Steven Pinker Quotes

Well, it arose out of two long-term concerns - the first being the possibility of genetic manipulation, nature versus nurture, what constitutes how people get to be how they are.

Character, I am sure, lies in the genes.

You know, there's a tremendous amount of genetic propensity not necessarily for what TV shows you like but for literally how you view the world, how you react to things, how things touch you and how things move you.

The most important thing to realize is we're not blank slates at birth. We don't start off with nothing in our heads, and then get imprinted entirely by our environment. There's something in our heads on the day we're born, and then we grow up and make choices.

That human behavior is more influenced by things outside of us than inside. The 'situation' is the external environment. The inner environment is genes, moral history, religious training.

The genetic you and the neural you aren't alternatives to the conscious you. They are its foundations.

There is no escaping from the conclusion that nature prevails enormously over nurture.

I work in a mix of areas and am informed by them all: child development, psycholinguistics, education, and most especially, cognitive neuroscience.

Man is the control experiment of heredity and environment; and since his heredity controls him, he tries to control his environment.

The egalitarian doctrine is manifestly contrary to all the facts established by biology and by history. Only fanatical partisans of this theory can contend that what distinguishes the genius from the dullard is entirely the effect of postnatal influences.

Genes are not destiny!

Your genetics load the gun. Your lifestyle pulls the trigger.

So no, it's not all in the genes, but what isn't in the genes isn't in the family environment either. It can't be explained in terms of the overall personalities or the child-rearing practices of parents.

Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown.

As a graduate student, I wrote a long paper connecting the dots between mathematical models of learning and language development in children. It was published in a major journal.

Blood will tell, but often it tells too much.

My father was always getting excited about something. It's genetically inside me somewhere.

Genes can't possibly explain all of what makes us what we are.

There has to be innate circuitry that does the learning, that creates the culture, that acquires the culture, and that responds to socialization.

There's a constant debate over nature or nurture - they're inseparable.

The brain is not a bag of traits. It's startlingly complex. There are few or no single genes with a consistent effect on the mind.

I align myself with almost all researchers in assuming that anything we do is a composite of whatever genetic limitations were given to us by our parents and whatever kinds of environmental opportunities are available.

Genes are not simple triggers. No one is hardwired to commit murder or any other crime. Our actions are always the result of stupendously complex gene-environment interactions, and environment is likely to remain the more important influence by far.

Heredity is what sets the parents of a teenager wondering about each other.

A person's current personality of love, hatred, jealousy, rage or a murderous intent and so on is formed upon genetic elements, education, the environment and a family a person grows in.