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An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
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First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,
a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. 2002
Published in Penguin Books 2003
This edition with a new afterword published 2016
Copyright © 2002, 2016 by Steven Pinker
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Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following copyrighted material. Page 22:
Lyrics from “A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara’d into Submission)”; copyright
© 1965, Paul Simon; used by permission of the publisher: Paul Simon Music. Page 57: Chart, “Percentage of
Male Deaths Caused by Warfare,” from War Before Civilization by Lawrence H. Keeley, copyright © 1996
by Oxford University Press, Inc.; used by permission of Oxford University Press, Inc. Page 88: Diagram of the
wiring of the primate visual system from Michael Gazzaniga, The Cognitive Neurosciences, The MIT Press
(1996). Page 179: Lyrics from “Gee, Officer Krupke” by Leonard Bernstein & Stephen Sondheim; © 1956,
Amberson Holdings LLC and Stephen Sondheim; copyright renewed; Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing
Company LLC, publisher; used by permission. Page 199: Diagram, “Turning the Tables,” from Mind Sights
by Roger N. Shepard, © 1990 by Roger N. Shepard; reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company,
LLC. “Checker Shadow Illusion” © Edward Adelson, 2002; reprinted with permission. Page 326:
Lyrics from “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim,” written by Jim Croce; © 1972 (renewed),
Time in a Bottle/Croce Publishing (Asmallcap); all rights reserved; used by permission.
eBook ISBN: 9781101200322
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Pinker, Steven, 1954–
The blank slate : the modern denial of human nature / Steven Pinker.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-0-670-03151-1 (hc.)
ISBN 978-0-14-200334-3 (pbk.)
1. Nature and nurture. I. Title.
BF341.P47 2002
155.2’34—dc21
2002022719
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Cover design: Alex Merto
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