Human nature is complex. Even if we do have inclinations toward violence, we also have inclination to empathy, to cooperation, to self-control.

Trivers, pursuing his theory of the emotions to its logical conclusion, notes that in a world of walking lie detectors the best strategy is to believe your own lies. You can’t leak your hidden intentions if you don’t think they are your intentions. According to his theory of self-deception, the conscious mind sometimes hides the truth from itself the better to hide it from others. But the truth is useful, so it should be registered somewhere in the mind, walled off from the parts that interact with other people.

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

All our behaviours are a result of neurophysiological activity in the brain. There is no reason to believe there is any magic going on.

I never outgrew my conversion to atheism at 13, but at various times was a serious cultural Jew.

There has to be innate circuitry that does the learning, that creates the culture, that acquires the culture, and that responds to socialization.

Cognitive psychology has shown that the mind best understands facts when they are woven into a conceptual fabric, such as a narrative, mental map, or intuitive theory. Disconnected facts in the mind are like unlinked pages on the Web: They might as well not exist.