The Blank Slate has enforced a morality of the gaps: whatever we cannot blame on genes or the environment, we credit to the blank slate.Steven Pinker
Parenting is a huge responsibility and privilege of staggering importance. No one would deny that the job involves care, affection, excitement, and fun. But its impact on the traits of the next generation appears to be small.Steven Pinker
In fact, any competent biologist would predict, sight unseen, that a creature with our brain and genome cannot possibly be a blank slate.Steven Pinker
In reality, most people do have a pretty darn good idea of who they are, and it takes a major life event (or several years in therapy) to make a noticeable change.Steven Pinker
If you make concreteness your touchstone, much of academic discourse on the mind will seem like theology.Steven Pinker
The taboo on human nature has not just put blinkers on researchers but turned any discussion of it into a heresy that must be stamped out.Steven Pinker
The message of this book is that the fear [of human nature] is unfounded.Steven Pinker
The idea of an innate organization of the brain—an innate human nature—is a profound challenge to a widespread belief about what makes people tick.Steven Pinker
Revolutions are not made by raising the consciousness of the masses; they are made by the change in consciousness of the revolutionaries.Steven Pinker
The challenge is not just to describe different cultures but to explain why they are different.Steven Pinker