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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. "
Steven Pinker
Understand
Know
World
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" Terrorist bombings, like rampage shootings, are events that maximize the amount of publicity per amount of damage. That's why people do them, because they know they will set off a media frenzy. "
Steven Pinker
Know
Events
Will
" 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
Seat
Thought
Patterns
" I suspect music is auditory cheesecake, an exquisite confection crafted to tickle the sensitive spots of... our mental faculties. "
Steven Pinker
Mental
Cheesecake
Sensitive
" I've never argued that humans are massively hot-wired. What I was trying to point out was that you can't understand how we learn unless you identify the learning mechanisms. And these have some genetic basis. "
Steven Pinker
Learning
Understand
You
" 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
Science
Political
Moral
" I don't think language could have evolved if it was the only distinctive trait. It goes hand in hand with our ability to develop tools and technologies, and also with the fact that we cooperate with nonrelatives. "
Steven Pinker
Hand
Tools
Think
" Photography is a demanding action sport. The light can change so quickly. I often find myself sprinting so that I can catch the perfect light falling on a photogenic subject. "
Steven Pinker
Light
Action
Change
" Mother Teresa was the very embodiment of saintliness: white-clad, sad-eyed, ascetic and often photographed with the wretched of the earth. "
Steven Pinker
Wretched
Earth
Embodiment
" Language mavens commonly confuse their own peeves with a worsening of the language. "
Steven Pinker
Own
Language
Commonly
" The art of photography is all about directing the attention of the viewer. "
Steven Pinker
Art
Attention
Directing
" Most wars are not fought over shortages of resources such as food and water, but rather over conquest, revenge, and ideology. "
Steven Pinker
Over
Water
Revenge
" Evolutionary psychology is one of four sciences that are bringing human nature back into the picture. "
Steven Pinker
Back
Picture
Nature
" For one thing, before the 20th century, there were plenty of genocides. We tend to forget about them, partly because they weren't as well documented and partly because, until recently, people didn't care. We used euphemisms like 'sackings' and 'sieges' instead of calling them 'genocides.' "
Steven Pinker
Well
Used
People
" 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
Body
Think
Plant
" Technology, ideology, and social and cultural changes periodically throw out new forms of violence for humanity to contend with. "
Steven Pinker
Violence
Technology
Humanity
" The decline of violence is a fractal phenomenon. You can see it over millennia, over centuries, over decades and over years. "
Steven Pinker
Years
Violence
See
" Cognitive psychology tells us that the unaided human mind is vulnerable to many fallacies and illusions because of its reliance on its memory for vivid anecdotes rather than systematic statistics. "
Steven Pinker
Memory
Statistics
Us
" 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
Political
Seem
Today
" 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? "
Steven Pinker
Prayer
People
Change
" It's misleading to essentialize an entire society as if it were a single mind. "
Steven Pinker
Were
Mind
Misleading
" The reason the United States is not so likely to invade Iran is precisely because of the lessons learned from Iraq. And conversely, the Iranian push towards nuclear capability is calculated to deter invasions like the kind deposing Saddam Husain. "
Steven Pinker
Like
Because
Reason
" I think students should know something about religion as a historical phenomenon, in the same way that they should know something about socialism and humanism and the other great ideas that have shaped political philosophies and therefore the course of human events. "
Steven Pinker
Political
Great
Ideas
" Equity feminism is a moral doctrine about equal treatment that makes no commitments regarding open empirical issues in psychology or biology. "
Steven Pinker
Psychology
Moral
Feminism
" No matter how inured you get to atrocities, you're still always stunned and shocked by how cruel and wasteful Homo sapiens can be. "
Steven Pinker
Cruel
You
Matter
" 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
Language
Kid
Up
" 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. "
Steven Pinker
Good
Children
Mean
" Pre-state societies were far more violent than our own. "
Steven Pinker
Own
Our
Far
" All of the violence that doesn't occur doesn't get reported on the news. "
Steven Pinker
Get
News
Reported
" 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
Humanity
Changes
" Regardless of its causes, thoughtlessly blaming the present is a weakness which, even if it is never outlawed, ought to be resisted. Though commonly flaunted as a sign of sophistication, it can be an opportunity for one-upmanship and an excuse for misanthropy, especially against the young. "
Steven Pinker
Weakness
Opportunity
Young