intellectual shortcoming of our universities, journalism and intellectual culture.

Steven Pinker

A hostility to modernity is shared by ideologies that have nothing else in common - a nostalgia for moral clarity, small-town intimacy, family values, primitive communism, ecological sustainability, communitarian solidarity, or harmonies with the rhy...

Steven Pinker

Broadly speaking, the Southern and Western desert and mountain states will vote for the candidate who endorses an aggressive military, a role for religion in public life, laissez-faire economic policies, private ownership of guns and relaxed conditio...

Steven Pinker

So no, it's not all in the genes, but what isn't in the genes isn't in the family environment either. It can't be explained in terms of the overall personalities or the child-rearing practices of parents.

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.

Steven Pinker

Racism, because it favors color over talent, is bad for business.

Steven Pinker

There's a misconception that survival of the fittest means survival of the most aggressive. The adjective 'Darwinian' used to refer to ruthless competition; you used to read that in business journals. But that's not what Darwinian means to a biologis...

Steven Pinker

The rules of friendship are tacit, unconscious; they are not rational. In business, though, you have to think rationally.

Steven Pinker

Jews are known for many things, but strength, swiftness, and agility are not among them. There is one trait, as controversial as it is familiar, for which Jews are above all known, and that is shrewdness in business.

Steven Pinker

You don't like to be lied to, by your friends or in your business dealings. So why would you want to be lied to when it comes to the origin of life or the fate of the planet?

Steven Pinker

Statisticians tell us that people underestimate the sheer number of coincidences that are bound to happen in a world governed by chance.

Steven Pinker

Part of the bargain of being alive is that one takes a chance at dying a premature or painful death, be it from violence, accident, or disease.

Steven Pinker

Everywhere you look for comparisons of life under anarchy and life under government, life under government is less violent.

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 t...

Steven Pinker

Consciousness surely does not depend on language. Babies, many animals, and patients robbed of speech by brain damage are not insensate robots; they have reactions like ours that indicate that someone's home.

Steven Pinker

The strongest argument against totalitarianism may be a recognition of a universal human nature; that all humans have innate desires for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of the blank slate... is a totalitarian's dream.

Steven Pinker

I have never been a fan of science fiction. For me, fiction has to explore the combinatorial possibilities of people interacting under the constraints imposed by our biology and history. When an author is free to suspend the constraints, it's tennis ...

Steven Pinker

Author Bio

  • NameSteven Pinker
  • Descriptionpsychologist, linguist, author
  • BornSeptember 18, 1954
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPsychologist; Linguist; Anthropologist; Philosopher; Writer
  • AwardsRichard Dawkins Award; Humanist Of The Year