Stream Your Event | Partners | Speakers CART ITEMS: - | CHECKOUT

Adam Gopnik and Steven Pinker Debate Darwin

Watch Full Video | previews

The New York Public Library

Info
Bio
Chapters
Preview
Download
Zoom In

Evolution of the Shrug: Darwin's Principle of Antithesis

03 min 12 sec

Add to Profile

Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker relays his favorite bit of "Darwiniana": Darwin's principle of antithesis.

Darwin proposed that both animals and humans alike employ a certain set of biological signals to convey one emotion (like aggression), while using the exact opposite signals to convey the exact opposite emotion (like passivity).
Adam Gopnik: Was Darwin Racist?

04 min 34 sec

Add to Profile

The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik examines Charles Darwin's contentious exploration of race.

Gopnik argues that while Darwin may have been a "civilizationist," he was not inherently racist. The father of evolution believed the key difference among humans was not genetic, but rather based on access to education and cultural acquisitions.
Watch Full Program

01 hr 06 min 05 sec

Add to Profile

There are 15 comments on this program

Please or register to post a comment.

Previous FORAtv comments:

Page 1 of 2

Polesch

Posted: 02.07.11, 07:52 AM

"The survival of the fittest." is a bad translation of Darwin's phrase "The survival of the organism most prone to adapt."

Dmitry76

Posted: 09.19.10, 04:09 AM

In WW2 T-34 outnumbered more sophisticated Tiger tanks. Sometimes not the quality what is matter but number.

njames029

Posted: 09.17.10, 10:04 PM

I can listen to Pinker ramble on for hours, the same is definitely not true for Gopnik! Boring..

njames029

Posted: 09.17.10, 09:58 PM

@Saltwater2 I disagree.. [begin argument]

inflatekill

Posted: 08.11.10, 07:52 PM

pretentious rambler protecting the same

inflatekill

Posted: 08.11.10, 07:50 PM

Half way in I just skipped past all Gopnick chunks. Pinker drove straight into his verb tornado and stood steadily on his feet staring into the storm's eye, responding calmly: the civilized man of today must always judge the individual on his merits, but accept the that group differences exist. Between men and women, black and white, and on and on. Neuroscience isn't on the Gopnik-leftist's side, and within the next 2 decades it wont be possible to claim that race is a human fabrication. Pinker knows this.

chawil

Posted: 07.27.10, 10:36 AM

'Survival of the fittest' means the individuals (phenotypes) who 'fit in', i.e. who can cope best with prevailing conditions. It certaily doesn't imply survival of the strongest. We are one of the weakest, slowest animals on earth but we now easily dominate species much stronger and faster. Another thing to remember is that all species, including homo sapiens, are temporary. Our existence as individuals and as a species is limited. At some time in the future the conditions on the earth will change and we will disappear. In a couple of hundred million years you'll never know we were here.

Magnium

Posted: 07.20.10, 01:09 PM

In Q3, did I correctly infer that Gopnik was mocking Steven when he said that the question is easy, so he'll let Pinker answer It? And why he always tries to find areas of disagreement with Pinker? Does anyone know what do they disagree on?

Dmitry76

Posted: 07.18.10, 11:13 PM

"This preservation, during the battle for life, of varieties which possess any advantage in structure, constitution, or instinct, I have called Natural Selection; and Mr. Herbert Spencer has well expressed the same idea by the Survival of the Fittest. The term "natural selection" is in some respects a bad one, as it seems to imply conscious choice; but this will be disregarded after a little familiarity". Darwin

Dmitry76

Posted: 07.18.10, 10:56 PM

"Survival of the fittest" doesn't imply the superiority of the white or black. It implies the superiority of the "fittest".

Page 1 of 2