Canadian - Scientist | September 18, 1954 -
The art of photography is all about directing the attention of the viewer.
Steven Pinker
ArtPhotographyAttentionDirecting
There has to be innate circuitry that does the learning, that creates the culture, that acquires the culture, and that responds to socialization.
LearningCultureSocializationInnate
Personality and socialization aren't the same thing.
PersonalitySameSame ThingThing
Most wars are not fought over shortages of resources such as food and water, but rather over conquest, revenge, and ideology.
WaterFoodRevengeResourcesOver
Northeastern and most coastal states will vote for the candidate who is more closely aligned with international cooperation and engagement, secularism and science, gun control, individual freedom in culture and sexuality, and a greater role for the government in protecting the environment and ensuring economic equality.
FreedomScienceCultureGovernment
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.
GreatReligionIdeasSocialismThink
As long as your ideology identifies the main source of the world's ills as a definable group, it opens the world up to genocide.
WorldLongGroupGenocideUpSource
Commerce, trade and exchange make other people more valuable alive than dead, and mean that people try to anticipate what the other guy needs and wants. It engages the mechanisms of reciprocal altruism, as the evolutionary biologists call it, as opposed to raw dominance.
PeopleAliveTryDeadMoreMean
I think the reason that swearing is both so offensive and so attractive is that it is a way to push people's emotional buttons, and especially their negative emotional buttons. Because words soak up emotional connotations and are processed involuntarily by the listener, you can't will yourself not to treat the word in terms of what it means.
WordsYourselfPeopleTreatNegative
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 biologist; it's whatever leads to reproductive success.
SuccessBusinessCompetitionSurvival
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.
WorldYouKnowImportantUnderstand
Roads, better harnesses for horses, time-keeping devices, financial instruments like a currency that was recognized everywhere in the kingdom, enforceable contracts - all of this made commerce more appealing than plunder.
RoadsFinancialBetterMoreKingdom
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict Steven Pinker quotes