Steven Pinker on the Brain, the Mind, and Evolution

While researching The Spectator article I linked to earlier tonight (well, this morning), I noticed this provocative quote from Steven Pinker's facebook page:

Why do people believe that there are dangerous implications of the idea that the mind is a product of the brain, that the brain is organized in part by the genome, and that the genome is a product of evolution?

 The reason, of course, is that there are dangerous implications from that idea. The danger lies to world views that believe "the mind" is some sort of insular independently existing thing (a non-scientific concept, though one that has extensive cachet in religion and philosophy), it lies to those whose sense of being special depends on having their thoughts and person divorced from the meanness of limited physical existence, and it lies in the fear many have that tying brain function to the genome leads to discrimination and potentially eugenics.