As he makes clear, neither idea is original rather they synthesise themes derived from his past and present mentors. First, that the human “mind” has evolved as a device for enhancing human survival and reproductive success according to the ultra-Darwinian principles adopted by his new gurus and secondly, that it is best conceived of not as a single coherent unity, but as an interacting community of distinct modules, each specialised for a particular function. Pinker’s 660 pages aim to convince his readers of two distinct theses. His present guides, as he tells us frankly, are the evangelists of the new school of evolutionary psychology, a field still more familiarly known by the name its protagonists disavow, sociobiology. Its author, Steven Pinker, is a cognitive psychologist, and was once a disciple of the linguist Noam Chomsky but has long since dropped his pilot. THIS is not a modest title, and How the Mind Works is not a modest book. How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker, Allen Lane, £25, ISBN 0713991305
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