Top 30 famous quotes by Steven Pinker

We review the most outstanding famous quotes of this Canadian researcher.

Steven Pinker (September 18, 1954) is a Canadian psychologist and writer, very popular nowadays. In fact, a few months ago, he appeared on one of our lists as one of the 12 most influential psychologists today.

This exponent of evolutionary psychology has been interested in how our genetics predisposes us to certain behaviors for greater adaptation, and how language is a product of the evolution of our species, carved by natural selection.

The most important phrases of Steven Pinker

In the following lines you can find some of the best phrases of Steven Pinker.

1. Culture rests on a neuronal circuitry that performs the feat we call "learning".

Although he has focused on the importance of genetics, Pinker believes that culture and learning are two closely related phenomena.

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

Human beings form hypotheses on a daily basis, because the simple relationship with others invites us to want to understand their behavior and to anticipate it.

3. Contrary to popular belief, the gene-centered theory of evolution does not imply that the point of all human endeavor is to spread our genes

A quote referring to human evolution.

4. The mind is a neural computer

Neurons make up the human brain, and allow us to think, feel, experience emotions, etc.

5. The mind is not the brain but it is what the brain does; but not everything the brain does.

A reflection on the unconscious of people.

6. Life is a series of deadlines that come and go

Life must be enjoyed every moment, for we will never live the past again.

7. As people grow older, they confuse changes in themselves with changes in the world, and changes in the world with low morale; the illusion of the old days.

Old age can be a time of great reflection on what life is and has been.

8. The special status of the brain comes from something special that it executes, that makes us see, think, feel, choose and act. This special something is the process of information or computation.

A quote from his book: "How the mind works: computation and evolution by natural selection".

9. News is about things that happen, never about things that don't happen.

The news that circulate is intended to inform.

10. Since violence is largely a male pastime, cultures that allow women to move away from the exaltation of violence and are less likely to breed dangerous subcultures with rootless youths

A thought-provoking reflection.

11. Children acquire spoken language instinctively, but they learn written language only by the sweat of their brow, because spoken language has been a feature of human life for tens or hundreds of millennia, while written language was a recent invention that spread very slowly.

People learn to speak naturally, but we do not write well until we go to school.

12. Genes are like a game within a game, not the inner monologue of the players.

Pinker finds a similarity between genes and play.

13. As technology accumulates and more people from all parts of the planet become interdependent, the hatred between them tends to diminish, for the simple reason that you cannot kill someone without killing commerce as well.

There is a relationship between the advance of new technologies and capitalism.

14. The belief that human tastes are nothing more than reversible cultural preferences has led social planners to prevent people from enjoying ornamentation, natural light, and human scale, and has forced millions of people to live in gray cement boxes.

A word that criticizes people who are passive toward cultural influence.

15. Solving a problem even in a hundred years' time is, for all practical purposes, the same as never solving it at all.

Problems must be solved at the right time, because the consequences can be negative if they are not solved.

16. It is natural to think that living things must be the work of a designer. But it was also natural to think that the sun set around the earth. Overcoming naive impressions to find out how things really work is one of the highest appeals of humanity.

People should not be perfectionists, because it has a negative influence on our well-being.

17. It is not right for parents to hit, humiliate, deprive or abandon their children, because it is frightening for a big and strong person to do these things to a small and helpless one.

Parents should be careful when punishing their children.

18. Whether teenagers smoke, have run-ins with the law, or commit serious crimes depends much more on what their peers do than on what their parents do.

During adolescence, the weight of peers weighs heavily on adolescent behavior.

19. The psychology of morality is multifaceted. There is no single answer as to where morality is located in the brain.

Morality is a social construct, as Steven Pinker makes clear with this sentence.

20. At every moment we choose, consciously or unconsciously, between good things for now and better things for later.

People tend to have expectations of a better future, it is what keeps us motivated.

21. Fiction is the technology of empathy

In order to act, it is necessary to have a good capacity for empathy.

22. Any ethnic group that has made it to the present day probably had aggressive ancestors in the not-too-distant past.

Human beings have not evolved simply by preferring peace to war.

23. Nothing in life offers more meaning than the realization that every moment of sensitivity is a precious gift.

A quote that invites questions about human existence.

24. The romantic idea that all evil is a product of society has justified the release of dangerous psychopaths who immediately murdered innocent people.

Some social psychologists claim that being good or bad depends on the situation. Something that, according to Pinker, should be taken with a grain of salt.

25. Our visual systems can play tricks, and it is enough to show that they are instruments of non-truth.

The result of what we see is not reality, but our reality.

26. We will never have a perfect world, but it is not romantic or naïve to work for a better one.

To think that the world will be a paradise in which everyone will respect each other and social classes will not exist is a utopia.

27. I do not believe that evolution designed us to reproduce but to enjoy sex and love our children.

A Pinker's view on sex and reproduction.

28. A newborn is not a blank sheet of paper

Pinker thinks that when we are born we are not a tabula rasa.

29. I believe that the institutions that promote the search for truth, such as science, history and journalism, are aimed at strengthening this Muscle of reality to a great extent.

In the author's opinion, the search for truth should be a primary value of people.

30. As technology accumulates and people from more parts of the planet become interdependent, hatred between them tends to diminish, for the simple reason that you cannot kill someone and at the same time trade with them.

Often, economics trumps prejudice.