false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178769811m/835623.jpg 835623 13 Why do fools fall in love? Why does a man's annual salary, on average, increase $600 with each inch of his height? When a crack dealer guns down a rival, how is he just like Alexander Hamilton, whose face is on the ten-dollar bill? How do optical illusions function as windows on the human soul? Cheerful, cheeky, occasionally outrageous MIT psychologist Steven Pinker answers all of the above and more in his marvelously fun, awesomely informative survey of modern brain science. Pinker argues that Darwin plus canny computer programs are the key to understanding ourselves--but he also throws in apt references to <I>Star Trek</I>, <I>Star Wars</I>, <I>The Far Side</I>, history, literature, W. C. Fields, Mozart, Marilyn Monroe, surrealism, experimental psychology, and Moulay Ismail the Bloodthirsty and his 888 children. If <I>How the Mind Works</I> were a rock show, tickets would be scalped for $100. This book deserved its spot as Number One on bestseller lists. It belongs on a short shelf alongside such classics as <I>Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life</I>, by Daniel C. Dennett, and <I>The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology</I>, by Robert Wright. Pinker's startling ideas pop out as dramatically as those hidden pictures in a <I>Magic Eye</I> 3D stereogram poster, which he also explains in brilliantly lucid prose. 2085667 book 1997 How the Mind Works total:795|5:257|4:335|3:162|2:26|1:15| 795 3178 1636 80 4 3 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 05 12:13:19 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 05 12:33:58 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Dec 07 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 08 05:26:40 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 08 05:26:53 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 7 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 21 13:32:05 -0700 2008 Sat May 16 07:19:00 -0700 2009 2
Slight background story: I was having a discussion with a guy on goodreads.com within his comments on his review of Why I Am Not A Muslim and eventually ...more...]]> 1 1 false false Sat Dec 20 09:47:43 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 21 11:30:11 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 16 07:29:39 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 30 12:34:18 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Oct 23 14:14:06 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 30 09:16:25 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu May 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue May 05 17:46:26 -0700 2009 Thu May 07 06:13:54 -0700 2009
In addition to presenting both sides of the argument before stating his point in as concise a manner as possible, Pinker also makes sure to include plenty of examples and analo...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Jul 25 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 10:10:51 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 17 04:01:55 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 04 09:11:07 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 28 06:12:36 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Jan 24 08:40:46 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 24 08:41:19 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 1 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Jul 11 10:27:46 -0700 2007 Tue Oct 16 23:11:10 -0700 2007 1 0 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 16 09:02:36 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 31 07:07:26 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 1 false false Wed Nov 19 20:42:16 -0800 2008 Wed Nov 19 20:42:21 -0800 2008 5 0 false false Wed Oct 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 23 00:41:32 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 15 10:24:08 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri May 16 10:09:33 -0700 2008 Fri May 16 10:17:50 -0700 2008 more...]]> 0 0 false false Tue Dec 02 19:34:39 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 04 18:56:59 -0800 2008
I have seen Pinker lecture twice, once for The Blank Slate and just recently for The Stuff of Thought. He is amazingly eloquent and I find myself constantly checking to see when he will ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Thu Dec 04 16:56:36 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 15 22:12:25 -0800 2009
Please don't think that this makes th...more...]]> 0 0 false false Mon Mar 09 00:00:00 -0800 1992 Sat Oct 31 11:45:20 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 31 11:56:56 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Mon Mar 02 18:19:19 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 02 18:19:19 -0800 2009
I digress. This book is a marvelous and intellectually satis...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jul 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 25 00:19:15 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 09 08:06:07 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=835623