“But the newest research is showing that many properties of the brain a...” — Steven Pinker Quote

But the newest research is showing that many properties of the brain are genetically organized, and don't depend on information coming in from the senses.

Today we take it for granted that war happens in smaller, poorer and more backward countries.

Language is a window into human nature, but it is also a fistula, an open wound through which we're exposed to an infectious world.

Morality is not just any old topic in psychology but close to our conception of the meaning of life. Moral goodness is what gives each of us the sense that we are worthy human beings.

Many textbooks point out that no animal has evolved wheels and cite the fact as an example of how evolution is often incapable of finding the optimal solution to an engineering problem. But it is not a good example at all. Even if nature could have evolved a moose on wheels, it surely would have opted not to. Wheels are good only in a world with roads and rails. They bog down in any terrain that is soft, slippery, steep, or uneven. Legs are better. Wheels have to roll along an unbroken supporting ridge, but legs can be placed on a series of separate footholds, an extreme example being a ladder. Legs can also be placed to minimize lurching and to step over obstacles. Even today, when it seems as if the world has become a parking lot, only about half of the earth's land is accessible to vehicles with wheels or tracks, but most of the earth's land is accessible to vehicles with feet: animals, the vehicles designed by natural selection.

While we will always have vehement disagreements on important issues, we can disagree better. We have to. The stability of our society and our form of government depend upon it.

We have to look for opportunities if we're going to survive the next 50 years. We can't depend on what we have now.

Strike rates depend on the surfaces you play on.

Don't depend on other people to be responsible for you. Don't make yourself stressed out over nonsensical things like material things.

Obviously, I have to enjoy all I have. People depend on you, and now I can look back at everything I've gone through to get here with a different perspective.