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A list of the ways in which we’re stupid can’t explain why we’re so smart: smart enough to have discovered the laws of nature, transformed the planet, lengthened and enriched our lives, and, not least, articulated the rules of rationality that we so often flout.

— Steven Pinker Rationality (2021)

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More quotes by Steven Pinker

Status is the public knowledge that you possess assets that would allow you to help others if you wished to.

How the Mind Works (1997)

Genes are a play within a play, not the interior monologue of the players."

How the Mind Works (1997)

As an experimental psychologist, I have been trained not to believe anything unless it can be demonstrated in the laboratory on rats or sophomores.

Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language (1999)

Logicians tell us that a system of ideas containing a contradiction can be used to deduce any statement whatsoever, no matter how absurd.

I predict it will come to be seen as a turning point in the history of psychology.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Steven Pinker (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.