People today sometimes get uncomfortable with empirical claims that seem to clash with their political assumptions, often because they haven't given much thought to the connections.
Interpretation
People often resist factual information that contradicts their political beliefs due to a lack of critical thinking.
In this quote, Steven Pinker highlights the discomfort people feel when faced with empirical evidence that challenges their established political views. This reaction is often rooted in a lack of deep reflection on how their beliefs are formed and connected to reality, suggesting the need for more critical thinking and openness to evidence-based claims.
In practice
In a debate about science and policy, this quote serves to remind listeners of the importance of evidence over preconceived notions.
The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.
The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.
If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values away from claims about our psychological makeup that are vulnerable to being proven false.
We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.
The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child's peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration.
Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.
You lose your individuality a huge amount when you have no money, and I certainly had that experience.
I think it makes sense to believe in God, but exactly what decision in your life you make differently because of it, I don't know.
I am quite ready to acknowledge . . . that I ought to be grieved at death, if I were not persuaded that I am going to other gods who are wise and good (of this I am as certain as I can be of any such matters), and to men departed who are better than those whom I leave behind. And therefore I do not grieve as I might have done, for I have good hope that there is yet something remaining for the dead.
What kind of people do they [the Japanese] think we are?
My belief is that I wasn't born into Judaism by accident, and so I needed to find ways to honor that.
Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true and assured I have gotten either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.
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