2008 Woodie Awards
World-renowned Harvard psychologist speaks at Stevens
Pinker discusses newly-released book
Sheeraz Hyder
Issue date: 1/18/08 Section: Campus News
Speaking to an over-filled room at the Babbio Center of the Stevens Institute of Technology, Stephen Pinker, Harvard's eminent psychologist, discussed his newly-released book The Stuff of Thought. Pinker, the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, came to Stevens on December 12 at 4 p.m. to give a lecture entitled "What Language Tells Us About Our Minds." After seven books, four of which were best-sellers, Pinker's message is simple. Pinker believes our "minds are marvels of engineering." In Thought, Pinker includes citations from Aristotle as well as Dilbert and notes that while the book is "rigorous" it is also "down-to-earth." John Horgan, Director of the Center for Science Writings, which was hosting Pinker's lecture, stated that Pinker's Harvard colleague Noam Chomsky, the liberal linguist, had noted that "we will always be learning more about ourselves." Horgan asked if Pinker agreed with Chomsky and Pinker argued that it depended on the definition of "learn." He compared novelists, who "will always have a firm grasp on nuance" and scientists who "are doing something different."
Horgan shifted gears and asked Pinker how he became interested in his topic. Pinker said that through his psychology undergraduate work and his cognitive psychology graduate degree, his thesis eventually dealt in mental imagery. He did not get into the topic of the mind through language rather than the other way around. Horgan commented that English as a language is "quirky, random, senseless." Pinker said that Thought grew out of about 15 years of research and deals with the hidden logic behind the quirkiness of the English language. He spoke about the difference between pouring a glass of water as opposed to filling a glass with water. Pinker observed that "reality doesn't just snap itself onto the mind" and gave examples of how the way words are construed can drive arguments over topics such as Iraq and health care.
Pinker said that language has "always been a collaborative effort" calling it the original "wiki." He then spoke about the concept of "linguistic determinism," which is the theory that the language you learn determines the thoughts you think, which Pinker believes is wrong. Pinker thinks that language is a complex system of many "colors" and that it changes throughout history as it "borrows" words from other languages. Horgan chimed in that "Language serves us but not the other way around."
Horgan shifted gears and asked Pinker how he became interested in his topic. Pinker said that through his psychology undergraduate work and his cognitive psychology graduate degree, his thesis eventually dealt in mental imagery. He did not get into the topic of the mind through language rather than the other way around. Horgan commented that English as a language is "quirky, random, senseless." Pinker said that Thought grew out of about 15 years of research and deals with the hidden logic behind the quirkiness of the English language. He spoke about the difference between pouring a glass of water as opposed to filling a glass with water. Pinker observed that "reality doesn't just snap itself onto the mind" and gave examples of how the way words are construed can drive arguments over topics such as Iraq and health care.
Pinker said that language has "always been a collaborative effort" calling it the original "wiki." He then spoke about the concept of "linguistic determinism," which is the theory that the language you learn determines the thoughts you think, which Pinker believes is wrong. Pinker thinks that language is a complex system of many "colors" and that it changes throughout history as it "borrows" words from other languages. Horgan chimed in that "Language serves us but not the other way around."