Who is Steven Pinker?
Professor Steven Pinker has spent his life thinking about thinking. Now he wants us to join him. For this series Professor Pinker has created a critical thinking toolkit which he hopes will help all of us make better decisions about - well, everything.
What is Steven Pinker's Critical Thinking Toolkit?
Professor Steven Pinker's guide to thinking better. Professor Steven Pinker has spent his life thinking about thinking. Now he wants us to join him. For this series Professor Pinker has created a critical thinking toolkit which he hopes will help all of us make better decisions about - well, everything.
Who are the producers of think with Pinker?
Producers: Imogen Walford and Joe Kent Editor: Emma Rippon Think with Pinker is produced in partnership with The Open University. Making predictions can be hard, especially about the future.
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Does Steven Pinker have a podcast?
Inquiring Minds: Steven Pinker: Enlightenment Now on Apple Podcasts.
Does Steven Pinker have a PhD?
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.
What did Chomsky do for psychology?
Noam Chomsky proposed that linguistics, or the study of language, should be included in the field of cognitive psychology since it involves mental processes. Additionally, he proposed the theory of universal grammar, which states language acquisition is innate or inborn as opposed to being learned.
What is Steven Pinker's theory?
Pinker argues that all languages are built on the same universal grammar and that the language mechanism is built into the human brain; thus the basic structures of language are a part of our biological inheritance.
Recorded
Streaming video of PSY 1: Introduction to Psychological Science lectures at Harvard University
Podcasts
Big Think: Think Again, "Steven Pinker (Cognitive Scientist) - The Defeat of Defeatism"
Selected Appearances on Radio, Television, and the Web
March 2, 2020, Forbes - " Steven Pinker: ‘Evolution Has Saddled Our Species With Many Irrational And Destructive Psychological Traits’ "
Experimental psychologist interested in all aspects of language, mind, and human nature
Steven Pinker conducts research on a variety of topics in psychology and cognitive science, including common knowledge (things that everyone knows everyone knows), language acquisition, emotion, the moral sense, rationality, and trends in violence.
Twitter Feed
sapinker Another excellent feed for positive developments (good for your mental health as well as a more accurate view of world trends). Example of the day: Capital punishment is on death row, declining inexorably worldwide. t.co/xgRTwG4W2x
Who is Steven Pinker?
Dr. Steven Pinker is a Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University . He conducts research on a number of topics, including visual cognition, psycholinguistics, and social relations. His work has received a number of prestigious prizes, including the Troland Research Prize from the National Academy of Sciences. In addition to his impressive scholarly work, Dr. Pinker has also drawn attention as a public intellectual. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, and has written nine books, including the New York Time best sellers, The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now. In this podcast, we discuss humanism and his popular books, trends of declining violence, and the general state of moral psychology. Leave a tip at: https://www.patreon.com/moralscience Transcript available at: https://www.ambercazzell.com/post/msp-ep39-stevenpinker APA citation: Cazzell, A. R. (Host). (2020, September 8). The Arrow of Moral Progress with Steven Pinker [Audio Podcast]. Retrieved from https://www.ambercazzell.com/post/msp-ep39-StevenPinker
What is the argument of Steven Pinker?
One part of this argument is that life in a state of nature – before civilization – was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Amongst other things, Pinker argues that hunter-gatherers, tribal societies, were – and are - much more violent than later more civilized societies. Both Pinker and Thomas Hobbes argue that the state and its monopolisation on force and authority have pacified our darker human nature.This is a common trope:In the 1996 book War Before Civilization, for example, archaeologist Lawrence Keeley argues that prehistoric violent deaths probably ranged from around 7-40% of all deaths. He says: ‘there is nothing inherently peaceful about hunting-gathering or band society’.In 2003, Steve LeBlanc and Katherine Register claimed in their book Constant Battles that ‘everyone had warfare in all time periods’Biologist Edward Wilson ‘Are human beings innately aggressive?’ Yes. Coalitional warfare is ‘pervasive across cultures worldwide’John Tooby and Leda Cosmides declare that ‘Wherever in the archaeological record there is sufficient evidence to make a judgment, there traces of war are to be found. It is found across all forms of social organization—in bands, chiefdoms, and states.’The book Demonic Males argues that ‘"neither in history nor around the globe today is there evidence of a truly peaceful society’.Pinker has written that ‘Hobbes was right, Rousseau was wrong.’Are – and were – hunter-gatherers really that violent? Brian Ferguson and Douglas Fry argue no. Looking at chimpanzees, bonobos, Otzi – the iceman – and a range of much more insightful ethnographical and archaeological evidence is the best way to find out.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018
