Group selection is a big blunder, says Thinko wilson. He doesn't think darwinian process of differential survival applies to groups in the same way that it does to gens. But he can't rule out genetic change helping reduce violence on time scales similar to those seen in Germany and America.
Steven Pinker has spent an entire academic career thinking deeply about language, cognition, and human nature. Driving it all, he says, is an Enlightenment belief that the world is intelligible, science can progress, and through rational inquiry we can better understand ourselves.
He recently joined Tyler for a conversation not only on the power of reason, but also the economics of irrational verbs, whether violence will continue to decline, behavioral economics, existential threats, the merits of aerobic exercise, photography, group selection, Fermi’s paradox, Noam Chomsky, universal grammar, free will, the Ed Sullivan show, and why people underrate the passive (or so it is thought).
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.
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