The connections I draw between human nature and political systems in my new book, for example, were prefigured in the debates during the Enlightenment and during the framing of the American Constitution.

Without goals the very concept of intelligence is meaningless

The reason the United States is not so likely to invade Iran is precisely because of the lessons learned from Iraq. And conversely, the Iranian push towards nuclear capability is calculated to deter invasions like the kind deposing Saddam Husain.

Of course the theory of evolution would be vacuous if it offered a glib explanation for every inexplicable act.

The human capacity for compassion is not a reflex that is triggered automatically by the presence of another living thing.

Most wars are not fought over shortages of resources such as food and water, but rather over conquest, revenge, and ideology.

When it comes to explaining human thought and behavior, the possibility that heredity plays any role at all still has the power to shock. To acknowledge human nature, many think, is to endorse racism, sexism, war, greed, genocide, nihilism, reactionary politics, and neglect of children and the disadvantaged. Any claim that the mind has an innate organization strikes people not as a hypothesis that might be incorrect but as a thought it is immoral to think.