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Steven Pinker

Born Steven Arthur Pinker
September 18, 1954 (1954-09-18) (age 53)
Nationality Canadian-American
Occupation Scientist
Author
Employers Harvard

Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a prominent Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and author of popular science. Events 96 - Nerva is proclaimed Roman Emperor after Domitian is assassinated Year 1954 ( MCMLIV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar) Events 96 - Nerva is proclaimed Roman Emperor after Domitian is assassinated Year 1954 ( MCMLIV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar) Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page The United States of America 鈥攃ommonly referred to as the Experimental psychology approaches Psychology as one of the natural sciences investigates it using the experimental method. Cognitive science may be broadly defined as the multidisciplinary study of mind and behavior For the 1935-1949 film series see Popular Science (film. Popular Science is an American monthly Magazine founded in 1872 Pinker is known for his wide-ranging advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. Evolutionary psychology ( EP) attempts to explain mental and psychological traits 攕uch as Memory, Perception, In philosophy, the computational theory of mind is the view that the human Mind is best conceived as an Information processing system and that

Pinker鈥檚 academic specializations are visual cognition and language development in children, and he is most famous for popularizing the idea that language is an "instinct" or biological adaptation shaped by natural selection. In Psychology and the Cognitive sciences perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory Information. Language development is a process that starts early in human life when a person begins to acquire Language by learning it as it is spoken and by mimicry An adaptation is a characteristic of an Organism that has been favored by Natural selection and Natural selection is the process by which favorable Heritable traits become more common in successive Generations of a Population of On this point, he opposes Noam Chomsky and others who regard the human capacity for language to be the by-product of other adaptations. Avram Noam Chomsky (no蕣m 藞t蕛蓱mski born December 7 1928 is an American linguist, Philosopher, cognitive scientist, Political He is the author of five books for a general audience, which include The Language Instinct (1994), How the Mind Works (1999), Words and Rules (2000), The Blank Slate (2002), and The Stuff of Thought (2007). The Language Instinct is a book by Steven Pinker, published in 1994. How the Mind Works (ISBN 0-393-31848-6 is a book by American cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, published in 1997. Words and Rules The Ingredients of Language (ISBN 0-06-095840-5 is a 1999 popular Linguistics book by Steven Pinker on the subject of regular The Blank Slate The Modern Denial of Human Nature is a best-selling 2002 book by Steven Pinker arguing against Tabula rasa models of the Social sciences The Stuff of Thought Language As a Window Into Human Nature is a New York Times best-selling book by Harvard experimental psychologist Pinker's books have won numerous awards and been New York Times best-sellers.

Contents

Biography

Career

Pinker was born in Canada and graduated from Montreal's Dawson College in 1973, received a bachelor's degree in experimental psychology from McGill University in 1976, then went on to earn his doctorate in the same discipline at Harvard in 1979. Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page Montreal, or Montr茅al in French ( pronounced in French, in English) is the largest city in the Canadian province of Quebec Dawson College (Coll猫ge Dawson was the first English CEGEP and is located in Westmount, just west of downtown Montreal, Quebec A bachelor's degree is usually an Undergraduate Academic degree awarded for a course or major that generally lasts for three four or in some cases and Experimental psychology approaches Psychology as one of the natural sciences investigates it using the experimental method. "PhD" redirects here for other uses see PhD (disambiguation. He did research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a year, then became an assistant professor at Harvard and then Stanford University. The meaning of the word professor ( Latin: professor, person who professes to be an expert in some art or science teacher of highest rank) varies Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly known as Stanford University or simply Stanford, is a private Research university located in From 1982 until 2003, Pinker taught in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, and eventually became the director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. Cognitive science may be broadly defined as the multidisciplinary study of mind and behavior Cognitive neuroscience is an academic field concerned with the scientific study of biological substrate underlying Cognition, with a specific focus on the neural substrates (Except for a one-year sabbatical at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1995-6. The University of California Santa Barbara ( UCSB) is a selective research-oriented public university located on the Pacific Ocean in Santa Barbara County California ) As of 2007, he is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard. [1]

Pinker was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2004[2] and one of Prospect and Foreign Policy's 100 top public intellectuals in 2005. Time (trademarked in capitals as TIME) is a weekly American Newsmagazine, similar to Newsweek and Not to be confused with The American Prospect magazine Prospect is a monthly British general interest Magazine Foreign Policy is a bimonthly American Magazine founded in 1970 by Samuel P [3] He has also received honorary doctorates from the universities of Newcastle, Surrey, Tel Aviv, McGill, and the University of Troms酶, Norway. The University of Surrey is a University located within the county town of Guildford, Surrey in the South East of England Tel Aviv University (TAU 讗讜谞讬讘专住讬讟转 转诇志讗讘讬讘 讗转"讗 is Israel 's largest on-site University, located in Tel Aviv. The University of Troms酶 ( Norwegian: Universitetet i Troms酶) is the world's northernmost University.

In January 2005, Pinker defended Lawrence Summers, President of Harvard University, whose comments about the gender gap in mathematics and science angered much of the faculty. Lawrence Henry "Larry" Summers (born November 30, 1954) is an American Economist and academic [4]

Pinker addresses the criticisms of scholars like Geoffrey Sampson (as outlined in his "Educating Eve", a biting criticism of the language "instinct" Pinker advocates) and Suren Naicker (as outlined in his "Rationalism vs. Geoffrey Sampson (1944 Broxbourne, Hertfordshire) is Professor of Natural Language Computing in the Department of Informatics, University of Empiricism: a critique of the Chomskyan paradigm").

In 2007, he was invited on The Colbert Report and asked under pressure to sum up how the brain works in five words 鈥 Pinker answered "Brain cells fire in patterns. The Colbert Report (/kol藞b蓻r r蓹藞p蓴r/&mdashthe t is silent in "Colbert" is a Peabody Award and Emmy Award winning American "

Personal

Pinker was born into the English-speaking Jewish community of Montreal. PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ Montreal, or Montr茅al in French ( pronounced in French, in English) is the largest city in the Canadian province of Quebec He has said, "I was never religious in the theological sense. . . I never outgrew my conversion to atheism at 13, but at various times was a serious cultural Jew. Atheism Secular Jewish culture embraces several related phenomena above all it is the Culture of secular communities of Jewish people but it can also include "[5] As a teenager, he says he considered himself an anarchist until he witnessed civil unrest following a police strike in 1969. Anarchism is a Political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which support the elimination of all compulsory Government, i Civil disorder, also known as civil unrest, is a broad term that is typically used by law enforcement to describe one or more forms of disturbance caused by a group of people [6] His father, a trained lawyer, first worked as a traveling salesman, while his mother was first a home-maker then a guidance counselor and high-school vice-principal. He has two younger siblings. His brother is a policy analyst for the Canadian government. The Canadian Government, formally Her Majesty's Government in Canada, is the Federal government of Canada. His sister, Susan Pinker, is a school psychologist and writer, author of The Sexual Paradox. Mental health professional A psychologist is a practitioner of Psychology, the systematic investigation of the mind including Behavior, Cognition, [7][8] Pinker married Nancy Etcoff in 1980 and they divorced 1992; he married Ilavenil Subbiah in 1995 and they, too, divorced. [9] His partner is the novelist and philosopher Rebecca Goldstein. Rebecca Goldstein (born 1950 is an American Novelist and professor of Philosophy. [10] He has no children.

Theories of language and mind

Pinker is most famous for his work 鈥 popularized in The Language Instinct (1994) 鈥 on how children acquire language, and for his popularization of Noam Chomsky's work on language as an innate faculty of mind. The Language Instinct is a book by Steven Pinker, published in 1994. One hotly debated issue is whether the biological contribution includes capacities specific to language acquisition often referred to as Universal grammar. Avram Noam Chomsky (no蕣m 藞t蕛蓱mski born December 7 1928 is an American linguist, Philosopher, cognitive scientist, Political Pinker has suggested an evolutionary mental module for language, although this idea remains controversial (see below). eVolution is the third Album by eLDee, it was due to be released in 2008 The concept of modularity is also used in other fields See Modularity. Additionally Pinker argues that many other human mental faculties are adaptive (and is an ally of Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins in many evolutionary disputes). An adaptation is a characteristic of an Organism that has been favored by Natural selection and Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts) is a prominent American philosopher whose research Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941 is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and Popular science

Written work

Pinker's books, How the Mind Works and The Blank Slate, are from the evolutionary psychology tradition, which views the mind as a kind of Swiss-army knife equipped with a set of specialized tools (or modules) to deal with problems faced by our Pleistocene ancestors. How the Mind Works (ISBN 0-393-31848-6 is a book by American cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, published in 1997. The Blank Slate The Modern Denial of Human Nature is a best-selling 2002 book by Steven Pinker arguing against Tabula rasa models of the Social sciences Evolutionary psychology ( EP) attempts to explain mental and psychological traits 攕uch as Memory, Perception, The Pleistocene ('pla瑟st蓹sin is the epoch from 18 million to 10000 years BP covering the world's recent period Pinker and other evolutionary psychologists believe that these tools evolved by natural selection, just like other body parts. The following is a list of evolutionary psychologists or prominent contributors to the field of Evolutionary psychology. Natural selection is the process by which favorable Heritable traits become more common in successive Generations of a Population of The field of evolutionary psychology was pioneered by E. O. Wilson, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby. Evolutionary psychology ( EP) attempts to explain mental and psychological traits 攕uch as Memory, Perception, Edward Osborne Wilson (born June 10, 1929) is an American biologist researcher ( Sociobiology, Biodiversity) theorist ( Leda Cosmides, (born May 7, 1957 in Philadelphia Pennsylvania) is an American psychologist who together with anthropologist husband John Tooby John Tooby is an American anthropologist who together with psychologist wife Leda Cosmides, helped pioneer the field of Evolutionary The Language Instinct has been criticized by Geoffrey Sampson in his book, The 'Language Instinct' Debate [1]. The Language Instinct is a book by Steven Pinker, published in 1994. Geoffrey Sampson (1944 Broxbourne, Hertfordshire) is Professor of Natural Language Computing in the Department of Informatics, University of The assumptions underlying the nativist view have also been subject to sustained criticism in Jeffrey Elman's Rethinking Innateness: A Connectionist Perspective on Development (Neural Networks and Connectionist Modeling). For nativism as a political force see Nativism. In the field of Psychology, nativism is the view that certain skills or abilities Jeffrey L Elman is Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California San Diego. Published in 1996 by Jeffrey Elman, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Elizabeth Bates, Mark Johnson, Domenico Parisi and Kim Plunkett Rethinking Innateness

Selected publications

Books

Articles and essays

References

  1. ^ Official Biography
  2. ^ "Steven Pinker: How Our Minds Evolved" by Robert Wright, Time Magazine. Events 1099 - First Crusade: Christian soldiers take the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after the final Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Time (trademarked in capitals as TIME) is a weekly American Newsmagazine, similar to Newsweek and Retrieved on 8 February 2006.
  3. ^ "The Prospect/FP Top 100 Public Intellectuals," Foreign Policy (free registration required). Foreign Policy is a bimonthly American Magazine founded in 1970 by Samuel P Retrieved on 8 February 2006.
  4. ^ "PSYCHOANALYSIS Q-and-A: Steven Pinker," The Harvard Crimson. The Harvard Crimson, the daily Student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873 Retrieved on 8 February 2006.
  5. ^ "Steven Pinker: the mind reader" by Ed Douglas, 鈥樷The Guardian鈥欌. The Guardian (until 1959 The Manchester Guardian) is a British Newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. Retrieved on 3 February 2006.
  6. ^ "As a young teenager in proudly peaceable Canada during the romantic 1960s, I was a true believer in Bakunin's anarchism. I laughed off my parents' argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose. Our competing predictions were put to the test at 8:00 A. M. on October 17, 1969, when the Montreal police went on strike. . . . This decisive empirical test left my politics in tatters (and offered a foretaste of life as a scientist). " 鈥 Pinker, Steven (2002), The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Penguin Putnam, ISBN 0-670-03151-8. Penguin Group is the second largest trade book Publisher in the world behind Random House.
  7. ^ Shermer, Michael (2001-03-01), The Pinker Instinct, Altadena, CA: Skeptics Society & Skeptic Magazine, <http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-10144194_ITM>. Michael Brand Shermer (born September 8, 1954 in Glendale California) is an American science writer historian of science founder of The Skeptics Year 2001 ( MMI) was a Common year starting on Monday according to the Gregorian calendar. Events 86 BC - Lucius Cornelius Sulla, at the head of a Roman Republic army enters in Athens, removing the Tyrant Retrieved on 11 September 2007 
  8. ^ "Steven Pinker: the mind reader," The Guardian. The Guardian (until 1959 The Manchester Guardian) is a British Newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. Retrieved on 25 November 2006.
  9. ^ Biography for Steven Pinker. Retrieved on 2007-09-12. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 1213 - Albigensian Crusade: Simon de Montfort 5th Earl of Leicester, defeats Peter II of Aragon at the
  10. ^ "How Steven Pinker Works" by Kristin E. Blagg, The Harvard Crimson. The Harvard Crimson, the daily Student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873 Retrieved on 3 February 2006.

External links


Debates

Vitae

Reviews

Persondata
NAME Pinker, Steven
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION American cognitive scientist
DATE OF BIRTH 18 September 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Montreal
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Events 1176 - The Battle of Myriokephalon is fought 1462 - The Battle of 艢wiecino (or Battle of 呕arnowiec Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. The United States of America 鈥攃ommonly referred to as the Cognitive science may be broadly defined as the multidisciplinary study of mind and behavior Events 96 - Nerva is proclaimed Roman Emperor after Domitian is assassinated Year 1954 ( MCMLIV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar) Montreal, or Montr茅al in French ( pronounced in French, in English) is the largest city in the Canadian province of Quebec
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