Steven Pinker: Cognitive Scientist

[Music] hi I'm Annie Laurie Gaylor and I'm Dan Barker welcome to free thought dan and I are co-presidents of the Freedom From Religion Foundation which produces free thought matters ffs forever the National Association of free thinkers working to keep church and state separate we invite you to join us in our vital work today at FFF org today's guest is the distinguished evolutionary psychologist and author Steven Pinker I had the pleasure of being the first person to interview Steven Pinker about his new book which is out just this February it's called enlightenment now the case for reason science humanism and progress Steven Pinker is the Johnstone family professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University his 11 books include the bestsellers the blank slate how the mind works and the language instinct Time magazine included Steven Pinker in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world today the Freedom From Religion Foundation has previously awarded Steven Pinker our emperor has no clothes award for making known his descent from religion FFRF is honored to call Steven Pinker our honorary president I had the privilege of conducting this interview of Steven Pinker last September just before he addressed the 40th annual convention of the Freedom From Religion Foundation in Madison Wisconsin I think I've read almost everything you've ever written from way way back when when was the language instinct back in 1994 94 that was an amazing amazing eye-opening book and your whole career is focused pretty much on linguistics in the brain and language and I'm still telling young parents read this book you can your observe being this almost a miracle happening when you're watching your kids you know learn language in that but through your whole career of the the blank slate and the better angels of our nature I pick up like a theme of optimism you tend to be a very positive optimistic person in your writings you tend to to show things aren't as bad as they as we think they are and you're writing another book is it going to continue that same kind of a theme it is and it's somewhat of a paradox given that I firmly believe that in its human nature that we have been saddled by evolution with a number of nasty traits like self-deception like tribalism like authoritarianism sexism sexes and racism magical thinking but on the other hand we have also been endowed with some faculties that offer us a kind of hope for redemption we have the Faculty of reason give me perfect redemption in a natural sense in a natural sense in the sense of we're not doomed to strife and poverty and disease and ignorance we we have a modicum of Reason it doesn't work all that well by itself but when it's embedded in institutions that enhance reason such as freedom of speech empirical testing critical link inquiry it can enhance its own power we have a modicum of sympathy that is we can feel each other's pain by default that tends to be applied only to members of our family and clan and tribe but it can be expanded through through the arts through technologies of empathy where we see the world through other people's eyes through reason when we're convinced that there can't be anything special about us just because we're us and and and other people are not and so the circle of sympathy can expand so my optimism doesn't come from any naive belief in the goodness of human nature I certainly don't believe that but with the right norms and institutions we can magnify the the powers of reason and sympathy that we were endowed with would you say altruism itself is instinctive or is that something learned is that a cultural I think there is an instinct for altruism I think we naturally apply it to our blood relatives because genes look out for copies of themselves and others in other bodies I think we also have a capacity for fairness and exchange and reciprocity and trading favors by themselves that isn't enough to for a large scale society to be homogeneous but it does give us the the seeds that we can plant and that can grow and through norms such as the rule of law we can figure out ways to to get along even though left to our own devices what what nature gave us isn't enough and you point out in your last book and I think in talking about your next book which I want to talk about to say in a second that we shouldn't rely on the headlines because the headlines in the newspaper or on TV you say they don't really represent human nature they represent the weird aberrations of human nature how did you put it you never see a reporter on a corner Here I am reporting from a school that has not been shot up yeah or a country that's not at war or a city square that hasn't been the victim of a terrorist attack yeah news is about stuff that happens it's not about stuff that doesn't happen stuff that doesn't happen is what makes life worth worth living yeah they're the wars that don't happen the crimes that aren't committed also the improvements in the human condition that we see are are gradual there's never a day in which or very rarely a day in which something magnificent happens I mean you know when small when the when smallpox was eradicated that might be close when the polio vaccine was proven to be safe and effective as a kid I remember we had to take those polio pills I got first I got I got shot up and but then other kids got the the segment we had to get in line yes yes pink pink a syrup yeah well and it worked yeah the polio is almost almost eradicated from the planet but those are the exceptions when something really good happens on and so it can be a headline more often the the declines in violent crime the declines in death and warfare the advance of human prosperity and longevity their gradual there's never a day in which you see a sudden leap but extended over time plotting the numbers on a graph you see that we're much much better off than our ancestors but the newspapers tend not to report it because it never happens in a in a flash yeah exactly and it doesn't sell newspapers it's not that is another aspect aside from the fact that good things tend to unfold gradually we are as a species consumed with with bad news we for our entertainment we like to see violence and in murder mysteries and in war films and Shakespearean tragedies and a lot of psychological research shows that we're very vigilant to bad things that can happen we're in fact much more upset about bad things than we are cheered by good things but doesn't that prove the point when you see a headline don't we naturally say like like some parent does some horrible thing to the kid I mean oh that's horrible don't we instinctively say what an inhuman thing to do don't we assume that the human thing to do is not that right we have this we have a bed of goodness and altruism that the normal human being that's not gonna sell headlines by saying you know my momma hugs her kid today right yes that's true it's the it's the discrete events with a lot of harm done very quickly that are almost a definition of news and you've been questioned about your book better angels of our nature about well if things were getting less violent well look at the news look at Syria right now look what's happening it doesn't that blow your whole thesis out the window yeah that's why it's the only way you can appreciate the state of humanity is to look at data you have to bottom on graphs and you see that there are ups and downs but the overall slope is downward peace the world is giving peace a chance through most of human history war was the natural state of relations between nations and a peace was a brief interlude between wars we can see this in a graph showing the proportion of years that the great powers that is the largest countries and empires fought each other and about 500 years ago the great powers were pretty much always at war now they are pretty much never at war now of course there were two horrific exceptions to this general trend namely the shown in this graph which shows the rate of death in war in the 20th century and there are two unmistakable spikes of bloodletting centered around the two world wars but contrary to widespread predictions that a third world war was inevitable predictions that many of us grew up with World War three never happened and since then we've been living through a period that historians have called the long peace let's zoom in on that here we have the rate of death in war since 1946 which it shows a kind of undulating roller coaster but one with an unmistakable downward trend the proportion of people killed annually in Wars now was about is about a quarter of what it was in the 1980s 1/6 of what it was in the 1970s 1/16 of what it was in the early 1950s and a half a percent of what it was during World War two even the horrific tragedy of Syria plotted on a curve of war deaths since World War two which of course was sky high it's been a downward rollercoaster Syria is a as an uptick since decline the worst years of the war probably over and they are horrific they would be great if the number of wars was zero it's not zero but it's less than what it used to be we forget about the horrific wars that took place in the 60s and the 70s and the 80s that had death tolls that were far higher than the Syrian civil war and in percentage terms back in medieval times it was even a as your book points out very very dangerous time to live there there was some pretty horrific centuries in before the modern era the the Mongol conquests the fall of the Roman Empire and the fall of various Chinese dynasties could kill people by the tens of millions so how does religion play into this does religion help does does going to church and praying to Jesus you know are religious people doing a better job of combating our natural violence or his religion contributing to it well over the long sweep of history religions certainly have contributed to bloodshed and mayhem there were the the Crusades the European Wars of Religion like the 30 Years War of the Inquisition there were probably but a tenth of the people who've been killed in various atrocities over the course of history were victims of religious fanaticism now you say okay well ninety percent weren't but you kind of think that the number of people murdered for religion should be zero but it but it's a lot now this doesn't mean that all religious institutions are contribute to violence many many don't but what we have to focus on is the institutions and not the supernatural beliefs there are benefits to to some religions but that's because there are benefits to many institutions to service organizations to their clubs to international institutions they don't need the supernatural beliefs but when people work together for a goal that they can justify then good things can happen when people work together toward goals that come down from some supernatural deity no not so often there's a lot of religious people are doing good things and they're there churches like the vehicle that they're happened to be using but the principles are the values the human moral values are common to all of us religious or not that's right I think many religions have become more liberal more humanistic they downplayed their legacy of supernatural beliefs and dogmas or 'ti in favor of universal values like life and health education and as such they're kind of converging with non-religious service organizations like Lions Club and the Shriners and rotary which are working to eliminate disease and increase education as well and institutions that work to promote human flourishing are good things you just don't need a belief in invisible entities to do it well I know in my town here in Madison Wisconsin D there's a lot of non-believers in Madison and we find ourselves marching in the same parades with our Christian and Jewish friends I mean it's it's the issues that matter it's not the doctrine that matters we're trying to solve real needs in the real world and that's common to all humanity absolutely and that would be a benevolent direction that many religions have followed and let's hope we'll continue to follow do you think there is such thing as an arrow of progress you remember the French condor say the French I you know he wrote that thing about he thinks there is this urge or arrow or something a human approach in which we're tending to see things like that as far as women's rights and acceptance of gay we're seeing some progress or history is is that an inevitable thing or do we have to work at that is that a cultural thing you have to do I think we have to work at it Martin Luther King of course invoke the arc bending toward justice from Theodore Parker and it sometimes almost looks like that because when you plot measures of human well-being prosperity and nutrition and education and freedom they do tend to to veer upward but there's no law of nature that says that that must happen there are a number of laws of nature that are pushing against it such as the law of entropy or second law of thermodynamics there are more ways for things to go wrong than for things to go right there the darker sides of human nature by no means is is progress inevitable problems are really the result of problem solving of recognizing that there are ways of improving our lot and working together to implement them and once we've tasted it once women have the right to vote once they you don't want to give that up you you've progressed and that's something that society is embracing and say we like this let's let's try to hold on to that absolutely and we can lose sight of that again if we concentrate too much on the news because even though over the last couple of years there have been more headlines about white supremacy about hate crimes outbursts of sexism still you the standard has risen so much so that not even say the donald trump who by many eyes has contributed that he is not proposing bringing back racial segregation taking away the the right of gay people to be teachers bringing taking away the vote from women these are just by now inconceivable yeah they're Givens they're just Givens and so we look at the little deviations from that rising tide as signs that things are getting worse forgetting how high the tide has risen good like the stock market you know if you're if you watch the stock market every day you can be really depressed for a while because oh no look at this but if you do like you just said if you do this when you're in the middle of one of these downturns you can still be optimistic because you know there's a general what do you call it a tight or something that's that's right there's a long term increase and there are four trim fluctuations that are superimposed on them it doesn't mean that they can't also be disasters black black thursdays and great recessions or as harvey and hurricane Irma but even with even with these hurricanes look at the outpouring of empathy and charity and human giving and working it at half we did we just see some looting we just saw a little bit of that which is kind of what is that embarrassing or or something I mean there's something in human nature that some people are gonna go out and but on on balance I think we saw a lot more stories of people reaching out and helping and giving money and trying to you know humans helping other humans there actually is a field called disaster sociology there wants to see what happens when people are confronted with a disaster and it is generally true that when confronted with adversity people do work together they restore services they tend not to panic there sometimes is looting but it's really more of an exception than the rule what teenage guys are something that are you know yeah exactly yeah teenage guys whose frontal lobe isn't quite totally not wired up there yes your next book enlightenment is that like a follow up or is that cannabis yeah it's called enlightenment now and the subtitle is the case for reason science humanism and progress and it is an honor to speak about my forthcoming book in public for the first time in front of this audience so I'm going to begin with some big questions why is the world filled with whoa how can we make it better how do we give meaning and purpose to our lives now these may seem like unanswerable questions but all too many people have answers to them for example morality is dictated by God in holy scriptures the world will be better when everyone obeys his laws the world's problems are the fault of a certain kind of evil people who must be defeated and punished one tribe of people is inherently worthy it should have power and prestige implemented by a strong leader who channels it's authentic virtue and experience at some time in the past there was a well-ordered state then alien forces subverted this harmony have led to decadence and degeneration only a heroic Vanguard with memories of the old ways can restore the society to its golden age well what about the rest of us the point of my book forthcoming book enlightenment now is that there is an alternative system of beliefs and values namely the ideals of the Enlightenment also sometimes known as classical liberalism secular humanism or the open society in a sentence that we can use knowledge to enhance human flourishing now many people embrace an Enlightenment humanism without being able to name or describe it they are like the molière's bourgeois gentleman who was delighted to learn that he had been speaking prose all his life as a result the values of the Enlightenment fade into the bland background they are seen as the status quo or the establishment and whereas other ideologies have passionate advocates and I argue that enlightenment values need a positive defense and an explicit commitment the Enlightenment values Center on four themes reason science humanism and progress I I got the idea to write at went after finishing the better angels of our nature which had 100 graphs showing that violence is in long-term decline and then I started noticing that there were other measures of human well-being that also show improvement we're getting richer were living longer we're getting better educated we're getting more more literate we're getting happier and by we I don't mean rich people in the United States I mean worldwide we're getting safer fewer people get mowed down on the sidewalk by cars few people died in plane crashes few people get struck by lightning which every measure of human safety well-being flourishing is on the rise now that requires an explanation it's a it's a fact about the human condition that very few people realize and I wrote enlightenment now and I realized that the decline of violence is actually an example of one example of many advancing fronts of human progress if we continue to encourage ideals that made it possible namely reason science and humanism by humanism I mean the idea that morality consists in enhancing the well-being of men women and children as opposed to and other sentient animals but as opposed to the glory of the tribe the advancement of the faith the the well-being of the nation or the expansion of the nation as long as you focus on the happiness health and experience of men women and children and apply knowledge to enhance them success is possible it's kind of like a species hygiene where we're taking care of us I don't know if you're like me but when I was a kid we didn't wear seatbelts no of course not we drove all over the place and now you think that was totally reckless now be like child abuse yeah and so you sit on your daddy's lap and and and oh yeah do you know I hardly thing in the back window what if he hits you know oh yeah but it in faces at the cars behind you look at how it's so automatic now that we just do that look at the social benefits of just something as simple as snapping a seatbelt or other measures that we take take for granted in life it oh absolutely you know fewer people get burned to death in fires fewer people drowned fewer people fall to their deaths it's really astonishing and it's not you can't point to one thing that led to these advances which is why it got almost makes me believe in progress some of it is federal regulation those of us those people who are constantly criticizing the nanny state and the overprotective federal regulations should keep in mind that we're 99% less likely to die in an accidents that we used to be oh no those regulations really save lives but it's also technology often companies will make their products safer just because people don't want to be you know [Music] mutilated or suffer amputations from their their equipment partly it's because of affluence once you are richer you as you can afford safer product safety is something of luxury people would rather get from A to B in a car and if they're richer still they'll buy a car with airbags so many things pushed too in the same direction well we're out of time here I think I think when I get from what you saying where you're right is that without a God without religion we can still have hope in our life we can still anticipate a not an afterlife but a better life a better future and absolutely the laws of the universe don't care about you but other people care about you and that's really our our hope for progress well thank you Steven it was really a pleasure having you on the show thanks so much and thanks for talking beyond we are born into a pitiless universe facing steep odds against life enabling order and in constant jeopardy of falling apart we are shaped by a force that is ruthlessly competitive we are made from Crooked Timber vulnerable to illusions self-centeredness and at times astounding stupidity yet human nature has also been blessed with resources that open a space for a kind of redemption we are endowed with a power to combine ideas recursively to have thoughts about our thoughts we have an instinct for language allowing us to share the fruits of our experience and ingenuity we are deepened with a capacity for sympathy for pity imagination commiseration compassion these ideas these endowments have found ways to magnify their own power the scope of language has been augmented by the written printed and electronic word our circle of sympathy has been expanded by history journalism and a narrative arts and our puny rational faculties have been multiplied by the norms and institutions of reason intellectual curiosity open debate skepticism of authority and dogma and the burden of proof to verify ideas by confronting them against reality as the spiral of recursive improvement gathers momentum we eke out victories against the forces that grind us down not least the darker parts of our own nature we penetrate the mysteries of the cosmos including life and mind we live longer suffer less learn more get smarter and enjoy more small pleasures and rich experiences fewer of us are killed assaulted enslaved oppressed or exploited by the others from a few oases the territories with peace and prosperity are growing and could someday encompass the globe much suffering remains and tremendous peril but ideas on how to reduce them have been voiced and an infinite number of others are yet to be conceived we will never have a perfect world and it would be dangerous to seek one but there is no limit to the betterments we can attain if we continue to apply knowledge to enhance human flourishing this heroic story is not just another myth myths are fictions but this one is true true to the best of our knowledge which is the only truth we can have we believe it because we have reasons to believe it as we learn more we can show which parts of the story continue to be true and which ones false as any of them might be and any could become and the story become belongs not to any tribe but to all of humanity to any sentient creature with the power of reason and the urge to persist in its being for it requires only the convictions that life is better than death health is better than sickness abundance is better than want freedom is better than coercion happiness is better than the suffering and knowledge is better than superstition and ignorance thank you very much thank you that was the distinguished evolutionary psychologist and author Steven Pinker FFR Epps honorary president interviewed last fall by my co-host Dan Barker thanks for watching free thought matters on behalf of the Freedom From Religion Foundation I invite you to tune in next week for another edition of freethought matters because freethought matters [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: FFRF

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Keywords: Steve pinker, steve pinker books, steve pinker enlightenment now, steve pinker the blank slate, steven pinker, steve pinker book, Freedom From Religion Foundation, FFRF, Atheist, Atheism, Freethought Matters

Id: 32_EHo_Rb_A

Length: 28min 34sec (1714 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 26 2018