The Genius of Thomas Sowell cover image

Steven Pinker on Thomas Sowell

The Genius of Thomas Sowell

CHAPTER

How to Make a Difference in the World

All policies involve trade-offs, and Tom often loses patience at people with sweeping visions. I can really relate to this trade-off because when I was a teenager, I was also very into photography. You could tighten the diaphragm in your camera to bring more things in the picture into focus, but only at the cost of making your picture darker. Stephen Pinker briefly mentioned Sowell's 1987 book A Conflict of Visions, and that he built upon some of Sowell's ideas in his 2002 book The Blank Slate. He also mentions that he had been influenced by Sowell's writings on the power of culture from his three book series on the subject.

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