No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality

No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality

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  • Author: Judith Rich Harris
  • Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
  • ISBN: 0393079511
  • Category : Psychology
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 343

"A display of scientific courage and imagination." —William Saletan, New York Times Book Review Why do people—even identical twins reared in the same home—differ so much in personality? Armed with an inquiring mind and insights from evolutionary psychology, Judith Rich Harris sets out to solve the mystery of human individuality.


No Two Alike

No Two Alike

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  • Author: Judith Rich Harris
  • Publisher: W. W. Norton
  • ISBN: 9780393059489
  • Category : Psychology
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 322

Draws on principles in evolutionary psychology to explore a controversial theory about the source of human personality, challenging current scientific beliefs while examining what can be learned through studies of language, autism, and chimpanzees.


The Nurture Assumption

The Nurture Assumption

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  • Author: Judith Rich Harris
  • Publisher: Simon and Schuster
  • ISBN: 0684857073
  • Category : Child development
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 486

Harris takes on the "experts" and boldly questions conventional wisdom of parents' role in their children's lives, asserting that it's not the home environment that shapes children, but the environment they share with their peers.


The Laws of Human Nature

The Laws of Human Nature

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  • Author: Robert Greene
  • Publisher: Penguin
  • ISBN: 0698184548
  • Category : Self-Help
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 626

From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The 48 Laws of Power comes the definitive new book on decoding the behavior of the people around you Robert Greene is a master guide for millions of readers, distilling ancient wisdom and philosophy into essential texts for seekers of power, understanding and mastery. Now he turns to the most important subject of all - understanding people's drives and motivations, even when they are unconscious of them themselves. We are social animals. Our very lives depend on our relationships with people. Knowing why people do what they do is the most important tool we can possess, without which our other talents can only take us so far. Drawing from the ideas and examples of Pericles, Queen Elizabeth I, Martin Luther King Jr, and many others, Greene teaches us how to detach ourselves from our own emotions and master self-control, how to develop the empathy that leads to insight, how to look behind people's masks, and how to resist conformity to develop your singular sense of purpose. Whether at work, in relationships, or in shaping the world around you, The Laws of Human Nature offers brilliant tactics for success, self-improvement, and self-defense.


The Great Mental Models, Volume 1

The Great Mental Models, Volume 1

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  • Author: Shane Parrish
  • Publisher: Penguin
  • ISBN: 0593719972
  • Category : Business & Economics
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 209

Discover the essential thinking tools you’ve been missing with The Great Mental Models series by Shane Parrish, New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind the acclaimed Farnam Street blog and “The Knowledge Project” podcast. This first book in the series is your guide to learning the crucial thinking tools nobody ever taught you. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. The Great Mental Models: Volume 1, General Thinking Concepts shows you how making a few tiny changes in the way you think can deliver big results. Drawing on examples from history, business, art, and science, this book details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making and productivity. This book will teach you how to: Avoid blind spots when looking at problems. Find non-obvious solutions. Anticipate and achieve desired outcomes. Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses, … and more. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.


The Blank Slate

The Blank Slate

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  • Author: Steven Pinker
  • Publisher: Penguin
  • ISBN: 1101200324
  • Category : Psychology
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 532

A brilliant inquiry into the origins of human nature from the author of Rationality, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and Enlightenment Now. "Sweeping, erudite, sharply argued, and fun to read..also highly persuasive." --Time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize Updated with a new afterword 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.


The Martians of Science

The Martians of Science

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  • Author: István Hargittai
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press
  • ISBN: 0195365569
  • Category : Biography & Autobiography
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 370

Hargittai tells the story of five remarkable Hungarians: Wigner won a Nobel Prize in theoretical physics; Szilard was the first to see that a chain reaction based on neutrons was possible, initiated the Manhattan Project, but left physics to try to restrict nuclear arms; von Neumann could solve difficult problems in his head and developed the modern computer for more complex problems; von Kármán became the first director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, providing the scientific basis for the U.S. Air Force; and Teller was the father of the hydrogen bomb, whose name is now synonymous with the controversial "Star Wars" initiative of the 1980s.


The Better Angels of Our Nature

The Better Angels of Our Nature

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  • Author: Steven Pinker
  • Publisher: Penguin Books
  • ISBN: 0143122010
  • Category : Psychology
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 834

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think this is the most violent age ever seen. Yet as bestselling author Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true.


The Chomsky-Foucault Debate

The Chomsky-Foucault Debate

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  • Author: Noam Chomsky
  • Publisher: The New Press
  • ISBN: 1595586571
  • Category : Philosophy
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 177

In this historic 1971 debate, two of the twentieth century’s most influential thinkers discuss whether there is such a thing as innate human nature. In 1971, at the height of the Vietnam War and at a time of great political and social instability, two of the world’s leading intellectuals, Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, were invited by Dutch philosopher Fons Elders to debate an age-old question: Is there such a thing as “innate” human nature independent of our experiences and external influences? The resulting dialogue is one of the most original, provocative, and spontaneous exchanges to have occurred between contemporary philosophers. Above all, their discussion serves as a concise introduction to their two opposing theories. What begins as a philosophical argument rooted in linguistics (Chomsky) and the theory of knowledge (Foucault), soon evolves into a broader discussion encompassing a wide range of topics, from science, history, and behaviorism to creativity, freedom, and the struggle for justice in the realm of politics. In addition to the debate itself, this volume features a newly written introduction by noted Foucault scholar John Rajchman and includes substantial additional texts by Chomsky and Foucault. “[Chomsky is] arguably the most important intellectual alive.” —The New York Times “Foucault . . . leaves no reader untouched or unchanged.” —Edward Said


A Conflict of Visions

A Conflict of Visions

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  • Author: Thomas Sowell
  • Publisher: Basic Books
  • ISBN: 0465004660
  • Category : Philosophy
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 308

Thomas Sowell’s “extraordinary” explication of the competing visions of human nature lie at the heart of our political conflicts (New York Times) Controversies in politics arise from many sources, but the conflicts that endure for generations or centuries show a remarkably consistent pattern. In this classic work, Thomas Sowell analyzes this pattern. He describes the two competing visions that shape our debates about the nature of reason, justice, equality, and power: the "constrained" vision, which sees human nature as unchanging and selfish, and the "unconstrained" vision, in which human nature is malleable and perfectible. A Conflict of Visions offers a convincing case that ethical and policy disputes circle around the disparity between both outlooks.