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There is no society ever discovered in the remotest corner of the world that has not had something that we would consider the arts. Visual arts - decoration of surfaces and bodies - appears to be a human universal.

Steven Pinker

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Steven Pinker
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: September 18
Anthropologist
Linguist
Non-Fiction Writer
Philosopher
Psychologist
University Teacher
Montreal
Quebec
Steven Arthur Pinker
Body
Discovered
Remotest
Ever
Corners
Surfaces
Human
Bodies
Decoration
Humans
Surface
Visuals
Something
Consider
Visual
Would
Universal
Corner
World
Society
Appears
Art
Arts

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The elegant study... is consistent with the themes of modern cognitive neuroscience . Every aspect of thought and emotion is rooted in brain structure and function, including many psychological disorders and, presumably, genius. The study confirms that the brain is a modular system comprising multiple intelligences, mostly nonverbal.
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Language mavens commonly confuse their own peeves with a worsening of the language.
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One of the perks of being a psychologist is access to tools that allow you to carry out the injunction to know thyself.
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The moral, then, is that familiar categories of behavior - marriage customs, food taboos, folk superstitions, and so on - certainly do vary across cultures and have to be learned, but the deeper mechanisms of mental computation that generate them may be universal and innate.
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The supposedly immaterial soul, we now know, can be bisected with a knife, altered by chemicals, started or stopped by electricity, and extinguished by a sharp blow or by insufficient oxygen.
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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.
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Astrology had an important role in the ancient world. You can't understand many things unless you know something about astrology - the plays of Shakespeare and so on.
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Semantics is about the relation of words to thoughts, but it also about the relation of words to other human concerns. Semantics is about the relation of words to reality - the way that speakers commit themselves to a shared understanding of the truth, and the way their thoughts are anchored to things and situations in the world.
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Of course the theory of evolution would be vacuous if it offered a glib explanation for every inexplicable act.
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Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't believe in reason.
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All over the world, belief in the supernatural has authorised the sacrifice of people to propitiate bloodthirsty gods, and the murder of witches for their malevolent powers.
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We will never have a perfect world, but it's not romantic or naive to work toward a better one.
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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.
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A...reason we are so-so scientists is that our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not.
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As an experimental psychologist, I have been trained not to believe anything unless it can be demonstrated in the laboratory on rats or sophomores.
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Overcoming naive impressions to figure out how things really work is one of humanity's highest callings.
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Violent movements attract thugs and firebrands who enjoy the mayhem. Violent tactics provide a pretext for retaliation by the enemy and alienate third parties who might otherwise support the movement.
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If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values away from claims about our psychological makeup that are vulnerable to being proven false.
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One of my favourite kinds of movie is the American picaresque, in which the characters make their way across the country, learning about life against the gorgeous backdrops of that vast land.
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Obviously no language is innate. Take any kid from any race, bring them up in any culture and they will learn the language equally quickly. So no particular language is in the genes. But what might be in the genes is the ability to acquire language.
Steven Pinker