How the Mind Works"A model of scientific writing: erudite, witty, and clear." —New York Review of Books In this Pulitzer Prize finalist and national bestseller, one of the world's leading cognitive scientists tackles the workings of the human mind. What makes us rational—and why are we so often irrational? How do we see in three dimensions? What makes us happy, afraid, angry, disgusted, or sexually aroused? Why do we fall in love? And how do we grapple with the imponderables of morality, religion, and consciousness? How the Mind Works synthesizes the most satisfying explanations of our mental life from cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and other fields to explain what the mind is, how it evolved, and how it allows us to see, think, feel, laugh, interact, enjoy the arts, and contemplate the mysteries of life. This edition of Pinker's bold and buoyant classic is updated with a new foreword by the author. |
From inside the book
Results 6-10 of 77
... question makes no sense because neither adultery nor any other behavior can be in our genes. Conceivably a desire for adultery can be an indirect product of our genes, but the desire may be overridden by other desires that are also ...
... questions like “Who or what is supposed to benefit from an adaptation?” and “What is a design in living things a design for?” the theory of natural selection provides the answer: the long-term stable replicators, genes. Even our bodies ...
... question whether sociobiology should be taught at the high school level, or even the undergraduate level. . . . The whole message of sociobiology is oriented toward the success of the individual. It's Machiavellian, and unless a student ...
... question is what to make of any group differences we do stumble upon. And here we must be prepared to make a moral argument. Discrimination against individuals on the basis of their race, sex, or ethnicity is wrong. The argument can be ...
... question we ask about a new human being, and from then on parents treat their sons and daughters differently: they touch, comfort, breast-feed, indulge, and talk to boys and girls in unequal amounts. Imagine that this behavior has long ...