Language is a window into human nature, but it is also a fistula, an open wound through which we're exposed to an infectious world.

Heritability pertains to the entirety of the genome, not to a single gene.

But in most cases even the possibility that the correlations reflect shared genes is taboo.

After their return from Babylon, the practice of human sacrifice died out among the Jews, but survived as an ideal in one of its break-away sects, which believed that God accepted the torture-sacrifice of an innocent man in exchange for not visiting a worse fate on the rest of humanity. The sect is called Christianity.

As women are empowered, violence can come down, for a number of reasons. By all measures, men are the more violent gender.

We instinctively fear snakes, but we appear not to be afraid of fast cars, which are a real danger now. This suggests our emotions were shaped by our evolutionary environment not the one we grew up in.

Language is a window into human nature, but it is also a fistula, an open wound through which we're exposed to an infectious world.