Steven Pinker

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Armchair Umbrella

Tv & Film, Music, Comedy

4.6 • 68.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2021

⏱️ 83 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Steven Pinker is an award-winning experimental cognitive psychologist, best-selling author, and Harvard professor. Steven joins the Armchair Expert to discuss correlation versus causation, why people have certain beliefs in conspiracy theories, and the difference between individual and collective rationality. Steven and Dax talk about free will, the effectiveness of a dictator's messaging, and how people will often believe their own experience over science. Steven explains that checks and balances are essential for societal accomplishments, how people want to put everything into discreet boxes, and that fear is the most powerful emotion. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome welcome welcome to armchair expert experts on expert. I'm
0:04.4	joined by Monica Lily Padman. Hello there. Hi we're in your hotel room.
0:08.6	We are in London England. We have traveled across the pond. Yeah we've traveled far and wide. We have traveled across the pond. Yeah, we've traveled far and wide. We have. And we're in a little bit of a time crunch. We are and I'm drinking out of his tiny teacup.
0:21.0	And I'm about to have one of the luckiest experiences ever.
0:27.0	Oh my God, you are.
0:28.6	Which is I'm about to go to McLaren, about an hour north of London,
0:32.4	to go see where the cars are made where the race
0:34.5	team happens watch Danny and hopefully Lando and the simulator. That is so fun. Will you
0:41.2	take some video? I'm going to document the entire thing.
0:44.0	Okay.
0:45.0	All right, A, B, R, always be rolling.
0:47.0	Today we have one of our very favorite intellectuals.
0:51.0	We have been mildly obsessed with him for going on seven years
0:54.7	maybe? Yes we tried to get him really early on in the podcast we weren't cool enough
0:58.1	then yeah but he seems to think we're cool enough now and you'll actually hear that
1:01.9	story we kind of like gang rushed him at a event. calling on
1:03.8	now. And you'll actually hear that story. We kind of like gang rushed him at a event.
1:04.8	Oh yeah.
1:05.8	Come on the podcast. At any rate, the man we are talking about is Stephen Pinker.
1:09.9	He is an award-winning experimental cognitive psychologist and best-selling writer on language mind and human nature.
1:15.8	He is currently the Johnston Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University.
1:21.2	His books include The Language Instinct, How The Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Stuff of Thought, and the Better Angels of Our Nature.
	...

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