The intuition of design in our plans and artifacts leads to creationism and the superstition that “everything happens for a reason.”

Likewise, the intuition of dualism, that people have minds as well as bodies, leads naturally to a belief in minds without bodies, so we have ghosts and ESP and communicating with the dead. That leads us to quack remedies like bloodletting, purging, cupping, and homeopathy, and opposition to genetically modified foods. For example, we have the intuition that living things harbor an essence, an inner stuff that makes them function and gives them their powers, and that disease comes from external contaminants that pollute it. In this case, if everyone is ingenious in gaining prestige within their political sect by glorifying its sacred beliefs and demonizing rival sects, that may work to everyone’s individual advantage, but not to the advantage of the whole society in its interest in the truth and the best policies.Īnother part of the answer is that we are born with primitive intuitions that served us well in traditional societies but have become obsolete in a scientifically sophisticated one. Sometimes that goal is rational for each of us as individuals but irrational for us as a society - a tragedy of the rationality commons, as when it makes sense for every shepherd to graze his sheep on the town commons, but when everyone does it, the commons gets denuded and they’re all worse off. PINKER: First, rationality is always in pursuit of a goal.

GAZETTE: We see examples of seemingly irrational beliefs and behaviors every day, but you argue that people are fully capable of being rational. PINKER: I define it as the use of knowledge to attain a goal, where “knowledge,” according to the standard philosopher’s definition, is “justified true belief.”

GAZETTE: Can you define rationality in a sentence? The interview was edited for clarity and length. At a time when belief in science appears to be waning, conspiracy theories seem to be on the rise, and many Americans cannot agree on basic facts, Steven Pinker argues for a return to rational thought and public discourse in his latest book, “Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters.” Pinker, Harvard’s Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, and author of “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” and “Enlightenment Now,” thinks “we will always need to push back against our own irrationality,” and that education, democracy, science, and journalism, along with an awareness of our own biases, can help us embrace a more rational approach to everyday issues.

Rationality pinker