Name: 【TED】Steven Pinker and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: The long reach of reason (Steven Pinker and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: The long reach of reason)
Uploaded: 2017-09-30T15:41:26.000Z
Duration: 15 min 24 s
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Cabbie: Twenty-two dollars. Steven Pinker: Okay.

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: Reason  appears to have fallen on hard times:

Popular culture plumbs new depths of dumbth

and political discourse has become a race

We're living in an era of scientific creationism,

9/11 conspiracy theories, psychic hotlines,

and a resurgence of religious fundamentalism.

the crime of letting logic dominate our thinking.

Many pundits have argued that a good heart

are superior to triangulations of overeducated policy wonks,

like the best and brightest and that dragged us

And wasn't it reason that gave us the means

and threaten our species with weapons of mass destruction?

In this way of thinking,  it's character and conscience,

not cold-hearted calculation, that will save us.

Besides, a human being is not a brain on a stick.

My fellow psychologists have shown that we're led

merely to rationalize our gut feelings after the fact.

RNG: How could a reasoned argument logically entail

the ineffectiveness of reasoned arguments?

Look, you're trying to persuade us of reason's impotence.

with a show of hands or a beauty contest.

By the very act of trying to reason us into your position,

Reason isn't up for grabs here. It can't be.

and the end depends on the reasoner's passions.

Reason can lay out a road map to peace and harmony

but it can also lay out a road map to conflict and strife

if the reasoner delights in conflict and strife.

but it doesn't take much to switch it to yes.

That's one of the passions that has to be present

And that's certainly true of our gregarious

well endowed with the instinct for language.

that I spoke about five years ago here at TED?

Namely, we seem to be getting more humane.

Centuries ago, our ancestors would burn cats alive

by trying to kill as many of each other's peasants as possible.

Governments executed people for frivolous reasons,

The executions were designed to be as prolonged

and as painful as possible, like crucifixion,

RNG: So, do you think it's human nature that's changed?

SP: Not exactly. I think we still harbor instincts

like greed, tribalism, revenge, dominance, sadism.

But we also have instincts that can steer us away,

like self-control, empathy, a sense of fairness,

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【TED】Steven Pinker and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: The long reach of reason (Steven Pinker and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: The long reach of reason)

stick

engage

empathy

practice