Steven Pinker

Sex and excretion are reminders that anyone's claim to round-the-clock dignity is tenuous. The so-called rational animal has a desperate drive to pair up and moan and writhe. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#dignity

the mind is a neural computer ↗

— Steven Pinker

#science

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to compute it. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#linguistics #science #humor

It Begins with skepticism. The history of human folly, and our own susceptibility to illusions and fallacies, tell us that men and women are fallible. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#skepticism #men

Everyone has a theory of human nature. Everyone has to anticipate the behavior of others, and that means we all need theories about what makes people tick. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#nature

Chomsky is a pencil-and-paper theoretician who wouldn't know Jabba the Hutt from the Cookie Monster, ↗

— Steven Pinker

#humor #humorous-quotations #funny

Behavioral science is not for sissies. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#nature

Much can be gained be contrasting a theory with its alternatives, even ones that look too extreme to be true. You can really understand something when you know what it is not. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#nature

legal investigation. As Clinton noted, “My goal in this deposition was to be truthful, but not particularly helpful. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#nature

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

#discoveries #exploring #fearful #honest #intellectual