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" If you give people literacy, bad ideas can be attacked and experiments tried, and lessons will accumulate. "
Steven Pinker
Literacy
You
Will
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" 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. "
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" Today we take it for granted that war happens in smaller, poorer and more backward countries. "
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" People are under the impression that dictionaries legislate language. What a dictionary does is keep track of usages over time. "
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" Anything that makes it easier to imagine trading places with someone else increases your moral consideration for that other person. "
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" Students do everything on laptops these days, so I definitely think electronic books are a trend that's going to expand. "
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" No one knows what the nongenetic causes of individuality are. Perhaps people are shaped by modifications of genes that take place after conception, or by haphazard fluctuations in the chemical soup in the womb or the wiring up of the brain or the expression of the genes themselves. "
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" Like the early days of the Internet, the dawn of personal genomics promises benefits and pitfalls that no one can foresee. "
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" 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 without a net. "
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" Though as a psychologist I like to think that nothing human is foreign to me, I admit to having been repeatedly flabbergasted by the insouciance, and sometimes relish, with which our ancestors carried out and witnessed unspeakable cruelties. "
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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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" 'Capitalism' is a dirty word for many intellectuals, but there are a number of studies showing that open economies and free trade are negatively correlated with genocide and war. "
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Free
War
" Capitalism saved the world, and there is even a heretical theory now, moving up from the level of individuals to countries: countries that trade more and have more open economies are less likely to fight wars and less likely to have genocides. "
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Capitalism
Fight
Moving
" I get drawn in when I feel there is something deep and mysterious going on beneath the surface of something. "
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Surface
Deep
" You wouldn't believe the kind of hate mail I get about my work on irregular verbs. "
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Believe
You
Kind
" Democracy is an imperfect way of steering between the violence of anarchy and the violence of tyranny, with the least violence you can get away with. "
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" I do look for openings where I can overturn popular misconceptions, but unlike Christopher Hitchens, I am neither a contrarian nor a lone heretic. I like to have a significant number of academics watching my back. "
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Watching
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I Can
" All of the violence that doesn't occur doesn't get reported on the news. "
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Get
News
Reported
" I think this confusion leads intellectuals and artists themselves to believe that the elite arts and humanities are a kind of higher, exalted form of human endeavor. "
Steven Pinker
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Kind
" I don't consider myself to be that radical a thinker. "
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Radical
Thinker
Consider
" 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. "
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Weakness
Opportunity
Young
" Photography is a kind of virtual reality, and it helps if you can create the illusion of being in an interesting world. "
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Interesting
Reality
World
" I teach classes 28 weeks of the year, but the rest of the time I do research and write books. While I'm writing a book, which I probably do two out of every three years, it's like having a second job. I squeeze in the hours when I can. "
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Time
Rest
Research
" 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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Know
World
" Statisticians tell us that people underestimate the sheer number of coincidences that are bound to happen in a world governed by chance. "
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" I learned to focus my energy on high-quality, long-term projects rather than lower-quality projects with quicker payoffs. "
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Rather
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Focus
" Look at almost any passage, and you'll find that a paragraph has five or six metaphors in it. It's not that the speaker is trying to be poetic, it's just that that's the way language works. "
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" There's guilt about our treatment of native peoples in modern intellectual life, and an unwillingness to acknowledge there could be anything good about Western culture. "
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Culture
" When time permits, I try to see interesting people in the cities I visit. In Seattle, I met Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, who is shy in personality but flamboyant in his philanthropy. "
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Time
" There has to be innate circuitry that does the learning, that creates the culture, that acquires the culture, and that responds to socialization. "
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Does
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" The art of photography is all about directing the attention of the viewer. "
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Art
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Directing