Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with political and moral and emotional baggage?
Steven PinkerThe elevation of parochial values to the realm of the sacred is a license to dismiss other people's interests, and an imperative to reject the possibility of compromise
Steven PinkerThe European wars of religion were more deadly than the First World War, proportionally speaking, and in the range of the Second World War in Europe. The Inquisition, the persecution of heretics and infidels and witches, they racked up pretty high death tolls.
Steven PinkerI think a lot of moral debates are not over what is the basis of justice, but who gets a ticket to play in the game.
Steven Pinker