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March 2014 - Epigenetics Revolution
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By Betsy , co-mod · 13 posts · 147 views
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September 2014 - Sixth Extinction
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By Betsy , co-mod · 62 posts · 168 views
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What science book is your most recent read? What do you think about it? Pt. 1
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August 2012 - How the Mind Works
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By Betsy , co-mod · 152 posts · 214 views
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Work in progress links - Demo for Betsy
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What Members Thought
In this book, Steven Pinker explores a very controversial thesis, that is, violence is declining. Different types of violence are declining on multiple time scales. It would seem like the twentieth century had some major wars and plenty of genocide to make his thesis sound rather foolish. But in the first seven chapters he shows lots and lots of statistics to back up his thesis. In the eighth and ninth chapters he also explores the scientific reasons for violence and the reasons for increasingly
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I know people advise taking Pinker with a grain of salt, and I'm not, to tell the truth, up on all the reasons he's not supposed to be paid attention to, but this book is amazing.
Pretend that the book is anonymous, and just critically examine the arguments and evidence presented.
This book cheered me up in Covid pandemic world. As the worse angels of America's nature got a lot of attention and traction, Pinker's examination of the long view shows that we are headed to a better place.
The twentieth ...more
Pretend that the book is anonymous, and just critically examine the arguments and evidence presented.
This book cheered me up in Covid pandemic world. As the worse angels of America's nature got a lot of attention and traction, Pinker's examination of the long view shows that we are headed to a better place.
The twentieth ...more
Old times no better than today
Pinker review of past history reveals what you know if you remember some of your high school history: the past of human race has been more violent than today world. The message of the book is not about unrealistic optimism, it is just trying to figure out what things has push this decline in violence. However you need to read several times to be able to get convince that the wars of 20th century and genocides, during and after, are outliers however not as bad as the ...more
Pinker review of past history reveals what you know if you remember some of your high school history: the past of human race has been more violent than today world. The message of the book is not about unrealistic optimism, it is just trying to figure out what things has push this decline in violence. However you need to read several times to be able to get convince that the wars of 20th century and genocides, during and after, are outliers however not as bad as the ...more
Life is getting less violent. Really.
The first portion of the book deals primarily with the statistics and evidence that shows how violence has declined in the course of recorded human history; and the facts do show a dramatic decline of violence over the centuries. While reviewing the statistical numbers Mr Pinker also attempts to find reasons for the declining violence, looking at many different theories that have been proposed over the years.
The two chapters prior to the final summary/conclus
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Steven Pinker spends the majority of the book trying to convince the reader that there has been an overall downward trend in violence. I was convinced of that fact, but, when he goes on to explain why violence has gone down, I feel like the book frayed. I am not saying that Pinker is wrong in his ideas, I just felt like the connection of cause and effect was tenuous at best. The problem is that our societal system is so complex that I feel like a lot of these conclusions fall into the realm of c
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Jun 13, 2013
Velvetink
marked it as to-read
e pub version -tuebl
a slog to get through. Interesting. worth the time to read if you are interested in how society ticks.
Oct 01, 2011
AER
marked it as to-read
Nov 16, 2011
John J.
marked it as to-read
Aug 22, 2012
Oni
marked it as to-read
Dec 28, 2012
Robert
marked it as waiting-on-the-bookshelf
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review of another edition
Shelves:
on-loan
Jun 22, 2013
Hollyy
marked it as to-read
Nov 21, 2013
Thomas Wier
rated it
it was amazing
Shelves:
anthropology-and-sociology,
natural-science
Nov 24, 2013
Anna
marked it as to-read
Aug 02, 2014
Dave
added it
Nov 01, 2017
Vijay kumar chandrashekara
marked it as to-read
Nov 05, 2018
Iski
marked it as to-read
Nov 01, 2019
Britt Aamodt
marked it as to-read
