Talk:Steven Pinker

External link debate

I put back the link to the Steven Pinker 'Sucks' page (I called it criticism this time) because it has the best and most extensive collection of criticisms of his ideas. The page might look slanderous or libelous at first, but the criticisms are well reasoned (although, I admit that the presentation is kind of silly). I think it is valuable to have a link to that page here because Pinker's ideas are, in fact, quite controversial (his works are basically the contemporary flashpoint for ongoing "sociobiology wars"). He just happens to be an outstanding writer who is highly opinionated and speaks with authority. He is also popular best-selling author. His article should eventually be expanded to include many of key criticisms from the 'Sucks' page so people are aware of the controversy surrounding his ideas. To summarize, Pinker approaches mind from a cognitivist view that emphasizes the mind as an information processor and has many innate tendencies (or modules). His main critics are contemporary brain researchers in neuroscience who thus far find no support from brain biology for the idea of extensive modularity. People who read only his works risk coming to what they might believe are accepted scientific conclusions about the mind, when instead, they are receiving a rather narrow speculative viewpoint. --mporch 16:17, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'm not so sure it's a good external link. All the meaningful criticisms on that site are actually links to/incompetently copied&pasted acticles. All the rest is mindless blabber. I checked in Google who links to the site before removing the link: it was only this article, so it's actually an unknown site. I suggest including some of the more reasonable criticisms (as I have started doing) and removing this link as it's quality is low. (The only good thing about it is it's humorous value, which doesn't strike me as a reason to include it here.) --Glimz 09:38, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

That is interesting that this page was the only Google link, since I originally added the link after googling it. If you take a look at Mezmer's page, the silliness has been a bit toned down - most likely in response to this discussion here. That page has both original criticism and links elsewhere on the web. I don't find the original criticism to be "mindless blabber", but rather a bit satirical in tone. Satire makes bad criticism only when it is not substantiated. The original material presented on this page is actually representative of the cognitive neurologists criticisms of evolutionary psychology. I have read both the Panskepp paper as well as Mezmer's original content and while I find the Panskepp paper to be more carefully and deeply argued, Mezmer's content provides a far more brief and layperson-reader-friendly account of the same viewpoint. I do not think that the average reader is going to have the patience or interest in reading a 24 page paper in an academic journal, but would prefer to have the main argument against the "evolved modularity" theory of evolutionary psychology explained simply and briefly. Having a link to Mezmer's page provides both access to the academic version as well as the simplified one. From what I have found it is a good site on the web that presents a critical perspecive on Steven Pinker's work (specifically his general cog-sci rather than linguistic work). I am replacing the link. --mporch 00:51, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

That you found the page by googling has little to do with the site's popularity. It's listed relatively high (though not top 10) in Google because it's under an ISP domain hosting a large network of sites (Google loves that and ranks accordingly). If you take the time to do a specific search, you will see that indeed no one links to that site and few link to Dr. Mezmer's main site.

As said, the "original criticisms" failed to make sense to me (though I admit I stopped reading before I had them all through) and I have the impression the writer hardly tried to make them have some. I am by no means an expert in the subject, so perhaps I have missed things, but it seems to me that the site does not do justice to the relevant arguments against evolutionary psychology. If a Wikipedia reader sees that link and concludes it's one of the primary on-line resources for Pinker criticism (it being included in the Wikipedia article), they might get a very wrong impression about it. Take your example: the very relevant arguments from neuroscience. Mezmer's discussion (linked above) starts with a paragraph that could actually be used as a general argument against abstraction, had we no knowledge of its power. It continues with carelessly chosen metaphors which only serve to confuse the reader. The whole writing maintains an unpleasant tone and uses quotes around science, whenever it refers to EP work. More importantly, it fails to really focus on the arguments it talks about (whatever those might be). Instead, it chooses to elude details, talking about massive corpora of findings, painstakingly detailed research, etc. and how all that is incompatible with Pinker's work. The writer goes on to demonstrate that he does not know what reverse engineering means, and to state that "evolutionary psychology can never explain how the mind works because it is logically incapable of explanation" without providing any rigorous arguments themselves. All they do is reiterate how ignorant Pinker is of today's science.

If you take a look at the sites that do feature a link to Dr. Mezmer's site, you will see that it's mostly in a context such as:

A semi-satirical look at modern psychology, with good and bad ideas by Csikszentmihalyi, Lakoff, Dawkins, and Damasio. Dr. Mezmer's site is itself bad science, but it has its amusing moments. [1]

or just as a humorous link in the Science/Humour section because it seems well represented in some web directories. I am yet to find a site of someone with interest in psychology that links to Dr. Mezmer as a source of information.

(Of course, if you meant that the site deserves its place here because it's amusing, it'd be another discussion (where we might disagree as well, as I think Wikipedia is not the place).) --Glimz 20:48, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I see no further objections, so I am going to remove the link again. If you feel impelled to replace it: please think again. You decided not to engage in further discussion, replacing it now would mean you are trying to enforce it without discussion. --Glimz 13:12, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

1. I wanted to ask where in "Words and Rules" Pinker supposedly states that cog sci has dropped connectionism "like a hot potato". I looked through the book and could not find such a reference -- but it's not exactly in the index, so a reference to the exact page would be helpful. I cannot imagine that Pinker would write such a thing. Everyone knows that's not true and Pinker is not exactly out of the loop. I hope to get a response to this so we can discuss it first rather than just deleting it.

No reply here yet? Shall we delete it? Malinois (Malinois 03:20, 21 November 2005 (UTC))

2. I think that saying that P "defended Larry Summers" is again a mistatement. There was a debate between Pinker and Spelke, in which Pinker made the case that some of the sex differences in propensities for math could be genetic -- based on the kind of research out there. There was no mention in the debate about defending the more extreme statements by Summers. It was conducted as a scientific debate based on the data, it was not a political debate about whether Summers was justified in his dumb remarks.

Here's Pinker on Summers [2]. Have you read Summers' comments? They're available online. --Rikurzhen 22:08, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I was basing my comment on the debate itself. I agree the NR article does appear to defend Summers more directly, so will probably let it stand, although, as I said, he does not defend the dumber things Summers said, like why Catholics don't sell diamonds or whatever it was he said. In addition, it seems to me that the context for the article and debate is to bring out the actual evidence in favor of biological sex differences, which should not be dismissed on political grounds alone. I think that he was trying to frame the issues in a more rational context. Have you seen or read the debate? http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/debate05_index.html I don't really see it as an apology for Summers. In fact Pinker never even mentions Summers directly by name as far as I can tell (even though it is obviously about the controversy). Perhaps we should consider that points made on either side of the debate rather than resting on the pejorative assumption that anyone who defends Summers is a sexist or worse. Malinois (Malinois 03:20, 21 November 2005 (UTC))

I personally consider Pinker's defense of Summers to be a positive reflection of Pinker's character. As written, the text seems fine to me. However, mentioning the Spelke debate would be a good addition (yes, I did see it). --Rikurzhen 04:02, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

"or whatever it was he said" -- In other words you have no idea what Summers said and can't be bothered to find out before spreading misinformation on a par with the widespread but false belief that Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet. -- 98.108.206.28 (talk) 21:08, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

3. Finally, the remark that Pinker has stopped publishing empirical research is not exactly true. If you look at his CV he has published a number of empirical papers in the last few years -- not at the rate before he started writing for the masses, but still respectable. I know that he continues to do empirical research on heritability. Unless there is a strong argument against these latter points, I will edit the remarks to be more accurate in the next few days. (Malinois 22:01, 11 November 2005 (UTC))

OK a new grouch ... In the description of PsychoDarwinists, it refers to Chomsky as a PsychoDarwinist. In fact, Chomsky has strongly argued against Darwinian explanations of Linguistic knowledge. Although he clearly thinks that language is innate for the most part, he does not believe that it got there through natural selection. The argument basically goes that the kinds of things that he proposes to be innate bits of language (e.g., bizarre contraints on where you can move things in a sentence) couldn't possibly convey to the holders of such linguistic constraints any kind of selectional advantage, more sex or whatever. They are almost arbitrary in their purely formal structure. Therefore, Darwinian mechanisms of natural selection cannot account for why the language is the way it is any more than, say functionality can (remember, we are dealing mostly with the arbitrary aspects of syntax). So, Chomsky's position is that language is the way it is because it couldn't be any other way, any more than the structure of the water molecule could be any other way. Language basically follows laws of form within the physical structure of reality. This has been debated, and in fact Pinker and Bloom published a lead article in Behavioral Brain Sciences arguing against Chomsky on this point and in favor of a selectionist position (Pinker, S. & Bloom, P. (1990) Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13, 707-784). So, I think we should take out the reference to Chomsky as a Darwinian. Malinois (Malinois 03:20, 21 November 2005 (UTC))

Pinker is American

At the risk of incurring the eternal wrath of nationalist Canadians, I have to point out Pinker is an American... If you look at his CV it says (under Biographical information) : U.S. citizen. So just like we don't call Henry Kissinger a German statesman or Tolkien a South African author (at most, German-born American statesman or South African-born author), we shouldn't call Pinker a Canadian. Mikkerpikker ... 15:32, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Pinker is surely just a dual citizen then. He clearly grew up in Montreal, and nothing in Canadian citizenship law forces a renunciation of Canadian citizenship when another citizenship is accepted. J21 03:12, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

If he's a dual citizen (and he would be-- Canadians virtually never give up citizenship) he could also be "Canadian-American" as Michael J. Fox or William Shatner. Steve Rapaport 20:47, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

How do you know he's Canadian American? Can you please cite a source? His CV just says "American", till we have a source saying he's Canadian American, American should stay. Mikker ^(...) 23:04, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

• The man was born and raised in Canada and spent a large sum of his life within the nation of Canada (Pinker himself points this within his books). Make mention of it in the article with due respect and be done with it.

"just like we don't call Henry Kissinger a German statesman or Tolkien a South African author (at most, German-born American statesman or South African-born author), we shouldn't call Pinker a Canadian... Mikkerpikker."

• I am at a loss as to this elusive WE!! Wikipedia belongs to the world not one Ameri-centric view point. The foly of the above stated logic is that infact famous people do often get recognised with multiple nationalities, it just depends on what text you refrence (and where the text was published). Alexander Graham Bell is credited as a Scotish, Canadian, and American, inventor of the telephone, regardless of where he was working at the time he created his invention. Sir James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, is credited as both a Canadian, and an American inventor. Following this line of logic, Pinker has invented many theories and can be credited in this method.

• Further, Pinker spent his university days studying experimental psychology at McGill University in Canada this information can be found within any of his recent publications, such as: How the Mind Works, About the author, penguin books, 1999.

• I would appeal to peoples commonsense that it is clearly accepted that a man born, raised, and schooled within a nation is clearly of that nationality in our commonsense use of the word, despite whatever documents he may posses of citizenship at the time. (How else would people be capable of conceptualizing such terms as 2nd or 3rd generation Italian-Canadian.

• The encyclopedia britannica has decided to call Steven Pinker Canadian-born American.

"At the forefront of cognitive science in 1999 was Canadian-born American experimental psychologist Steven Pinker, who in October published an eagerly anticipated book, Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language. In a highly praised earlier book, How the Mind Works (1997), Pinker discussed the development of the human brain in terms of natural selection, applying a Darwinian…"[3].

• At the very least it seems fitting to follow in suit with this title. It does not follow that this is to deny Steven Pinkers Canadian-ness, but to recognise it. And as is fitting, he can be cited as both a Canadian and American Professor (as in the above examples of famous people).

• In closing (jestfuly) I must point out that Steven Pinker enjoys the game of Hockey, unofficially that makes anyone 90% Canadian, by default.--Scottmcmaster 10:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Pinker major article update

I'm in the process of a major update of the Pinker article, please see User:Mikkerpikker/Future Projects/Steven Pinker. Mikkerpikker ... 00:38, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I've finished the basic layout/structure & incorporated all of the material of the current article into the new version... Please read over it & fix my errors! (I'm sure there are some)! Mikkerpikker ... 14:53, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Apology...

Sorry about the barnstar debacle! (see history...) I wanted to test a barnstar before awarding it & I thought I was in my sandbox about Pinker (User:Mikkerpikker/Future Projects/Steven Pinker). Sorry to all for any disruption caused... Mikker ^... 20:12, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Removed "Citation needed"

I removed the "citation needed" tag from the following sentance:

• In "Words and Rules," for example, he describes cognitive scientists as having dropped a competing model "like a hot potato" after his widely cited criticism.

The citation required is in the very sentance! Keithmahoney 23:27, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, read this talk page, and saw the comment about this, so I reverted my edit. Keithmahoney 23:31, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Citations needed for criticism section

I think this article is very good, but the criticism section needs serious work. As it stands now it is completely innocent of citation. I know these to be actual criticisms of EP but we need to buttress them with citations. Can anyone help source these ideas? ( I know there is a fairly recent collection of essays that argue against the EP perspective but I can't remember the name at this moment.) Levi P. 00:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree and I note that this request for citations is a couple months old now. I am sure that there are critics of Pinker and they ought to be reflected here, but by someone who is willing to source the criticisms.Sandwich Eater 20:35, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I deleted the following:

Critics allege Pinker's books ignore or dismiss opposing evidence. In "Words and Rules," for example, he describes cognitive scientists as having dropped a competing model "like a hot potato" after his widely cited criticism. If anything, that opposing view, Connectionism, remains as popular as ever and the ongoing dispute does not appear to be heading towards any sort of resolution. Other critics (see Edward Oakes's review in the External links) claim that Pinker may be a little too good a writer in being able to combine several weakly based hypotheses into a plausible-sounding "evolutionary psychology" story that in reality may be no more scientific than a Rudyard Kipling "Just So" story. Pinker has also been criticized for what some see as straw man arguments against Constructivism and the Tabula Rasa in The Blank Slate.

And I added an "expert" tag. If anyone is able to add the requested citations noted above or add other relevant and sourced criticism in an encyclopedic fashion it would benefit the article. Sandwich Eater 20:40, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

What criticism section? I'm a fan of Pinker, but I know professionals who strongly disagree with him. Was the criticism section removed or was it just extremely poor? It sounds like people were just linking to blogs or amateur websites, which would not be serious criticism of course. Basically I've heard criticism about his "adaptationist" viewpoints. DonPMitchell (talk) 18:15, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

American?

Why is Pinker introduced as an American experimental psychologist? He was both born in Canada and considers himself to be Canadian? Change made.

Erm. Read the talk page please. See Talk:Steven Pinker#Pinker is American. Mikker ^(...) 19:04, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Personal info

Please sto adding material regarding personal life, particularily material which is not even sourced. I removed portions of this but left only what was talked about in the Harvard Crimson article. Please read the material on the top of this page regarding bios of living persons: "This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material of any kind that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or there are other concerns relative to this policy, report it on the living persons biographies noticeboard." 68.9.129.43 01:24, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

All the info was gathered from reputable public sources. (which, btw, should be READ before editing. Just a thought). See this and also read the others. Mikker ^(...) 01:48, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I hardly see why information about his ex-wives is relevant to the article. Just beacuse something is sourced does not mean it belongs in the article. Maybe his ex-wives do not want their names showing up in WP?? Why don't we look up his publicly accessible real estate-tax data, and post how much his house costs? If you keep adding this material I will bring it up in the living persons noticeboard. In fact most of the biographical matrial here seems hardly relevant. Please stop adding it. 68.9.129.43 01:31, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Bring it up at BLP then. Frankly, your continued deletion amounts to vandalism. Shoo ip. Mikker ^(...) 21:34, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

There, I've created an account. Now, please refer to the guidelines regarding Biographies of Living Persons, specifically section regarding presumption of privacy and tell me whether your childish edits are important for the article. I've reverted your edits, and brought it up at BLP. KAdler 01:14, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Steven Pinker would appear to fit under the "non-public figure" of the link given by KAdler. There is no need to add this kind of personal detail. Mentioning he has a brother and sister is fine and so is saying he's been divorced. Giving names and descriptions is unnecessary. Also, I see no evidence that either of you has been engaging in vandalism (cf WP:Vandalism), so please refrain from calling other editors vandals as this can be considered a violation of WP:AGF. --C S (Talk) 01:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• Per WP:BLP, the ex-wives names should not be included, unless they are notable people. Removing them would certainly not be considered vandalism. - Crockspot 03:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I fail completely to see how BLP applies to this case. (1) The information about Pinker's life is published in a reliable third party source - i.e. The Gaurdian (and the Harvard Crimson. (2) The information is in no way controversial, nor has anyone questioned its accuracy. (3) If Pinker himslelf didn't want this info out there he wouldn't have told a widely read newspaper about it. Please compare Richard Dawkins - I completely fail to see how mentioning that Pinker has been married and divorced three times is a problem. Mikker ^(...) 19:42, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Again, nobody is saying the information is not sourced, but rather that it is not relevant to his biography. While Pinker may have given out the names of his ex-wives to a newspaper, maybe his ex-wives do not want their names published. You are assuming because somebody published private info, then it is OK to plaster it all over the internet (which is what WP ultimately does). Therefore, the best thing is to presume that these people want their names private. This is clearly outlined in BLP, did you read this policy? The information does not add anything to the article and is not relevant to his career or professional life. As was mentioned before, if you want you can say that he's been divorced twice, if you feel this is such an important fact (which I failt to see why it is, unless you are running a gossip magazine), but keep the names private. As far as the Dawkins article goes, I think that info is inappropriately placed as well, and I'll advocate removing it once the article is no longer protected. Now, will you tell me exactly WHY you think keeping this information is important? KAdler 19:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

You'll have a couple of hundred thousand articles to deal with if you're going to advocate not naming anyone's spouse/ex-spouse/family member's name. But that aside, I fail to see how naming these people does any harm (ultimately the whole point of BLP is to avoid libel and causing harm). Now IF you want the names of his wives excluded - fine, why not just say so? (And remove them? Instead of the whole sentence). Having it there isn't all that important. But that Pinker was married (and divorced) is a notable fact about his life that ought to be mentioned. He might not like it, but, as a popular science writer, he's a public figure (he doesn't just publish technical papers on language acquisition; he participates in public debates and courts publicity - he stars in documentaries, writes popular books, gets interviewed on radio/television, gives detailed biographical info about himself to widely distributed newspapers etc.). Nothing we have talked about has anything to do with BLP IMO; but, whatever, this is hardly something to become upset about. More important things have been debated on WP... Incidentally, why are you happy to mention his gf's name, but not his ex-wives' names? Mikker ^(...) 20:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I left his current girlfriend on there more as a compromise, since she is at least somewhat notable, but we can take her name off too. That being said, why do you think that it is notable that he has been divorced twice? As far as not discussing things in the talk page, what exactly is the discussion above about? KAdler 22:25, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Before you posted on talk. Anyhow... getting married and divorced is an important part of anyone's life. We have a biography section on Pinker. Ergo... Mikker ^(...) 19:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

His previous wife Nancy Etcoff is mentioned here in is biography, and the main link to her is to him (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Etcoff leads to Steven_Pinker#Personal), which seems unfair. She is perhaps a prestigious enough person on her own to warrant her own page (someone invited to give a TED talk seems up there), so it seems worth mentioning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexmorgan (talk • contribs) 17:15, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Politics

It would probably be a good idea if this article included Pinker's political views. I mean, a lot of the controversy is over the political ramifications of his views, after all.--78.16.53.60 19:55, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that's a good idea but if you want to add something along these lines, go for it - as long as you conform to the relevant Wikipedia policies, WP:OR, WP:NPOV, WP:CITE, etc. Mikker ^(...) 20:42, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I think a section on the political ramifications of Pinker's work would be totally subjective. Pinker himself has never used his views for politics. Anything else would be a political analysis and, therefore, unencyclopedic.--Anthropos65 (talk) 16:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Thats not what she/he said. She/he said we should include his political views, because that is where the controversy comes from. Jt_200075 19:47, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

reference to divorce

The personal info section indicates he is divorced from his second wife with a reference (7) to IMDB. The IMDB bio doesn't mention anything about a divorce, although it is out of date. The reference may have meant to indicate only the name of his second wife, but by indicating he was divorced with the reference implies that the reference has info about the divorce. Can this be changed to indicate that the reference only mentions the 2nd wife, not the divorce? The line about the divorce could be after the reference. Sorry if this is confusing--please email me at ellengoodman6@comcast.net for clarification. Thank you. Elleng 02:16, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Removed unreferenced claim

There has been talk that he left MIT due to pressure regarding the nature of his general work, but Pinker himself refuses to comment, or verify this claim.

I removed the above because it is controversial, unreferenced, and this is a biography of a living person. -- Beland 17:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Determinst?

Pinker is a determinist? Can that be verified? --Perfection (talk) 03:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

It's not true according to his book, The Blank Slate.

Pinker and Misogyny

I'm surprised in this already too lengthy entry on Pinker that there isnn't a Criticism section or Politics section. There is a published interview in which Pinker says to the effect that it is scientifically objective that women are mentally inferior to men. Check the Wiki section on former Harvard president Lawrence Summers sexist remarks (and the wiki entry on Cornel West, for Summers lack of ethics), though Pinker supported Summers.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=505366

Teetotaler 14 May, 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.68.22.207 (talk) 04:22, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The link you provided quotes Pinker defending the right of academics to research and discuss the possibility that men might have on average a slightly higher aptitude for some subjects than women. He's talking about averages, and furthermore he is only defending the topic as a legitimate one for academic research, not proposing any sort of conclusions or policies. That does not warrant adding a "Pinker and Misogyny" section to the article. Lfh (talk) 13:10, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Neither Pinker nor Summers has made the sort of remarks you claim. On the contrary, Summers speculated that more men than women are extremely bad at math (because there's greater variance in men). -- 98.108.206.28 (talk) 21:27, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

External Links

I am a Harvard undergrad who has taken Pinker’s “The Human Mind” class and this link (http://www.thefinalclub.org/blogs/spring2008/HumanMind/) is to a site with interactive blogs done on Harvard undergrad lectures. The posts for each lecture are extremely useful (my prep for the final consisted almost solely of reading these blogs) and anyone can read and contribute to the commentary of the texts on the site.

If you read through a lecture or two and agree, I'd encourage someone with more Wikipedia clout than myself to post on the Pinker page. Let me know what you all think. I'd love to hear your thoughts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bbrasky100 (talk • contribs) 16:27, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Criticism Section

This article badly needs a criticism section. What is missing as an account for his misreadings and ad hominem attacks on George Lakoff, and Jerry Fodor's refutation of the Pinker/neo-Darwinist enterprise, what Fodor calls "The New Synthesis" in his book, The Mind Does't Work That Way. What is interesting is that Pinker is indebted to Fodor's The Language of Thought yet Fodor suggests that the Pinkerites are in "deep denial" and suffering from "suppression". Plus, we ought to get some quotes on Pinker's support of Harvard misogynists and his support of the male power structure. --Teetotaler 31 October, 2008

Will find quotes from the New Yorker review of his gratuitous book, "blank slate". If I remember, correctly, it offered some good criticisms of this "complex" individual. --Teetotaler 4 November, 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.67.81.197 (talk) 09:09, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps this should be an editor with a bit less evident animosity to Pinker's work. -- 98.108.206.28 (talk) 21:31, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

You should do it! :) mezzaninelounge (talk) 20:46, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Dual-route

I just noticed that this article doesn't appear to say anything about Pinker's work with Ullman on the dual-route model of lexical processing. It's one of his major contributions to psycholinguistics, I think (plus it's probably one of the more popular such models these days, even though I personally think it has the least empirical support), and would probably be good to mention. I don't have a lot of stuff on it myself just now, although I might be able to dig some up in the near future. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:20, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Religious Beliefs

What is this doing as a section on that initial blurb beneath his photo? Most scholars of a similar magnitude are atheists. This is not one of the three most important facts about Pinker. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.96.113.93 (talk) 09:01, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Locking this page to unregistered user edits

For some reason, this page is a vandal magnet. Will someone please lock it, so that only registered users can edit it? It's clearly because he has defended controversial views on sex and intelligence. He has also spoken against listening to music. I agree with that; I have come to realize that music wastes a whole lot of brain power in many people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph Meisenhelder (talk • contribs) 01:54, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I protected it for a month. Steven Walling 12:31, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

In response to irrelevant opinions about music: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/music-matters/201101/was-steven-pinker-right-after-all -- 98.108.206.28 (talk) 21:35, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Den160593, 31 July 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} In the description it says: "Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University,[1] Pinker is known for his wide-ranging advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind"

This is confusing, and I suggest that it be reworded as follows:

"He is a Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University[1] and is known for his wide-ranging advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind"

Den160593 (talk) 10:00, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

 Done Bejinhan talks 13:18, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Why citizenship but no ethnicity?

A recent addition mentioning Pinker's family being "middle-class" and "Jewish" was reverted. However, not only is his citizenship still mentioned, it appears to be the subject of occasional but heated debate. Why is citizenship deemed important, but ethnicity not? Thomask0 (talk) 14:48, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Ideas for a criticism section

There is a metastudy, described in "Mind, Brain& Education" of people with damages in parts of the brain and recovery from the symptoms. It concludes that the common factor for those who succeed to recover is a environment that tolerates and helps unusual means of learning while the common factor for the patients who fail to recover is a environment with rigid curriculum. That means that altough humans have instincts, no module in the brain is absolutely necessary to learn anything. The claim that "if you believe in general learning ability then you deny that humans have instincts" is just a strawman false dichotomy. Evolutionary psychology is thus a pedagogic disaster which dooms people with unusual details in their brain coding to lack skills they otherwise could have learned. There is evidence that neurons can fire at different intensities and that the difference in signal intensity is crucial for the reaction of the receiving neurons. In other words, the brain is probabilistic. A probabilistic brain cannot privilege genetic information over external stimuli the way Pinkers module hypothesis predicts. Studies on robots show that robots with probabilistic steering units can circumvent unplanned obstacles, which robots with deterministic or binary steering units cannot. Since nature is full of unplanned obstacles, evolution must have ensured that all animals have probabilistic brains, hence there is a evolutionary reason why evolutionary psychology is wrong. The fact that instincts are programmed by the same mechanisms as learning (just with the external stimuli swapped for gene activity) means that just like drugs can cheat the brain, so can stimuli create fundamentally non-innate motivations, which demystifies non-utilitarian behavior (biologically pointless behavior have been observed in many animals, not only humans), it is simply a price that evolution found worth paying for the ability to circumvent unplanned obstacles. Studies of altruism all too often focus exclusively on situations with interest conflict, despite the fact that the old theory of harmonious mutual aid in nature were debunked ONLY by research on interest conflict and thus still applies in situations where the helper loses nothing, which is supported both by evidence of situation discriminating altruism in our ape relatives and explains otherwise unexplainable cases of warning calls. The claim that "if you lack a specific empathy module then you are indifferent to others" is debunked by the anti-modulistic research mentioned above anyway. The biologistic way in which Pinker abandoned anarchism after seeing violence shows that he failed to realize that competitiveness and egoistic violence is instrumental behavior learned in a overpopulated world with resource scarcity. The human indoctrinability evolutionary psychologists talk about would have stood no Darwinian chance if our ancestors were in rivalry against each other, because all rivalry causes motifs for deception and indoctrinable individuals are vulnerable to deception. Also, since no neuron understands anything alone it is a unjustifiably arbitrary cutoff to deny connectionism on the level of the whole brain. The reason why Pinker could claim that all discernable brain centers evolved for hunter-gatherer life is almost certainly just poor resolution of brain scans. Neurologists recently declared the discovery of a brain center for recognizing HOUSES! By the way, brain scans have proved that learning to read reshapes the structure of the brain. I think I wrote the embryo of a adequate criticism section there. 217.28.207.226 (talk) 09:23, 19 September 2011 (UTC)Martin J Sallberg

Not unless your sources discuss Pinker, see WP:NOR. Dougweller (talk) 12:34, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Martin, please learn more about how Wikipedia works, and save yourself the effort of writing and posting long (or any other) analyses of the work of subjects of WP articles -- they simply aren't relevant. Now, if you write and publish an article in a reputable journal saying these things, then the WP article can refer to it. -- 98.108.206.28 (talk) 21:42, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Starting a "BETTER ANGELS" stub article

User:Javaweb/The_Better_Angels has the infobox book fleshed out but needs cover picture. If someone starts the real article, I can contribute this gruntwork. --Javaweb (talk) 03:16, 11 October 2011 (UTC)Javaweb

resource

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/11/28/the_global_thinkers_20_most_recommended_books?page=0,4

5) The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011) by Global Thinker No. 48 Steven Pinker Recommended by Gareth Evans and Andrew Sullivan

99.19.42.30 (talk) 07:47, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

There is absolutely no potential use of that reference in this article. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:24, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

This may be better on Talk:The Better Angels of Our Nature. 99.190.85.186 (talk) 06:49, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with 99.190... but that's quite the overstatement Rubin. Shadowjams (talk) 06:53, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

It would be better there, but still not good. There it would be potentially useful, but probably not in actuality. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:41, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Here's a related essay in Foreign Policy by Pinker A History of (Non)Violence; Why humans are becoming more peaceful. December 2011 from Talk:Nonviolence#potential resource 99.181.128.45 (talk) 09:40, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Possible external link or bibliography entry, but it would require your (mistaken) interpretation to put it in the article. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:47, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

File:StevePinker.jpg Nominated for Deletion

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Fake references

In response to this edit comment by User:Maunus, "if the book has an article then obviously we should link to it", let me say that I have never objected to linking to articles about books. I do object to using fake references that are actually links to Wikipedia articles, and I think the difference should be clear. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 00:47, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Just because something is in a <ref> tag that doesn't mean it has to be a reference, in this case it was obviously meant as a note. Please be a little less quick to assume bad faith and flawless editing abilities from new editors.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:50, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I think it's important to avoid even the appearance of citing something to a Wikipedia article. The kind of link I removed created an ambiguity as to whether the content was cited to the book or our article about the book, and that's clearly undesirable. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 00:56, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Criticism section

We have a criticism section, and these are frowned upon. I think the criticism of the language instinct belongs in the article about the book. The other one, a critique of a piece he wrote for the NYT seems to be undue weight to me. Dbrodbeck (talk) 20:16, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree that this is a case in which it seems easy to make the criticism section redundant by integrating the criticism into the section on the book, and I also agree that the statistical football article is fairly irrelevant relative to his overall production and probably does not merit mention at all.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:54, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I have a serious problem with the criticism attributed to David Shenk. First, Pinker is not on the "nature" side of the nature versus nurture debate. In the beginning of his book The Blank Slate (either the preface or Chapter One, I can't remember which) he reviews the history of the debate going back to Rousseau, social Darwinism, etc. In other words, the pendulum has swung back and forth a few times. Pinker says that the debate has been rendered obsolete because, according to current science, it's about a 50-50.

Furthermore, Shenk's article is actually pretty subtle and nuanced, falling far short of the simplistic accusations in this article. Zyxwv99 (talk) 00:05, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree. The nature vs. nurture argument is dead; virtually all psychological scientists are nature-nurture interactionists, including Pinker. It is pretty silly to suggest otherwise, and makes this article look pretty lame. Memills (talk) 18:34, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

But scholars do differ in how much they emphasize one or the other in their work, and how much time they spend arguing that specific aspects of cognition are biologically or culturally motivated. I agree that everybody today is a nature-nurture interactionist, but Pinker is certainly in the rather extreme end of focusing on the role of nature in the process of that interaction. I don't think I've ever seen him talk about the role of culture in a non-dismissive way. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:20, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

As interesting as this is, it is not that important. I think we should either remove the criticisms all together, or integrate them into the article, or the articles about the books. Dbrodbeck (talk) 20:27, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, I think there is enough published criticism of Pinker's different work that it is notable. But yes it is probably best to treat it together with the arguments that are being criticized. I think perhaps we should have subsections about each of his major books summarizing the argument made and their reception.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:34, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree that criticism of Pinker meets the notability standard. However, instead of going into microscopic detail on every issue, it might be a good idea to focus on the few points that have generated the most heat. As Pinker himself explains in the beginning of The Blank Slate, he's essentially a 50-50ist on the genetics-environment thing. He says this is where mainstream science is, but that the public has been misled by 0-100ists, who constantly accuse 50-50ists of being 100-0ists. This is analogous to the late Stephen Jay Gould being widely hated by religious fundamentalists for not only mentioning evolution but "constantly harping on it." The late Carl Sagan devoted quite a bit of his writing to debunking pseudoscience. In other words, that sort of criticism (call it "pitchforks and torches") should be separated out from informed criticism a la Dawkins v Gould. Zyxwv99 (talk) 23:57, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I would't want to let Pinker himself decide which criticisms are "informed" and which aren't. He has a habit of misrepresenting his critics and setting up strawmen. His standard argument that he is the mainstream and everyone else is just an "tabula rasa" extremist out to get him is telling that way.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:02, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Clarification on the Gladwell feud

The current editions suggest that Pinker's debate with Gladwell related to objective mathematical solutions. It did not. It was over differing statistical methods caused by differing definitions of performance and success. The Advanced NFL Stats' article already cited clarified this confusion. The key detail of the dispute is relevant to the discussion and also relevant to Pinker's career given the debate it has engendered. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Astrohoundy (talk • contribs) 20:21, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think a debate about football statistics caused by a NYT opinion piece can be said to be relevant to the career of one of the worlds most well known and prolifically publishing psychologists. I think it makes sense to remove the paragraph altogether - that also bypasses the problem of how best to describe the question of statistics.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:56, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Dbrodbeck (talk) 22:15, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. If someone removes the paragraph entirely, I won't reinsert it. Another option is to create a separate section of the article for the Gladwell-Pinker debate, but relevance is definitely an issue.Astrohoundy —Preceding undated comment added 01:50, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

The Book after Better Angels

According to fellow Viking Press author Jerry Coyne, Pinker's next book will be on modern grammar and usage.. In September 2012, he lectured on the subject, applied to scientific writing, in what may be a sneak preview of topics in the book. I'm not sure this belongs in the article yet but I want to give editors a heads-up. --Javaweb (talk) 09:11, 17 November 2012 (UTC)Javaweb

Auditory Cheesecake

Pinker's "auditory cheesecake" is a notable argument in music cognition, covered by journals such as New York Times, Psychology Today, The Economist, and additionally mentioned by sources like pbs.org, UCLA, and scienceline.org, among others. The last sentence is the criticism section is directly covered by the New York Times article. --Λeternus ^(talk) 21:49, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

If that is the case then the inserted material should give the full context so that it is also meaningful for readers who are not familiar with the argument. It should also give the substance of the counterargument so that it is not simply a contradiction.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:55, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

• A google scholar search shows that you are right that it is a notable debate in the field music cognition. The section should be written based on summarizing scholarly sources on musical cognition, not by summarizing news coverage about the academic debate.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:58, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

The note about whether Pinker has read Levitin's book is clearly not relevant though.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:04, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Influences

Thomas Sowell? This is one reader who questions this. Might this be verified and sourced? I think it is very important that information included in the summary be both accurate and significant. I question that including Thomas Sowell as one of the main influences on Steven Pinker is either. Perhaps so, but it seems so counter-intuitive, I think it wise to at least include verifying information as a footnote. — Preceding unsigned comment added by -- Wiposter (talk) 08:29, 7 January 2013 (UTC) 01:16, 6 January 2013 (UTC) --Wiposter (talk) 08:29, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

His theories have multiple evolvability problems.

Specific mechanisms theory predicts that at least three specific modules are necessary to get anything done at all: one for perceptual cognition, one for emotional motivation and one executive. None of them is of any use unless the other two are already there. This raises a severe evolvability paradox for psychological nativism/evolutionary psychology/computational theory of mind. There are also specific evolvability paradoxes, such as redundant phonemes (no reason why a vast range of innate phonetic potential should have evolved when far fewer phonemes are evidently enough for a complex language, as shown by Polynesian languages), the first moral evolvability paradox (that a single moral individual would not survive in a group where everyone else was amoral) and first individual evolvability paradoxes in regards to many sexual behaviors (especially species recognition and sexual characteristic recognition). Then there is evidence, especially from domestication research, that evolution can go very fast. This means that nativist theory predicts that different human groups should have evolved big racial differences in psychology by natural selection working on individual hereditary psychiatry. That prediction is falsified by studies showing that supposed racial differences disappear when social factors are taken into account. These evolvability paradoxes are described in greater detail on the pages "Brain" and "Self-organization" on Pure science Wiki, a wiki for the scientific method uncorrupted by academic pursuit of prestige. 109.58.44.105 (talk) 15:21, 8 January 2013 (UTC)Martin J Sallberg

Please read WP:NOTAFORUM. Do you have any suggestions to improve the article.? Dbrodbeck (talk) 15:52, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

It also looks promotional. Dougweller (talk) 16:17, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I deleted it in a few other places, but there may be others. Dbrodbeck (talk) 20:07, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

A source for Pinker's libertarianism?

Pinker is in the categories of American libertarians and Canadian libertarians on Wikipedia. Is there any source that he supports a libertarian political program? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.224.84.46 (talk) 17:35, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

This snippet suggests that he may be a little more cynical [4]? Also here, where his The Better Angels of our Nature is quoted in suppport of Ludwig von Mises: [5]Martinevans123 (talk) 18:00, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

He ... describes himself as "eclectically, non-dogmatically, libertarian".[6]User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:02, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, that was 14 years ago? Martinevans123 (talk) 18:06, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I think your snippet clearly show sthat he identifies with libertarianism even if he is disheartened by its recent failings.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:15, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I tend to agree. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:22, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

On the other hand his identification is probably not clear enough to warrant a category. Even the statement in the Guardian is hedged.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:26, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

He describes himself as an equity feminist - anyone who even uses that term is most likely a right-wing libertarian. He is also on the board of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a free speech group which is nonetheless mostly of the right. He took an online test (probably the trusty old Nolan chart), which he says puts him in the middle, and more Libertarian than Authoritarian, which sounds to me like the standard 'I'm exactly in the middle' thing which is done by those who feel the need to deny they have political views, and also want to play on the argument to moderation (and you would think a psychologist/ scientist would realise that you could design a chart, and a computer program along with it, which puts absolutely anyone anywhere you want on some scale - it doesn't really say anything about you); it all seems to add up to someone who is right-wing libertarian/conservative (conservative being used loosely) - 124.191.144.183 (talk) 16:44, 8 August 2013 (UTC)