![]() ![]() In this interview, I speak to Professor Steven Pinker about rationality. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Humanist of the Year, a recipient of nine honorary doctorates, and one of Foreign Policy’s “ World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals” and Time’s “ 100 Most Influential People in the World Today.” In his latest book, Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters ( Viking, 2021), Steven gives us a primer in logical thinking and an entertaining expedition through all the trapdoors we can tumble through when we try to parse reality or bend it to our will. ![]() He is the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard and has won many prizes for his research, his teaching, and his books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, and Enlightenment Now. Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist who conducts research in cognition, language, and social relations. How can a species that doubled its lifespan, sequenced its genome, and developed vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, quack cures, conspiracy theories, and “ post-truth” rhetoric? ![]() Today humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding – and appears to be losing its mind. ![]()
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