Broca's Area: How Human Brain Computes Language Oct 16, 2009
Additional contributors to the paper included Steven Pinker, Department of Psychology, Harvard University; Sydney S. Cash, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston; and Donald Schomer, Department of Neurology, Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center, Boston. Major support for the study came from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the NIH, with additional support from the NIH, the Mental Illness and Neuroscience Discovery Institute at Harvard... (Science Daily)
New Nobel prizes are 'unlikely' Oct 2, 2009
The signatories, who also included Harvard University's Professor Steven Pinker and Sir Tim Hunt, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2001, called for the creation of Nobel prizes for the global environment and for public health. Although the former American Vice-President Al Gore jointly received a Nobel Prize for his work towards highlighting the threat of global warming, Sir David King told Radio 4's PM programme that the fact it was the Nobel Prize for Peace showed the categories needed... (BBC News -- Science)
Will the Manhattan Project Always Exist? by Sam Kean, 3 Quarks Daily Oct 1, 2009
"I couldn't tear myself away from 3 Quarks Daily, to the point of neglecting my work. Congratulations on this superb site." Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University. "I have placed 3 Quarks Daily at the head of my list of web bookmarks." Richard Dawkins, Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. (Harper's Magazine)
The Word: Is ’mourning’ broken? Sep 20, 2009
The following year, the word got a further boost from Steven Pinker, whose best-selling book The Language Instinct included a chapter on usage scolds called The Language Mavens. Pinker didn t agree that the title was deserved - Maven, schmaven. (Boston Globe)
The idiotic joys of idioms Aug 21, 2009
Linguists such as Steven Pinker believe we have as many idioms and stock phrases in our long-term memory as we have words. Idioms turn out to be a crucial piece of evidence in the heated and ongoing debate about the evolution of language. (The Star Online, Malaysia)
Newsweek: Should faith disqualify NIH nominee? Jul 31, 2009
His 2006 book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, made him a celebrity in "faith versus reason" circles, and in the wake of its success, he has traveled the country dueling with atheists, explaining how, as he puts it in that book, "there is no conflict in being a rigorous scientist and a person who believes in a God who takes a personal interest in each one of us." In opinion pieces, scientists Sam Harris and Steven Pinker express strong reservations about the... (MSNBC -- Politics)
Creationism piece no way to honor Darwin's birthday Jul 20, 2009
Steven Pinker Cambridge The writer is a professor of psychology at Harvard. Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company. (Boston Globe -- Editorial)
Bleep! My Finger! Why Swearing Helps Ease Pain Jul 17, 2009
" That's probably because humans are hardwired to swear cathartically, says Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist and author of The Stuff of Thought, an exploration of the psychology of language. Pinker distinguishes cathartic cursing from using profanity descriptively, idiomatically, abusively or for emphasis, and points to similar behavior in animals that suggests its evolutionary roots. If you step on a dog or cat's tail, it will let out a sharp yelp of pain, for example. "Swearing probably... (Time.com)
Why Music Moves Us Jul 16, 2009
As Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker famously put it in his 1997 book How the Mind Works (W. W. Norton), music is auditory cheesecake, a confection crafted to tickle the areas of the mind that evolved for more important functions. But as a result of that serendipity, music seems to offer a novel system of communication rooted in emotions rather than in meaning. (Scientific American)
‘The Music Instinct’ probes neuroscience of song Jun 24, 2009
Plenty of evolutionary theories are aired, and Steven Pinker is one of the few skeptics here, voicing doubts about whether in fact there is any deeper evolutionary basis for our musicality. The British songwriter Jarvis Cocker comically wonders whether he has any brains left after years in the music industry, and then proceeds to sing from inside an MRI machine. (Boston Globe)
> read more May 3, 2009
In an atmosphere that might be described as a Woodstock of Science, some of the best-known researchers and popular science communicators familiar names like Brian Greene, Steven Weinberg, Richard Dawkins, Paul Davies, Craig Venter, and Steven Pinker explored topics from the Big Bang to string theory, from human origins to the roots of consciousness, from evolution to astrobiology. The four-day event was capped by a full day of public lectures at ASUs 3,000-seat Gammage Auditorium,... (SkyAndTelescope.com)
Physicist Stephen Hawking cancels ASU appearance Apr 6, 2009
The university's Origins Symposium started Thursday and showcased lectures and panels that included some of the world's most renowned scientists, including evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkings and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, who recently appeared on "The Colbert Report.". The conference kicked off a new initiative at the school to explore the beginnings of things such as language, disease and the universe. (AZCentral -- News)
Evolution of the Mind: 4 Fallacies of Psychology Mar 11, 2009
The most notable representatives of Pop EP are psychologists David M. Buss (a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of The of Desire and The Dangerous Passion) and Steven Pinker (a professor at Harvard University whose books include How the Mind Works and The Blank Slate). Their popular accounts are built on the pioneering theoretical work of what is sometimes referred to as the Santa Barbara school of evolutionary psychology, led by anthropologists Donald Symons and John... (Scientific American)
Is it 'he or she' or 'they' or 'ip'? Mar 7, 2009
"The function words form a closed club that resists new members," Harvard University linguist Steven Pinker writes in his book "The Language Instinct.". Proposals for gender-neutral pronouns in English began cropping up in the 19th century -- not for reasons of equality, but for the sake of grammatical correctness, said Dennis Baron, professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (CNN)
Unnatural selection: How far will parents go? Feb 8, 2009
"I think that all of these worries are misplaced -- genetics is far too complex to allow for easy manipulation of human traits," said Steven Pinker, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University. Nearly all diseases and traits are determined not by one or two genes but the interaction of many, he pointed out. (Yahoo News -- Top Stories)
