Steven Pinker Zitate – Sprüche auf Englisch mit Übersetzung

Zitat des Tages von Steven Pinker:

The great appeal of the doctrine that the mind is a blank slate is the simple mathematical fact that zero equals zero.

The great appeal of the doctrine that the mind is a blank slate is the simple mathematical fact that zero equals zero.

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

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

My opinions about human nature are shared by many psychologists, linguists, and biologists, not to mention philosophers and scholars going back centuries.

Steven Pinker

Many artists and scholars have pointed out that ultimately art depends on human nature.

Steven Pinker

I don't consider myself to be that radical a thinker.

Steven Pinker

Personality and socialization aren't the same thing.

Steven Pinker

As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are clones.

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

We're living in primate heaven. We're warm, dry, we're not hungry, we don't have fleas and ticks and infections. So why are we so miserable?

Steven Pinker

Commerce is a noble profession, and Jews should get over any self-hatred they might harbor from contemplating the capitalist spirit of diaspora Judaism.

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

It's likely that taboo words are stored in the right hemisphere of the brain. Massive left hemisphere strokes or the entire surgical removal of the left hemisphere can leave people with no articulate speech other than the ability to swear, spout cliches and song lyrics.

Steven Pinker

Students do everything on laptops these days, so I definitely think electronic books are a trend that's going to expand.

Steven Pinker

Of course, genes can't pull the levers of our behavior directly. But they affect the wiring and workings of the brain, and the brain is the seat of our drives, temperaments and patterns of thought.

Steven Pinker

Evolutionary psychology is one of four sciences that are bringing human nature back into the picture.

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

In societies no less than individuals, acknowledging our limitations may ultimately be more humane than denying them.

Steven Pinker

By all measures men are the more violent gender.

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

There is a correlation between economic inequality and personal violence. The explanation for the correlation isn't completely clear; there are a number of possibilities.

Steven Pinker

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

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

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

We really are creatures of a violent world, biologically speaking - watching violence and learning about it is one of our cognitive drives.

Steven Pinker

All of the violence that doesn't occur doesn't get reported on the news.

Steven Pinker

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

Equity feminism is a moral doctrine about equal treatment that makes no commitments regarding open empirical issues in psychology or biology.

Steven Pinker

Plants can't very well defend themselves by their behavior, so they resort to chemical warfare, and plants are saturated with toxins and irritants to deter creatures like us who want to eat them.

Steven Pinker

One of the perks of being a psychologist is access to tools that allow you to carry out the injunction to know thyself.

Steven Pinker

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.

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

By exploring the political and moral colorings of discoveries about what makes us tick, we can have a more honest science and a less fearful intellectual milieu.

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

Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with political and moral and emotional baggage?

Steven Pinker

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

Steven Pinker