Experimental psychologist interested in all aspects of language, mind, and human nature.
Steven Pinker conducts research on a variety of topics in psychology and cognitive science, including common knowledge (things that everyone knows everyone knows), language acquisition, emotion, the moral sense, rationality, and trends in violence.
Latest News and Updates
- Quillette: The Many Roots of Our Suffering: Reflections on Robert Trivers (1943–2026)
- The Times: 1984 revisited: George Orwell would be relieved at how we’ve done
- The Free Press: The Golden Age of Humanity? We’re Living in It
- Stereoscopy Magazine Member Highlight
- Wall Street Journal: Charles Murray’s Unscientific Case for the Soul
- Air Mail: The Last Enlightenment Man
- The New Yorker: Do You Know What I Know?
- The Times: Beware the novel problems of our success
- The Times - Steven Pinker: I’m pinned between cancel culture and Trump
- The Guardian: When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows by Steven Pinker review – communication, broken down
- New York Times: The Right’s Post-Kirk Crackdown Has a Familiar Mob Logic
- New York Times: Harvard Derangement Syndrome
- The Harvard Crimson: From CAFH Leadership: Harvard Must Not Submit to a Hostile Takeover
- The Nature-Nurture-Nietzsche Newsletter: Top 20 Steven Pinker Quotes
- Quilette, Sage of Sex and Psyche, Remembering Don Symons (1942–2024).
- 2 1/2 D: The Stereoscopic Photography of Steven Pinker. Review in Whitehot Magazine, April 2024
- Call Magazine, OOOM 100: The World’s Most Inspiring People 2024
- Quillette, "There's Nothing Mystical About the Idea that Ideas Change History"
- Nautilus: Psychology Lost a Great Mind
- Boston Globe: New faculty-led organization at Harvard will defend academic freedom
- Razib Khan's Unsupervised Learning: Steven Pinker - The Blank Slate 20+ years later
- BBVA Foundation: The Frontiers of Knowledge Award goes to Steven Pinker and Peter Singer for innovative academic contributions in the domains of rationality and moral progress that have achieved a widespread impact in the public sphere
- Port Magazine: Steven Pinker: Things I like / Things I Dislike
- The Harvard Gazette: Will ChatGPT supplant us as writers, thinkers?
- IAI News: Pinker on the power of irrationality - Why it can be rational to be irrational
- Persuasion: Reason To Believe - How and why irrationality takes hold, and what do to about it.
- Skeptical Inquirer Magazine: Reason’s Valiant Champion
- Financial Times: Steven Pinker: ‘Putin’s invasion won’t lead to a return to the age of warring civilisation’
- Now in Paperback - Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
- Symposium: Enlightenment 2.0 - A Review of “Rationality,” by Steven Pinker
- Collate: Steven Pinker and Scott Aaronson Debate AI Scaling!
- Skeptic: ESP Debate - Is Belief in ESP Irrational?
- A Night @ the Opera with Steven Pinker: Is Music a Universal Language?
- The Blog of Scott Aaronson: Steven Pinker and I debate AI scaling!
- Bicycling: This Scientist Can't Stop Thinking About Cycling
- Boston Globe: Is Russia’s war with Ukraine the end of the Long Peace?
- Why IBB Translated Steven Pinker’s New Book RATIONALITY for the Middle East - Ideas Beyond Borders
- BBC News: Three ways to be more rational this year
- BBC Radio: Think with Pinker
- Quillette: The Need for Rationality in a Hostile World
- Steven Pinker : "L'irrationalité actuelle ne signifie pas que notre espèce débloque"
- The Weekly Dish: Steven Pinker on Rationality In Our Tribal Times
- The Next Big Idea Podcast: Steven Pinker's Love Song to Critical Thinking
- Behavioral Scientist: The Monty Hall Problem (Finally) Explained
- The Washington Post: The power of rational thinking in a world that seems unreasonable
- Penguin: Where to start with Steven Pinker
- Richard Hanania: Rationality Requires Incentives: An Interview with Steven Pinker
- Steven Pinker: 'A generation has to watch every word... It could cripple intellectual life'
- The Times: Rationality - Steven Pinker's war on conspiracy theories
- New York Times Magazine: Steven Pinker Thinks Your Sense of Imminent Doom Is Wrong
- Effective Altruism: An Interview with Steven Pinker
- How humans gained an "extra life" (Review Steven Johnson’s “Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer.”)
- Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
- Intro to Psych Science: Lecture 6, The Brain
- "What is human nature?" Panpsychast podcast (June 7, 2020)
- "Can we build a more rational world?" The Good Fight podcast
- The pandemic exposes human nature: 10 evolutionary insights
- Freakonomics podcast - People I (Mostly) Admire Ep. 1: Steven Pinker
- Responses to the Letter to the Linguistics Society of America
- Twenty Questions with Steven Pinker
- From Verbs to War: In Conversation With Steven Pinker
- Lectures on Rationality
- Maimonides’ Ladder: States of Mutual Knowledge and the Perception of Charitability
- A critical period for second language acquisition: Evidence from 2/3 million English speakers
- Get Shorty: Steven Pinker on the Enlightenment
- Universality and diversity in human song
- "Dissecting Morality" podcast from the Ministry of Ideas
Featured Books
Twitter Feed
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The Truth Is Still Out There - Excellent article by Adam Kirsch in The Atlantic, echoing points that skeptic (and Skeptic editor) @michaelshermer has been making for decades. t.co/gADq0TwMOL
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It's Better Than It Looks | TEDx talk by Progress Studies writer and researcher Tony Morley @tonymmorley | TEDxHawkesbury t.co/zA7wM7JpHW via @YouTube
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Join me in supporting The Ocean Cleanup (effective technology from Boyan Slat) to help tackle ocean plastic! Please help the artist and gallery director Nicholas Cueva reach his goal of 8584 USD. Your support and sharing this page would mean a lot to him! 🌊
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60 Percent of Grades at Harvard Were A’s. Enough Is Enough, say my colleagues David Laibson and @jasonfurman (and I couldn't agree more). t.co/RCXpFIPnT0
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This and other examples of the surprising role of "common knowledge" (belief about belief) in When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows...: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life. t.co/mAxK36ZqdU
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Nobel laureate and co-founder of behavioral economics Richard Thaler advises Democrats on how to select a successful nominee. Another factor: In WEKTEK, I suggested that the primary process is a "Keynesian beauty contest," where the goal is to select not the prettiest contestant