full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Steven Pinker and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: The long reach of reason

Unscramble the Blue Letters


SP: But is this nrsescailey a bad thing? Perhaps reason is otarveerd. Many pundits have argued that a good heart and steadfast moral clarity are superior to tnrlnuaatigois of overeducated policy wonks, like the best and brightest and that dragged us into the quagmire of venatim. And wasn't it reason that gave us the means to despoil the planet and threaten our species with weponas of mass destruction? In this way of thinking, it's character and conscience, not cold-hearted calculation, that will save us. Besides, a human being is not a brain on a stick. My fellow psychologists have shown that we're led by our bodies and our emotions and use our puny perwos of roaesn merely to rationalize our gut fnielegs after the fact.

Open Cloze


SP: But is this ___________ a bad thing? Perhaps reason is _________. Many pundits have argued that a good heart and steadfast moral clarity are superior to ______________ of overeducated policy wonks, like the best and brightest and that dragged us into the quagmire of _______. And wasn't it reason that gave us the means to despoil the planet and threaten our species with _______ of mass destruction? In this way of thinking, it's character and conscience, not cold-hearted calculation, that will save us. Besides, a human being is not a brain on a stick. My fellow psychologists have shown that we're led by our bodies and our emotions and use our puny ______ of ______ merely to rationalize our gut ________ after the fact.

Solution


  1. weapons
  2. reason
  3. triangulations
  4. powers
  5. overrated
  6. feelings
  7. necessarily
  8. vietnam

Original Text


SP: But is this necessarily a bad thing? Perhaps reason is overrated. Many pundits have argued that a good heart and steadfast moral clarity are superior to triangulations of overeducated policy wonks, like the best and brightest and that dragged us into the quagmire of Vietnam. And wasn't it reason that gave us the means to despoil the planet and threaten our species with weapons of mass destruction? In this way of thinking, it's character and conscience, not cold-hearted calculation, that will save us. Besides, a human being is not a brain on a stick. My fellow psychologists have shown that we're led by our bodies and our emotions and use our puny powers of reason merely to rationalize our gut feelings after the fact.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
human nature 3
moral progress 3
road map 2


Important Words


  1. argued
  2. bad
  3. bodies
  4. brain
  5. brightest
  6. calculation
  7. character
  8. clarity
  9. conscience
  10. despoil
  11. destruction
  12. dragged
  13. emotions
  14. fact
  15. feelings
  16. fellow
  17. gave
  18. good
  19. gut
  20. heart
  21. human
  22. led
  23. mass
  24. means
  25. moral
  26. necessarily
  27. overeducated
  28. overrated
  29. planet
  30. policy
  31. powers
  32. psychologists
  33. pundits
  34. puny
  35. quagmire
  36. rationalize
  37. reason
  38. save
  39. shown
  40. species
  41. steadfast
  42. stick
  43. superior
  44. thinking
  45. threaten
  46. triangulations
  47. vietnam
  48. weapons
  49. wonks