- One of the reasons we don't know whether limiting access to guns would effectively decrease the homicide rate in America is because the Congress passed a law that bars the Centers for Disease Control from conducting such related studies. - In the United States, gun rights are a sacred cause of the right and are protected vehemently. As Steven Pinker says, "anything that might compromise the right of everyone to have a gun is squelched." The word "anything" seems to even include research. - A lot is at stake — people's lives — by not conducting research to find out how to control gun violence in America. We need to keep politicians accountable to the people, and pressure them to enact policies founded on solid research. This first means though that such research is no longer suppressed. Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist who conducts research in visual cognition, psycholinguistics, and social relations. He grew up in Montreal and earned his BA from McGill and his PhD from Harvard. Currently Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, he has also taught at Stanford and MIT. He has won numerous prizes for his research, his teaching, and his nine books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, and Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (amzn.to/2Y7eL7H) New videos DAILY: bigth.ink/youtube Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos: bigth.ink/Edge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT BIG THINK: Smarter Faster™ Big Think is the leading source of expert-driven, actionable, educational content -- with thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, we help you get smarter, faster. S​ubscribe to learn from top minds like these daily. Get actionable lessons from the world’s greatest thinkers & doers. Our experts are either disrupting or leading their respective fields. ​We aim to help you explore the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century, so you can apply them to the questions and challenges in your own life. Other Frequent contributors include Michio Kaku & Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Michio Kaku Playlist: bigth.ink/kaku Bill Nye Playlist: bigth.ink/BillNye Neil DeGrasse Tyson Playlist: bigth.ink/deGrasseTyson Read more at Bigthink.com for a multitude of articles just as informative and satisfying as our videos. New articles posted daily on a range of intellectual topics. Join Big Think Edge, to gain access to an immense library of content. It features insight from many of the most celebrated and intelligent individuals in the world today. Topics on the platform are focused on: emotional intelligence, digital fluency, health and wellness, critical thinking, creativity, communication, career development, lifelong learning, management, problem solving & self-motivation. BIG THINK EDGE: bigth.ink/Edge If you're interested in licensing this or any other Big Think clip for commercial or private use, contact our licensing partner, Executive Interviews: bigth.ink/licensing ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Follow Big Think here: ????BigThink.com: bigth.ink ????Facebook: bigth.ink/facebook ????Twitter: bigth.ink/twitter ????Instagram: bigth.ink/Instragram ????YouTube: bigth.ink/youtube ✉ E-mail: info@bigthink.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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