Talk:Steven Pinker/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

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)

This is not notable

Refering to: "Reality Denial : Steven Pinker's Apologetics for Western-Imperial Violence". ZNET. 2012-07-25. zcommunications.org is not particularly important. I don't see references to this in mainstream publications. I would be inclined to delete it.--Javaweb (talk) 05:26, 20 November 2013 (UTC)Javaweb

Race Realist?

Hasn't he taken a pro-HBD position? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.14.28.186 (talk) 20:58, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

What is HBD?User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:05, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

This is what one race realist says about Pinkers view of race.[7]User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:32, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

We start with reliable sources. Come back with something readers know and can trust. --Javaweb (talk) 23:26, 9 December 2013 (UTC)Javaweb

That source Maunus just show proves that Pinker does have a race-realist position actually 74.14.28.186 (talk) 00:27, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Only Reliable sources please. --Javaweb (talk) 00:44, 10 December 2013 (UTC)Javaweb

How is that not reliable source? Steve Sailer and VDARE are well vetted sources74.14.28.186 (talk) 00:58, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Not at all. Wikipedia uses well-known publications that people trust. People published in mainstream places that aren't opinion pieces pushing a particular viewpoint trusted by most folks, shown to fairly represent the facts without bias. VDARE is not generally well-known and trusted nor does it have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy and not taking things out of context nor being a place to get information about Pinker. --Javaweb (talk) 02:22, 10 December 2013 (UTC)Javaweb

Regarding the GA nomination and concerns about sourcing.

@Chiswick Chap and Viriditas:

Thank you both for taking an interest in the GA nom; I should have expressed my gratitude and availed myself of your interest sooner, but my time, on-wiki and off, has been splintered two dozen different directions on any given day this last week. I hope you don't mind my trying to snag a little of your time, but as you both came to me with the same misgiving, I figured I'd get some further input from you on the matter. I have a couple of inquiries along the lines previously discussed on my talk page. First, is my assumption that the faults you both see in the sourcing of content are mostly tied to the "Research and theory" section correct? Most other sections seem to be adequately (if not exactly heavily) sourced utilizing a fairly high caliber of secondary source, at least to my eye. I know the subject of the article may or may not be one of previous exposure for either of you, but I'd still greatly appreciate your interpretation of their usage, for consistency with BLP if nothing else. The only source which stands out to my as particularly low-quality is the Harvard faculty page, and I'm inclined to give it a pass as it is used extremely narrowly to establish his occupation at the university.

Return focus to the most problematic "Research and theory" section, I'm curious as to how much, in the context of GA review especially, primary sourcing can be tolerated here. While I intend to augment this section a bit with new content that will be focused towards review and critique of his works (both as regards academic/peer-review research and his more broad-audience works), which I don't anticipate secondary sourcing being a problem for, many of the more direct claims currently made about his work in this section as it stands, while verifiable, may end up including references to his own research and books. Needless to say, given we are talking about cross-over between BLP and GA, everything needs to be airtight as concerns avoiding synthesis of any kind and I'll be sure that any primary sourcing involved is used only to support direct, unambiguous claims made within those sources, but even aside from that, I get the impression there's an upper limit to how much primary sourcing will be tolerated in this context, synthesis or no synthesis. I know we're always keen to avoid using static numbers outside context of content you can already look at, but you gentlemen (assuming gentlemen from your names, apologies if I'm mistaken in that) have a ballpark figure as to what you would view as excessive?

Even outside these questions, any advice you can give would be helpful. This is my first GA nomination, taken as I said, because I could find no other single, currently active editor who is most responsible for the page to suggest the move to; I would hate to have the effort fail because of some technicality I overlooked; I'm an experienced editor, with broad knowledge of most-all areas of process and policy, but GA nomination is one of the last roles I've yet to try on, so really, even comments that might seem obvious could be useful. :) Even if you don't have time to comment broadly on the inquiries above, stay tuned as I'm going to start adding content and sources by tonight or tomorrow, so even the occasional brief tweak/edit summary would be appreciated. Thanks much for bringing your concerns to me to begin with and I hope I am not presuming on you too much in this request. Snow talk 05:43, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Short and sweet, check out Wikipedia:Inline citation and see how you can apply it to the uncited paragraphs or sentences. In practice, the standard for inline citations is slightly higher for biographies of living people. It may be as simple as using citations that are already in the article and adding footnotes to the relevant areas. Viriditas (talk) 05:48, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Wow, that was faster than I could have possibly hoped. :) In the case of a number of such citations, the source may be an article or book already listed in his bibliography. I suppose the redundancy cannot be avoided, but it seems inelegant. I guess I may just have to try to rework some statements about his research and perspectives using sources which review his work. This would kill multiple birds with one stone in avoiding dependence on primary sourcing while bolstering the secondary sourcing, contextualization for his work, and the article's general consistency with WP:N. Ok, I think I'll proceed along those lines, thank you, Viriditas. Snow talk 06:00, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Redundant and inelegant. That's the Wikipedia we know and love!  :) You seem to have a good grip on this place. In the past, I've proposed that we should have multiple layout/interfaces, for example, one for reading, and another for verifying citations. It would be very easy to do this by providing a reading mode button that would remove all references from the screen and allow the reader to immerse themselves in text only, in true old skool linear mode, without any hypertext or distractions. But, nobody listens to me. What's interesting, however, is that outside of Wikipedia, we are starting to see a return to this on the web. Unfortunately, many people are "offloading" information to the cloud, and forgoing the reading experience. This means you have people who simply browse for chunks of facts, rather than spending the time to see how these facts fit together. And that's why we need another interface, one that ties the topic together with other topics so that you can get a dynamic, interdisciplinary systemic view without...oh don't get me started. Viriditas (talk) 06:51, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Heh, Wikipedia system's theory; colour me intrigued. You'll have to explain your approach to me in detail some time, unless you already have it codified somewhere. Snow talk 08:58, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, the official Wiki way to cut down a tree with an axe is to hack it a lot at random angles - none of this making a neat < shaped notch and then slicing it down with one heroic blow like John Stewart Collis, oh no. If a citation applies 23 times, that's 23 inline refs to the same citation -- at least you don't have to repeat the whole thing, you can name it <ref name=hack>Hack, J. ''Tree-felling for total beginners''. Hacker and Choppit, Hicksville, 1901.</ref> and use it repeatedly <ref name=hack/> wherever another quick swipe is deemed necessary. Then when every part of the tree-stump is well riddled with cross-cutting cites, you're done. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:10, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Ha, well, I'm well-enough familiar with that part of things, but I usually stay away from BLP's -- which makes my use of this one as a testing ground for GA perhaps less than ideal, but what I can say, I like the subject and I like the work that's been done on the article so far -- so I'm less used to the complication of a bibliography having cross-over with the refslist. In this case I am thankfully saved by the fact that we are talking about a well-known author whose works have received significant critical review and scholarly counter-argument; I can avoid citing his articles and books somewhat by citing instead what was said in response to them (simultaneously injecting his own stances within the context of those responses). It's an obvious strategy, in retrospect, now that I've hit on it, but I dare say it wouldn't work for many other intellectuals. Snow talk 08:58, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

It sounds very nice. For the subject's own views, his own works are reliable sources, so nothing further is needed (to prove Darwin said 'endless forms most beautiful', you needn't cite anybody else). A reception section is the usual thing for other people's opinions; an actual dialogue would be a treat. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:02, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

True, and trust me, there will be plenty of primary sourcing for directly attributable positions, but I reckon it can't hurt to pepper in the secondaries liberally, if only for pro forma reasons regarding knee-jerk reactions of some editors to primary sourcing. As to dialogue, there are more than a handful of videos of debates and panels in which he has participated, but the thought of tracking down all the citation details for those is not a pleasant one... Snow talk 09:16, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I have once or twice been faced with absurd concern about primary sources, and this is what I came up with - it did the trick. In other cases with a good number of secondary refs I just didn't worry about it, but I agree that BLP requires extra caution. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:58, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Steven Pinker/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Maunus (talk · contribs) 13:51, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I'll be reviewing this article over the next week.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:51, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

• First impressions: I think the research section is much too short, and omits major information and influences. For example Roger Brown is not even mentioned, Brown was his mentor in graduate school and while Kosslyn provided the impetus for Pinkers research on visualization, Brown provided the foundation for his approach to language. So more focus on his intellectual biography and influences. I also think that given that Pinker almost has two separate careers one as a researcher and one as a popularizer of science those two aspects should be explicitly treated. I also think his major books each of which has its own article deserves their own subsections where the articles about them are summarized - particularly How the Mind Works (here Fodors retort "The Mind doesnt work that way" cannot be omitted), Language Instinct and the Blank Slate have been so widely influential that they require more detailed treatment - probably also Words and Rules, Stuff of Thought and Better Angels. Each section ought to integrate the reviews and reception and critical arguments relating to it. That way you will also be able to get rid of the "criticism" section which currently conflates criticism against Pinker and criticism of his works. Looking forward to discussing how best to improve the article.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:09, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

• I was wondering whether to review this, and can take a supporting role. Since a GA must cover the 'major aspects' of a subject, I'd concur that research and popular science deserve their sections, with the proviso that the article does not have to attempt to describe or evaluate all his research findings. A brief 'summary style' section on each book starting with a 'main' link also seems desirable, though again these sections are not obliged to be FA-ishly 'comprehensive'. My main concern is simply that being a BLP the reffing needs to be more complete, specially on disputed claims; I feel we should start from the feeling that the current article is quite close to being 'good', and limit ourselves to the GA criteria. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:47, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Your participation would be entirely welcome. Comprehensiveness Broadness is a GA criterion, and in my view describing and evaluation his findings is necessary at the GA level, because they are what makes him a notable biographic subject. The FA criteria are of course more demanding than for a GA review, but this is the core of a biographical article. I am not nearly as worried about sourcing - Pinkers views and others claims about him are all easy to source, he is afterall one of the most mediatized American scientists of our age. Which disputed claims specifically are you thinking of?User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:02, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. No, comprehensiveness is NOT a GA criterion; glad I mentioned this now. "A featured article must be comprehensive; a good article must be broad. The "comprehensive" standard requires that no major fact or detail is omitted; the "broad" standard merely requires coverage of the main points." We should not go beyond this, however tempting it is to be more thorough or academic. I don't have major worries about specific disputed claims (else I'd have quick-failed the article) but we do need refs for each claim about his work, currently in the 'Research and theory' section; I agree these are readily sourceable. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:10, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Are you are right, broadness not comprehensiveness. I did realize the criteria differed, just didnt remember the word for the lower level of comprehensiveness. Nonetheless " It covers the main aspects of the topic without going into unnecessary detail." The description and evaluation of his work is the main aspect of the topic in my view. I also disagree very much that we shouldn't try to go beyond this. The purpose of a review is to improve the article, not to aim for some random bar and then stop. For me the review process is about this - to collaboratively improve the article as much as possible and then when that process is over pass it as a GA if it meets the criteria. If the process gets us close to FA status then so much the better.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:16, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh good. I'm all for improving things as much as possible, and setting articles on their way with a structure which will bode well etc etc, but not to make demands beyond the criteria, which are far from random. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:30, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I am not the kind of reviewer who makes demands - I prefer adjusting expectations in a mutual and participative process with the nominator and other interested parties. I am on the other hand the kind of reviewer who meddles/participates in the editing process, adding content etc. - some editors like this and others don't. I hope we can find a balance.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:42, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Insofar as I'm concerned as the nominator, you should make (and I will be appreciative of) any edit you would feel inclined outside the GA process; that is to say, any edit you think benefits the article, be it new content, alteration of existing content or tweaks to the general structure and flow. Thank you for talking the review on in the first place, Maunus and I'm sorry I'm only just now expressing that; off-wiki life has thrown some rather serious and uncompromising circumstances at me in an unexpected fashion the last couple of days and I've only had time to sporadically check-in and post a couple of trivial edits (which I wasted in other discussions I was engaged in rather than here, where I should have been focusing my limited time). Nonetheless, I've been following the discussion, compiling some articles and sketching out how best to address the issues with the layout that have been broached above. As to some of those points:

• I agree that treating the two major divisions of his career (academia/research vs. popularized works) independently is well advised. I'm a little less certain about the advisability of developing a section for each broad-audience book, owing to the cross-over between the three that arguably the most notable amongst them (How the Mind Works, The Language Instinct, and The Blank Slate) and the lack of major critical reaction to others; I'm wondering if it might not make more sense to have the section read in a rough chronological fashion, noting the details and reactions to the release of each, but also focusing on thematic elements between them. I hope I'm making sense there. In any event, that's something that can be decided one way or another as we proceed; certainly I'll retain the division as it has been implemented in the most recent version unless/until I've sandboxed something that I'm sure looks better.
• Before I even get to the popular works section, though, I want to augment the research section considerably. While I agree with the general approach of reflecting the dichotomy of his professional career, I don't want to let his own research to get overwhelmed by his popular works and in so-doing under-serve those who are more interested in those details (be they perhaps in the minority). In most regards, this could easily be the most time-consuming section to construct, owing to the fact that secondary sourcing in this area is going to be a little harder to find and properly contextualize (not exactly hard compared to many other researchers, but harder, relative to the popular books and their voluminous treatment), but as discussed previously, primary sourcing can be of help in plugging the holes here, so long as synthesis is avoided. Anyway, as it will involve a bit of attention to detail, it makes sense to get it out of the way first. I'm considering merging this section with any treatment of his professional/academic influences and collaborators and general criticism of his stances and research (though I don't think the last will be reflected in the title of said section) as I find these details too interconnected to cleanly tease apart. In this way the content currently in the criticism section can be split between the two professional sections.
• As mentioned, the biography section is way out of whack. I think maybe here the ideal solution is to combine the "early life" elements with the "personal life" section and place them either as the very first or very last section (at present I am well divided on which would be the better, but hopefully that will become obvious as we proceed). The career section can then be combined with the research section to provide a rough chronology of hi professional life and major research milestones, with occasional reference to how his popular books integrate into this chain of events. This might actually end up suggesting a fully integrated professional section, despite the course of action we are committed to just now, but I'm not anticipating as much.

Anyway thanks again for taking on the review. I'm sorry that my personal life has stalled momentum a little, but I'm going to try to get things back on track as quickly as possible. Had I known what this week had in store for me, I'd surely have delayed the nomination, but the situation is what it is and I'll try my best to make all appropriate additions to meet within your timeframe of review over the next week. Snow talk 08:24, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

• The biography section is weirdly structured, it is not in chronological order and it mixes in a lot of stuff like awards and recognitions before the reader knows about what he is being recognized for. I would encourage separating out awards and recognition to a section of its own, placed after the section on work. Then it will be easier to make the biography section chronological.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:50, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I've moved the awards to a new section; the sequence is now not too bad. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• It seems to me that the paragraph on Pinkers review of Gladwell gives undue weight to a vey marginal aspect of his work and career - compared to the many other public debates he has participated in and which are mentioned much briefer and many not at all. There are two types of solution to this problem - I think adding more content on his participation in the public debate is the best choice.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:08, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's WP:UNDUE. I've cut it down, moved other controv. paras into that section or to book sections, and added a bit on the gender & science para. There's certainly more that can be added on other debates.

Since nom has limited availability, and we're all hands-on rather than snipe-from-the-sidelines editors, I shall attempt to help fix issues in a spirit of WP:SOFIXIT; I don't think we'll get this article sorted otherwise. I may therefore respond by editing the article rather than here. ;-} Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:24, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

That is fine, I post here before making any edits to get input - I dont want to start doing something that the nominator or other editors involved are not in agreement with. In cases where there is agreement about how best to proceed I am likely to adopt the hands on approach.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:51, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

• I had some problems with the biography section that I found to be poorly organized. I tried to start fixing that. I moved his public debate participation which arent really personal life and not really research to their own section. Here we should try to find out what is and isnt notable. I also removed the list of his favorite songs from BBC - I dont think they are likely to be notable. If he were a musician then perhaps. The research section still lacks fleshing out - specially his transition form his work on visual cognition to his work on language and the influence of Roger Brown. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:50, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, Brown is absent from the discussion in this case, but Pinker does address the circumstances of the transition that you mention from visual cognition to language during his graduate and post-doctoral work in some detail in this interview, starting at around 15:30. Snow talk 00:55, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

I should add that, in general, I've not really seen that much in interviews, print or video, where he talks all that much about Brown, at least that I'm recalling right now. Don't get me wrong, the influence is observable in Pinker's early published work (as I was just saying to Chiswick on his talk page, Pinker's first solo-author paper Formal Models of Language Learning, which Pinker has a number of times referenced and as noteworthy moment in his academic development, has a number of citations and references to Brown and obviously the very premise shows some connection), but as to a sourceable description of that relationship coming from Pinker, I'm drawing a blank, though I'll keep looking. Our article on Brown himself, contains a ref (Kagan, J 1999. Roger William Brown. Biographical Memoirs, Volume 77. Washington, DC: The National Academy Press), which purports to support the claim that Brown's work was a major inspiration for The Language Instinct, but I've never read it (the ref) and cannot confirm. If you guys are happy to take it on faith that the contributor who added it to that article got it right, it's good enough for me. There is also this very glowing reference, from the very first page of the preface to the recent anthology of Pinker's formal academic papers Language, Cognition, and Human Nature:

"One of my graduate advisers, Roger Brown, the founder of the field of language acquisition, was a gifted stylist and as a student I savored his prose and poured over his penciled marginalia on my own papers. Though I can crank out turgid mush with the best of them, Roger's example inspired me to strive in my own academic prose for clarity, forcefulness and the occasional touch of flair."

Clearly he sees Brown's influence as more than trivial but that particular quote doesn't establish much as regards how he influenced Pinker's areas of interest, just his style as a writer. It would suffice to say at least though "One of Pinker's graduate advisers was noted psychologist Roger Brown, whom Pinker regards as the founder of the academic field of language acquisition." I'll keep looking for something more substantial in case these two sources can't suffice between them. But for whatever reason, he just doesn't seem to reference Brown as much as other figures he worked with in his early academic career, such as Kosslyn. There are a number of other figures he cites as influences in the above interview (and others I have access to), which could be used to flesh out that section though. Snow talk 01:57, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Pinker also wrote a very long obituary for Brown that also describes their relation a little bit. I will see if I have some way of accessing the Kagan reference. I do find it quite significant that he regards Brown one of his advisers as the founder of language acquisition studies (Im not sure that view is universally shared) and that he fairly quickly gave up visual imagination to work in the field of language acquisition, which then became the field in which he established his name as a researcher. Also his entire theory of language and meaning -including his aversion to the notion of relativism of thought and language - is based on Brown.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:50, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

In his obituary of Brown, Pinker said Brown's book Words and Things influenced The Language Instinct. I've cited this, and added Pinker's own list of influential figures from the start of LI, in which Brown appears. He praises Brown quite a bit in the obituary; it might be helpful to quote something from it, perhaps, but at least we now have some connection between the men. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:31, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, is it based on Brown, though? It seems to me that the entire trajectory of his career, emerging views and academic influences (in terms of both concepts and researchers) put him in necessary opposition to relativism. I mean, don't get me wrong, if we turn up a quote from Pinker saying this was the influence of Brown in particular, I won't be astonished, but it's definitely the claim from amongst those we've discussed in this area that most demands a solid source to defend against the notion of OR. Also it's worth noting that in the above interview Pinker cites the general response to his initial forays into language as a big motivator -- academics were more excited and responsive to his work in that field and that exchange fueled his own interest (or so he seems to say). In any event, he never gave up visual phenomena entirely: by the point of How the Mind Works even, it was still an area of active interest and speculation for him, though, as you say, it was probably his work on language that paved the way for his becoming a household name. But the two are a part of a larger complex that typified his work at the time; the notion of a mental phenomena as discrete and empirical. That's also something he touches upon, however briefly, in that interview (and another, longer one I watched just this last week) -- the rejection of strict behaviouralism. I'm wary of going into too much detail on all of these nuanced distinctions though, and running afoul of WP:SYNTH and WP:SUMMARYSTYLE in the process. Snow talk 20:58, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree we dont need to state that the book was based on Browns view of meaning, unless there is a source that explicitly claims that. We should be wary of clashing with WP:SYNTH. I think the recent changes have been great improvements. I am not at all weary of giving too much detail on his work -we are a far cry from "too much" at this point imo - I think this is what should be the bulk of the article - descriptions and evaluations of his work. I think what we should aim for is that a reader after having read the article understands and has an broad overview of Pinker's work, his general views and scientific stances and his importance. I think that more of the same kind of expansions as carried out yesterday, giving deeper descriptions of his main works, would bring us closer to this goal.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:23, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh yes, I agree, no doubt -- and unlike many intellectuals, we have all of the sources we'll need in that regard. I'm just thinking there's cause to be cautious about what we include -- he's such a prodigious public speaker, there are many concepts and schools of thought in the cognitive sciences (and associated philosophy), which he may have commented on in a singular context that we should be careful not to avoid here, lest they be ascribed undue weight by the reader as a major component of his work and views. Likewise, I'm concerned, especially for those of us who have followed his work for a long while, that we might find it too easy to synthesize, from those mountains of material, trans-disciplinary currents in his thinking which he has himself not spoken to. Snow talk 19:57, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

GA review

Here is my evaluation of the article's current state.

1. Well-written:
   1. the prose is clear and concise, it respects copyright laws, and the spelling and grammar are correct;
   2. it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

I think the Lead need to be expanded to accurately reflect the changes to content.

Extended Lead to cover language acquisition and Better Angels. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:01, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

1. Verifiable with no original research:
   1. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;
   2. it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines;
   3. it contains no original research.
2. Broad in its coverage:
   1. it addresses the main aspects of the topic;

I think the section on "the language instinct and related books" could do a better job of summarizing the arguments in the books.

It's not easy as Pinker covers many hundreds of pages with diverse and intricate arguments... have added Igor Aleksander's cogent thoughts. Have reworked (and attributed) summary from The Language Instinct.

The section on "words and rules" is also extremely short.

Merged it into the section on language books; its argument is discussed at length in the Research and theory section.

The section on Better Angels, could do a better job of summarizing the critiques of the book instead of picking to include two random critiques of the many published ones.

I hear this and sympathize, but one is quickly picked up for WP:OR if one induces rules from a set of examples (I suppose on the grounds that however many examples are given to demonstrate the rule, counter-examples might be found).

I think there are enough different commentary positive and negative, in the main article on the book that it can be summarized without becoming OR.

Ok, added brief summaries positive and negative, with lists of refs.

I also think the nature of his participation in public debate could be better described. It would require some sources that characterize his intellectual stances but that should be possible to find.

Added commentary on Pinker by Ed West.

I also think that each of the sections could be rewritten to have a higher degree of internal cohesion. Some of them stand as series of short unrelated statements. This last idea may be beyond the scope of a GA review which doesnt require good writing.

Yes, you may be right there (all 3 comments); have reorganized for coherence and added new material.

Busy today, will look at this on Sunday/Monday. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:43, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Very good additions, reading it I stumbled on the paragraph about "the language instinct", which starts by stating that the book has been criticized by Geoffrey Sampson in the book "the language instinct debate", but then goes on to describe other commentary. Perhaps given that Sampsons book seems to be about Pinker's book and its reception this would be a good one to look at a little more, and perhaps at least summarize the arguments by Sampson and others as they appear in it.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 12:40, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Have described Sampson further. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:35, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

1. 1. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
2. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each.
3. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
4. Illustrated, if possible, by images:
   1. images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content; and
   2. images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

I think two of the recently inserted images are not very relevant and that the caption of the second WW2 image is not suitable because it approaches editorializing by implicitly contradicting Pinkers argument. I think an image like this one which Pinker uses in the book would be better. I think the beaver is also to tangentially related to be included.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:38, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Both topics are discussed explicitly by Pinker in the book, the one as a reference for behavioural 'instinct', the other as a possible (and major) counter-argument which he deals with. However I have removed the images and inserted the Hausbuch one. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:43, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Maybe a photo of Chomsky would be more relevant in the section about language books.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 12:40, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Done.

• I apologize for being slow in responding to the recent improvements, I am traveling with intermittent internet access and lots of work this week. I will get back to the review in detail over the next week. I am sure that you will be able to continue to improve the article along the lines I've suggested meanwhile.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:35, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks; I think the article is pretty much up to speed now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:43, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree it looks really good.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 12:40, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Have made the changes requested. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:35, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

• Considering the serious improvement over the course of this review I am now happy to promote the article to GA. The following comments I leave for the purpose of further improvements towards FA, which is still at some ditance. The Publiv debate section should be more cohesive and include more of Pinkers most significant pubic arguments such as his argument with Leon Wieseltier about the relation between science and humanities research, and his participation in debates regarding evolutionary psychology and adaptationism. The article also still needs editing for cohesion within sections and improvements of prose. For FA it would be necessary for the editors to actually the read books that summarize or contest Pinker's arguments, and describe Pinker's role in the debates regarding language innateness. The research section should also take into account his many published articles, especially the ones that are most widely cited. Nevertheless, I congratulate the editors with the article. Thanks for waiting so long.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:38, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the careful review and the suggestions for further work. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:46, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Thomas Sowell influence?

This seems suspect. No source is cited. the C-SPAN source does not mention Sowell.

148.85.235.153 (talk) 06:39, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

• Pinker frequently has good things to say about Sowell's book A Conflict of Visions. Here's an article where he calls it "wonderful". He also uses the book in college courses he teaches. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 10:40, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Pinker's views as pro-race and pro-HBD?

There are many examples of Pinker saying that the denial ofmtue existence of racial groups in scientifically untenable, like here for example. This deserves a mention in the article somewhere.Wajajad (talk) 21:44, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

pro-race? He concludes that there are races and are genetic influences on intelligence. There is no indication that he favors that result, it is just his assessment of the current state of the literature. Given the exist of race there may be medical benefits to studying it until we get to a full fledged personalized medicine. He is intellectually fearless, favoring open inquiry Ideas are connected to other ideas, often in unanticipated ways, and restrictions on content could cripple freedom of inquiry and distort the intellectual landscape. but he also cautions In contrast, the power to uncover genetic and evolutionary roots of group differences in psychological traits is both more likely to materialize and more incendiary in its consequences. And it is a prospect that we are, intellectually and emotionally, very poorly equipped to confront. It is hard to tell he was pro anything in the article other than open inquiry, and he was cautious even about that.Poodleboy (talk) 07:04, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Pinker is a long time proponent of race science

Pinker supports race science, going so far as to include an essay by professional racist Steve Sailer on why Iraqis are too in-bred for democracy in "The Best Science and Nature Writing" in 2004.

There should be something about this in the article on Pinker. Otherwise you're just running PR for him.

You want more evidence of Pinker's support of hereditarian garbage? I have a whole web site devoted to it.

https://www.pinkerite.com Nancymc (talk) 21:00, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Defensible conclusions?

Under the heading "Research and theory" the article states:

In his interview on the Point of Inquiry podcast in 2007, he provides the following examples of defensible conclusions of what science says human nature is:

• "Individuals differ in personality and intelligence." Even in a perfect economic system, not everyone will have the same amount of wealth.

What the article calls a "defensible conclusion" is what others call a Formal Fallacy.

It is not a valid argument. The conclusion does not follow from the premises.

Mr. Pinker may claim his conclusions are defensible but the article should not imply an invalid argument is valid.

24.36.33.119 (talk) 17:19, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

The aaatheistic conundrum

aaatheist:

English

Etymology
a- +‎ aatheist

Noun
aaatheist (plural aaatheists)
A person who does not believe in the existence of aatheists.

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Citation clog

Is the mass of citations in the Better Angels of our Nature section really necessary? I know it covers the broad scope of the criticisms, but it makes it impossible to know which sources correspond to which critique. Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 03:31, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Intellectual Dark Web

You are invited to participate in this AfD discussion about whether to delete Intellectual Dark Web. (I am not watching this page, so please ping me if you want my attention.) --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:10, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Whitewashing

This article doesn't mention Pinker's comments about the alt-right this past year, nor does it mention his promotion of the careers of 'race science' advocates like Steve Sailer. It looks like a Pinker fan has been bowdlerizing this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2000:C5E0:BD00:5468:3A4C:16F7:8B88 (talk) 02:57, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Well, I have no idea what comments he may or may not have made. Do you have sources for this? NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 02:04, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

His comments on the alt-right were misrepresented, and you can search for sources on this. (never saw this site before, [8]Doug Weller talk 11:41, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Oh, right, that. I remember now. Yeah, that was essentially Pinker getting trolled. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 17:29, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Unverified claims - calling attention reverted

Pinker is obviously a formidable intellectual. But that doesn't give him a free ride.

I was struck by some unverified, anecdotal claims.

"His seventh book, The Sense of Style (2014), is intended as a general style guide" The idea of "intended" might pass muster in a student's essay, but it is questionable here. Is the book successful in achieving that 'intent'? Who wrote the book? Did they also write the Wikipedia entry? The idea of authorial intent has been the subject of literary and philosophical debate for many years.

Another example:

"Pinker has been named as one of the world's most influential intellectuals by various magazines." There are many types of magazines. Was Hello! magazine one of them? Teen Beat? Foreign Affairs? Time Magazine? The idea that 'various' magazines have celebrated Pinker's intellect is great, but it is important to frame this statement and demonstrate that the 'magazines' are qualified.

There are other examples in the article of statements and claims that miss the mark, but that is all I have time for now. Jbrockettm (talk) 22:48, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Request to change Steven Pinker's Photo on Wikipedia

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

On behalf of Steven Pinker, I have 3 requested changes, 1. Change picture from current photo to 102111_Pinker_344.jpg 2. Change photo title to "Steven Pinker by Rose Lincoln/Harvard University" 3. Change photo caption to "This photograph is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license by Harvard University."

Steven Pinker has disclosed to me that he would like his Wikipedia picture changed. I attempted to make this edit earlier this year on Steven's behalf, but it looks like the change was reversed.

Because this request was sent to me through email, I do not have a URL to post supporting the requested changes. However, I am happy to send a transcript of the email to a private party or engage in other forms of necessary verification. Aufstrich (talk) 23:26, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

How do we know he has requested this? And if he has, then he has a WP:COI. Also, we don't normally show attribution for photos in captions, unless the photographer is notable. Sorry. In any case, you should upload the image first either here or at Commons and provide a link to it, so we can see what it's like. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:50, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Reply 14-NOV-2018

  Edit request implemented    Spintendo  00:47, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

I didn't realise this image had been already uploaded by the requester and previously used. I also didn't realise that the subject of an article could just email in his requests for edits. Maybe Mr Pinker would like to email you directly next time and cut out the middle men! Martinevans123 (talk) 08:44, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your help here! I apologize for any violations of WP conduct that I unintentionally engaged in. Please do let me know if there is another person or account that Steven Pinker can email directly for future requests as I would be happy to be cut out of the equation in the future. Aufstrich (talk) 13:57, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

The OTRS email address is the only route to use for authenticating submitted material from a BLP article's subject. @Martinevans123: submitted documents like the image in question may be submitted that way — but as OTRS editors typically do not add material to articles themselves, the request to add the image should still be made here on the talk page.  Spintendo  15:50, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I see, you received a parallel request via OTRS. Fine. But thanks for not adding the license details to the caption. I think the OP's request might have been clearer with an actual link to the file. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:54, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Notes

LEAD TOO LONG

Yes the lead is way too long. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.0.4.235 (talk) 18:04, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Agree, it's way too long. Suggest we keep it to the opening para plus some more important facts and move the content to main article area ~~headwayNL — Preceding unsigned comment added by HeadwayNL (talk • contribs) 18:36, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Conflict with Phil Torres

Why, exactly was my contribution on the Torres-Pinker conflict removed Martinevans123 ? Nancymc (talk) 23:55, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

As per my edit summary, the reasons (that I could see) were WP:WEIGHT and WP:RECENTISM. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:59, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm going to add a section on the infamous alt-right comments controversy - I can't believe it isn't here already, it was a big big deal. Are you planning to take that down too? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nancymc (talk • contribs) 00:02, 10 November 2019 (UTC)