Steven Pinker - Atheist alliance National Convention

Dr. Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist and one of the world’s foremost writers on language, mind, and human nature. Currently Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, Steven Pinker has also taught at Stanford and MIT. His research on visual cognition and the psychology of language has won prizes from the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, and the American Psychological Association.

Steven Pinker has also received seven honorary doctorates, several teaching awards at MIT and Harvard, and numerous prizes for his books The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, and The Blank Slate. Steven Pinker is Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and often writes for The New York Times, Time, and The New Republic.



Steven Pinker has been named Humanist of the Year, Prospect magazine’s “The World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals,” Foreign Policy’s “100 Global Thinkers,” and Time magazine’s “The 100 Most Influential People in the World Today.”

Presentation of the Richard Dawkins Award. Steven Pinker - Atheist alliance National Convention

In Depth with Steven Pinker

Cognitive scientist Steven Pinker talked about his life and career. He responded to telephone calls and electronic mail.  Videos were shown of Steven Pinker in his house in Boston, talking about his writing habits and showing the books in his library. Many photographs he had taken were also shown.



Steven Pinker currently teaches at Harvard University where he holds the positions of Harvard College Professor and the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology. Until 2003, he taught in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Steven Pinker conducts research on language and cognition, writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time, and Slate, and is the author of seven books, including The Language Instinct (1994), How the Mind Works (1997), Words and Rules (1999), The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (2002), and his latest, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (2007).

The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century

WHY IS SO MUCH WRITING SO BAD, and how can we make it better? Is the English language being corrupted by texting and social media? Do people write badly on purpose, to obfuscate and impress? Have dictionaries abandoned their responsibility to safeguard correct usage?

Do kids today even care about good writing?



Steven Pinker starts: 16:55

In his latest book the Harvard linguist, cognitive scientist, bestselling author (The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, and The Better Angels of Our Nature) and chair of the Usage Panel of The American Heritage Dictionary, Dr. Steven Pinker, answers these questions and more. Pinker applies insights from the sciences of language and mind to the challenge of crafting clear, coherent, and stylish prose. Filled with examples of great and gruesome modern prose, The Sense of Style shows how the art of writing can be a form of pleasurable mastery and a fascinating intellectual topic in its own right, that is also informed by science.

http://www.skeptic.com

Can Science Tell Us Right From Wrong?

ASU: Origins
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Sam Harris, Lawrence Krauss, Steven Pinker, Peter Singer

"Can Science Tell Us Right From Wrong?" (Full Debate)

Steven Pinker and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: The long reach of reason

Here's a TED first: an animated Socratic dialog! In a time when irrationality seems to rule both politics and culture, has reasoned thinking finally lost its power? Watch as psychologist Steven Pinker is gradually, brilliantly persuaded by philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein that reason is actually the key driver of human moral progress, even if its effect sometimes takes generations to unfold. The dialog was recorded live at TED, and animated, in incredible, often hilarious, detail by Cognitive.

United In Godlessness: The 2012 Reason Rally

Guests: Richard Dawkins, Susan Jacoby, Jamie Kilstein, Steven Pinker, Jamila Bey, Mike Aus, Robert Wright



UP with Chris Hayes, MSNBC, Aired March 25, 2012

Religious Beliefs In The Public Square

Richard Dawkins on Chris Hayes Religious Beliefs In The Public Square

Steven Pinker on The Better Angels of Our Nature

British Humanist Association Voltaire Lecture 2013 | presented by Steven Pinker - The Better Angels of Our Nature: A History of Violence and Humanity. Chaired by Jim Al-Khalili. London, March 2013



Steven Pinker on The Better Angels of Our Nature - BHA Voltaire lecture 2013

Linguistics as a Window to Understanding the Brain

How did humans acquire language? In this lecture, best-selling author Steven Pinker introduces you to linguistics, the evolution of spoken language, and the debate over the existence of an innate universal grammar. He also explores why language is such a fundamental part of social relationships, human biology, and human evolution. Finally, Pinker touches on the wide variety of applications for linguistics, from improving how we teach reading and writing to how we interpret law, politics, and literature.



Steven Pinker - Psychologist, Cognitive Scientist, and Linguist at Harvard University

The Floating University
Originally released September, 2011.

Pastor comes out as a non-believer, Reverend Michael Aus

Priest from Houston, Texas is an atheist.



Michael Aus
Steven Pinker
Susan Jacoby


Video from MSNBC

Steven Pinker: The Decline of Violence

Since the horrendous massacre of children and teachers in Newtown, CT last year, gun control and the second amendment have been frequent topics of the national conversation. Point of Inquiry would be remiss if we didn't add our signature long-form interview style to the discussion. To that end, we interviewed Steven Pinker whose recent book suggests that we are, contrary to popular belief, living in the most peaceful time in humanity's existence.



Steven Pinker is professor of psychology at Harvard University. Steven Pinker is the author of eight books, including How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Language Instinct and most recently The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined. He is a two-time Pulitzer-prize finalist, one of Time's 100 Most Influential People and one of Foreign Policy's top 100 Global Thinkers.

Also featured is an interview with Tom Di Liberto, meteorologist at NOAA and winner of the 2013 America's Science Idol contest.

This episode was recorded live at the 2013 AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston and was produced by Adam Isaak. The event was sponsored by the Center for Inquiry and the National Science Foundation.

Steven Pinker on Free Will

There's no such thing as free will in the sense of a ghost in the machine; our behavior is the product of physical processes in the brain rather than some mysterious soul, says Pinker.