10.28.2008

I like Steven Pinker


But you already knew that.

"The habit of hallucinating causal powers and forcing experience to fit them has shaped human cultures from time immemorial, producing our species' vast compendium of voodoo, astrology, magic, prayer, idolatry, New Age nostrums, and other flimflam."
-from The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. There's already a link to the book around here somewhere... and I'm only halfway through, so expect at least a couple more posts and/or cartoons inspired by it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's not a man alive who wouldn't love that cartoon.

A link to Pinker:
http://books.google.com/books?id=jylSITT9ZNUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Stuff+of+Thought:+Language+as+a+Window+into+Human+Nature.

Mr. Miro said...

Mai's quote comes from Freud via Pinker, and modified to fit the circumstances. But for anyone who has ever been in a conversation like this, yeah.