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The Blank Slate
- The Modern Denial of Human Nature
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
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Publisher's summary
In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits - a doctrine held by many intellectuals during the past century - denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts.
Injecting calm and rationality into debates that are notorious for ax-grinding and mud-slinging, Pinker shows the importance of an honest acknowledgment of human nature based on science and common sense.
NOTE: Some changes to the original text have been made with the author's approval.
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- By: Carrie Jenkins
- Narrated by: Carrie Jenkins
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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What is love? Aside from being the title of many a popular love song, this is one of life's perennial questions. In What Love Is, philosopher Carrie Jenkins offers a bold new theory on the nature of romantic love that reconciles its humanistic and scientific components.
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What Philosophy Is and What It Could Be
- By Amazon Customer on 03-09-17
By: Carrie Jenkins
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Big Gods
- How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict
- By: Ara Norenzayan
- Narrated by: Paul Nixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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How did human societies scale up from small, tight-knit groups of hunter-gatherers to the large, anonymous, cooperative societies of today - even though anonymity is the enemy of cooperation? How did organized religions with "Big Gods" - the great monotheistic and polytheistic faiths - spread to colonize most minds in the world? In Big Gods, Ara Norenzayan makes the surprising and provocative argument that these fundamental puzzles about the origins of civilization are one and the same, and answer each other.
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Great read
- By paro on 02-27-24
By: Ara Norenzayan
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Riveted
- The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry, and Religion Makes Us Feel One with the Universe
- By: Jim Davies
- Narrated by: Matthew Josdal
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Professor Jim Davies's fascinating and highly accessible book, Riveted, reveals the evolutionary underpinnings of why we find things compelling. Drawing on work from philosophy, anthropology, religious studies, psychology, economics, computer science, and biology, Davies offers a comprehensive explanation to show that in spite of the differences between the many things that we find compelling, they have similar effects on our minds and brains.
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Fun and excellent listen!
- By Alejandro Franco on 04-13-18
By: Jim Davies
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Primates and Philosophers
- How Morality Evolved
- By: Frans de Waal
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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"It's the animal in us," we often hear when we've been bad. But why not when we're good? Primates and Philosophers tackles this question by exploring the biological foundations of one of humanity's most valued traits: morality.In this provocative book, primatologist Frans de Waal argues that modern-day evolutionary biology takes far too dim a view of the natural world, emphasizing our "selfish" genes.
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Having Just Read...
- By Douglas on 12-14-13
By: Frans de Waal
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Freedom Evolves
- By: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Can there be freedom and free will in a deterministic world? Renowned philosopher Daniel Dennett emphatically answers "yes!" Using an array of provocative formulations, Dennett sets out to show how we alone among the animals have evolved minds that give us free will and morality. Weaving a richly detailed narrative, Dennett explains in a series of strikingly original arguments - drawing upon evolutionary biology, cognitive neuroscience, economics, and philosophy - that far from being an enemy of traditional explorations of freedom, morality, and meaning, the evolutionary perspective can be an indispensable ally.
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I knew I was going to like this book
- By Gary on 05-30-14
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Irrationality
- A History of the Dark Side of Reason
- By: Justin E. H. Smith
- Narrated by: Jeff Harding
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Discovering that reason is the defining feature of our species, we named ourselves the “rational animal”. But is this flattering story itself rational? In this sweeping account of irrationality from antiquity to today - from the fifth-century BC murder of Hippasus for revealing the existence of irrational numbers to the rise of Twitter mobs and the election of Donald Trump - Justin Smith says the evidence suggests the opposite.
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A good brain workout
- By ThomasC on 04-09-19
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The Belief Instinct
- The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life
- By: Jesse Bering
- Narrated by: Jesse Bering
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Why is belief so hard to shake? Despite our best attempts to embrace rational thought and reject superstition, we often find ourselves appealing to unseen forces that guide our destiny, wondering who might be watching us as we go about our lives, and imagining what might come after death. In this lively and masterfully argued new book, Jesse Bering unveils the psychological underpinnings of why we believe.
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engaging and insightful
- By juliagee on 01-02-15
By: Jesse Bering
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How to Save the West
- Ancient Wisdom for 5 Modern Crises
- By: Spencer Klavan
- Narrated by: Spencer Klavan
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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It has been proclaimed many times, but perhaps never more convincingly than now, when every news cycle seems to deliver further confirmation of a world gone mad. Is this the endgame? Author Spencer Klavan is a classicist, with a Ph.D. from Oxford, and a deep understanding of the West. His analysis: The situation is dire. But every crisis we face today, we have faced before. And we can surmount each one. Klavan brings to the West’s defense the insights of Plato, Aristotle, the Bible, and the Founding Fathers to show that in the wisdom of the past lies hope for the future.
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Spectacular! A must read!
- By M.A. on 02-15-23
By: Spencer Klavan
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The Genetic Lottery
- Why DNA Matters for Social Equality
- By: Kathryn Paige Harden
- Narrated by: Katherine Fenton
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Genetic Lottery, Harden introduces listeners to the latest genetic science, dismantling dangerous ideas about racial superiority and challenging us to grapple with what equality really means in a world where people are born different. Weaving together personal stories with scientific evidence, Harden shows why our refusal to recognize the power of DNA perpetuates the myth of meritocracy, and argues that we must acknowledge the role of genetic luck if we are ever to create a fair society.
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Mix of Genetic Science and Ideology
- By James on 10-12-21
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We live in the best of all times
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Excellent, but a difficult listen.
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I'd kill for another book this good
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In The Stuff of Thought, Steven Pinker marries two of the subjects he knows best: language and human nature. The result is a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. What does swearing reveal about our emotions? Why does innuendo disclose something about relationships? Pinker reveals how our use of prepositions and tenses taps into peculiarly human concepts of space and time, and how our nouns and verbs speak to our notions of matter.
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Pinker is truly a brilliant and lucid explainer...
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Words and Rules
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First published in 2000, Words and Rules remains one of Pinker's most provocative and accessible books, illuminating the fascinating relationship between the brain, the mind, and how language makes us humans.
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Amazing how much irregular verbs can teach.
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We live in the best of all times
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Excellent, but a difficult listen.
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I'd kill for another book this good
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Pinker is truly a brilliant and lucid explainer...
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Amazing how much irregular verbs can teach.
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In this classic, the world’s expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association....
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Absolutely Amazing and Interesting
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Stumbling on Happiness
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A smart and funny book by a prominent Harvard psychologist, which uses groundbreaking research and (often hilarious) anecdotes to show us why we’re so lousy at predicting what will make us happy–and what we can do about it. Most of us spend our lives steering ourselves toward the best of all possible futures, only to find that tomorrow rarely turns out as we had expected. Why? As Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains, when people try to imagine what the future will hold, they make some basic and consistent mistakes.
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Great Book!
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The Paradox of Choice
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By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counterintuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on the important ones and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
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The Tyranny of Pop Economics
- By Darwin8u on 10-28-13
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The Elephant in the Brain
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Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not just to hunt and gather but also to help us get ahead socially, often via deception and self-deception. But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our own ugly motives, the better - and thus, we don't like to talk, or even think, about the extent of our selfishness. This is "the elephant in the brain".
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Let Me Save You the Credit
- By Evert on 03-16-19
By: Kevin Simler, and others
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The Denial of Death
- By: Ernest Becker
- Narrated by: Raymond Todd
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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work, The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the "why" of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie: man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than 30 years after its writing.
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Not for the closed-minded
- By Yhatze on 05-27-17
By: Ernest Becker
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The Sense of Style
- The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
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In The Sense of Style, the best-selling linguist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker answers these questions and more. Rethinking the usage guide for the 21st century, Pinker doesn’t carp about the decline of language or recycle pet peeves from the rulebooks of a century ago. Instead, he applies insights from the sciences of language and mind to the challenge of crafting clear, coherent, and stylish prose.
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A great book, done a great injustice by the audio
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By: Steven Pinker
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Think with Pinker
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- By: Steven Pinker
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- Highlights
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Cognitive scientist Professor Steven Pinker has spent his life thinking about thinking, and now he wants us to join him. With the aid of his critical thinking toolkit, he hopes to help us make smarter choices, become more rational, gain a greater understanding of the confused world we live in—and maybe even become better citizens. In this fascinating series, produced in partnership with the Open University, he examines the different ways the human brain can be tripped up, from understanding probability to the difference between correlation and causation.
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not all pinkerton works are created equally
- By Dick Grayson on 06-01-24
By: Steven Pinker
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The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium
- By: Martin Gurri
- Narrated by: Tony Messano
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Originally published in 2014, this updated edition of The Revolt of the Public includes an extensive analysis of Donald Trump's improbable rise to the presidency and the electoral triumphs of Brexit and concludes with a speculative look forward, pondering whether the current elite class can bring about a reformation of the democratic process and whether new organizing principles, adapted to a digital world, can arise out of the present political turbulence.
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New forces break things, but can't replace them
- By Philo on 06-25-19
By: Martin Gurri
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The WEIRDest People in the World
- How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
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In The WEIRDest People in the World, Joseph Henrich draws on cutting-edge research in anthropology, psychology, economics, and evolutionary biology to explore these questions and more. He illuminates the origins and evolution of family structures, marriage, and religion, and the profound impact these cultural transformations had on human psychology. Mapping these shifts through ancient history and late antiquity, Henrich reveals that the most fundamental institutions of kinship and marriage changed dramatically under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church.
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Lots of mispronounced words
- By Phillip Falk on 10-24-20
By: Joseph Henrich
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The Moral Animal
- Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
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Are men literally born to cheat? Does monogamy actually serve women's interests? These are among the questions that have made The Moral Animal one of the most provocative science books in recent years. Wright unveils the genetic strategies behind everything from our sexual preferences to our office politics - as well as their implications for our moral codes and public policies.
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Ridiculously Insightful
- By Liron on 10-25-10
By: Robert Wright
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The Expectation Effect
- How Your Mindset Can Change Your World
- By: David Robson
- Narrated by: John Sackville
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- Unabridged
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Melding neuroscience with narrative, science journalist David Robson takes lstenersi on a deep dive into the many life zones the expectation effect permeates. We see how people who believe stress is beneficial become more creative when placed under strain. We see how associating aging with wisdom can add seven plus years to your life. People say seeing is believing but, over and over, Robson proves that the converse is truer: Believing is seeing.
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Every leader and teacher must read!
- By Myron Golden on 09-18-22
By: David Robson
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So Good They Can't Ignore You
- Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love
- By: Cal Newport
- Narrated by: Dave Mallow
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
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In this eye-opening account, Cal Newport debunks the long-held belief that "follow your passion" is good advice. Not only is the cliché flawed - preexisting passions are rare and have little to do with how most people end up loving their work - but it can also be dangerous, leading to anxiety and chronic job hopping. After making his case against passion, Newport sets out on a quest to discover the reality of how people end up loving what they do.
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Become a craftsman
- By A. Yoshida on 07-19-17
By: Cal Newport
What listeners say about The Blank Slate
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Douglas
- 04-08-12
Five stars again for Pinker...
A monumental work debunking the still (unbelievably) widely held idea that the human mind is a blank slate shaped by culture. (The most simple thought shows that the blank slate theory begs the question: how can the mind come from culture, when, by simple reasoning, one can easily deduce that culture, in fact, MUST come from the mind--there was no free floating original "culture" waiting for the first mind to come into existence.) Pinker uses all the latest technology and scientific knowledge to make his points, and though this book does not have the usual Pinker pop culture winks and playful wit, it will still be easy enough for most laymen to understand and profit from.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Fuzzface
- 09-11-15
Its age is period.
There's a lot of wisdom in here, but had I known it was written in 2002 but might not have bought it. The examples are from way in the past.
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1 person found this helpful
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- James O. Williams
- 07-12-15
Steven Pinker is very objective.
Where does The Blank Slate rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Among the top. I learned a lot, although, I'm not smart enough to say that I grasped all the concepts completely.
Which character – as performed by Victor Bevine – was your favorite?
N/A. Nonfiction
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
No. I'm open minded. I learned a lot.
Any additional comments?
This is probably a book where one should buy the book and not listen to the audiobook. I've been told that the book has a lot of corresponding graphs, etc., so that you can see the data and grasp the concepts at hand.
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- Matt Swulius
- 03-18-17
Please don't miss this work.
It should provide a refreshing perspective for those interested in the biology of behavior, the relationship between your mind and brain, and help to diffuse many myths about what human nature really is and why we shouldn't avoid studying it scientifically. Listen and let the dogma of the blank slate be exercised from your psyche.
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- Michael
- 05-10-19
Bravo.
Every word is to the point. The author examines a large and important subject comprehensively and factually: human nature and its misappropriation. Recommended.
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- Noob Customer
- 05-24-19
The best book in evolutionary psychology
The entire book is enlightening, and easy to go through it. The best narrative and probably the best intellectual content of all the evolutionary psychology books I have go through until now. A must read
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- Dee Goulet
- 02-04-18
The best
Steven Pinker hits it out of the park! Beautifully cogent! A must read for anyone who works in any human service field!
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- Drew Alexander
- 01-06-18
another great from Pinker
I feel that the beginning was dense and seemingly repetitive. The scientific nitty gritty of behavioral genetics can be a bit of a slog. Most of the book is entertaining, enlightening, and persuasive. Naturally for Pinker, it is sweeping in scope and range of application. Still highly relevant in 2018.
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- Kyle
- 11-05-22
This book will change your life
After reading this book, you get the sense that you haven't learned anything at all, because it all just seems so intuitive with Pinker's flawless deconstruction. You will never think of psychology the same way again, and you won't even know what hit you. It's too bad that this isn't required reading in high school health classes.
The worst thing about this auidobook is that the narrator is completely tone deaf. He reads each line of this psychology textbook as though it is an introduction for a professional wrestling match. At least he is consistent, so the cadence isn't so distracting after a while.
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- Anonymous User
- 03-02-20
What we do, Why we do it, and How we influence it.
This book is delightfully scientific, refreshingly objective and prudent, and astoundingly well made in more ways than i am able to convey with words.
In short:
1. If you want to know HOW we came to be - the origin of our species, and our history, read "Sapiens" By Yuval Noah Harari.
2. If you want to know WHY we do what we do, and WHAT we are influenced by, read this book.
Vertchu
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4 people found this helpful