Dr. Steven Pinker, a professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard, is recognized as one of the world’s most influential intellectuals. The 67-year-old Pinker is the author of eight mainstream books, including How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and Enlightenment Now.
Appearing on the CNN program Smerconish, Dr. Pinker answered this relevant and disturbing question: “Why Has Humanity Lost Its Mind?” CNN added this: “Why, in the information age, is much of America preoccupied with conspiracy theories and science denial? Psychologist Steven Pinker says, ‘Some of us will always be suckers,’ but we need to learn ‘to evaluate.’ ”
Quote: “Cognitive psychology tells us that the unaided human mind is vulnerable to many fallacies and illusions because of its reliance on its memory for vivid anecdotes rather than systematic statistics.” | “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.”
Sources: Wikipedia (introduciton), BrainyQuote (quotations)
Learn more about Steven Pinker from Wikipedia. ►
Watch “Why Has Humanity Lost Its Mind?” from Smerconish on CNN [7:50]. ►
Photo: Harvard Political Review
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