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Evolution is central to the understanding of life, including human life. Like all living things, we are outcomes of natural selection; we got here bec...more

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Cognitive psychology has shown that the mind best understands facts when they are woven into a conceptual fabric, such as a narrative, mental map, or ...more

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The unstated premise that nature is nice lies behind many of the objections to the Darwinian theory of human sexuality. Carefree sex is natural and go...more

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I think moralistic science is bad for morals and bad for science.

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Why give a robot an order to obey orders—why aren't the original orders enough? Why command a robot not to do harm—wouldn't it be easier never to comm...more

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No society can be simultaneously fair, free, and equal. If it is fair, people who work harder can accumulate more. If it is free, people will give the...more

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Thinking is computation, I claim, but that does not mean that the computer is a good metaphor for the mind. The mind is a set of modules, but the modu...more

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Apes have a wide variety of sexual arrangements. That means, by the way, that there is no such thing as an “ape legacy” that humans are doomed to live...more

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The universality of reason is a momentous realization, because it defines a place for morality. If I appeal to you do do something that affects me—to ...more

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Lewis Richardson wrote that his quest to analyze peace with numbers sprang from two prejudices. As a Quaker, he believed that "the moral evil in war o...more

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The psychological components of war have not gone away—dominance, vengeance, callousness, tribalism, groupthink, self-deception

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Behavioral science is not for sissies.

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Nature is a hanging judge," goes an old saying. Many tragedies come from our physical and cognitive makeup. Our bodies are extraordinarily improbable ...more