The writings and research of Steven Pinker, Harvard College professor of psychology at Harvard University, are influenced by the main tenet of evolutionary psychology--the idea that natural selection has shaped the human mind and behavior according to the challenges and conditions our ancestors faced when they were hunter-gatherers in the Pleistocene era.
Writing for a broad audience, Pinker is able to make complex scientific arguments accessible to an average--but curious--reader. The author of seven books on language and the mind, most recently The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, he has posited that language is a biological adaptation and an innate ability. Regarded as a provocateur and a popularizer, Pinker applied his subtle sense of humor to the gentle mischief of cartoons for Forbes.com.
(Editor's note: In order to read Steven Pinker's reflections fully, please note that there is an option to slow down this slide show. It is located above the upper right-hand corner of this box.)
Charlie Brown
But only before the "Peanuts" strip jumped the shark in the 1970s. He not only persisted in the face of failure--managing the baseball team, kicking the football, dreaming about the little red-haired girl--but he was deeply decent.
One day, Linus tells him about a football game he watched on TV: "What a comeback! The home team was behind 6-0 with only three seconds to play. ... The quarterback threw a perfect pass to the left end, who ran all the way for a touchdown! The fans and players were rolling on the ground and hugging each other!" Charlie asks, "How did the other team feel?"
Mr. Peabody and Sherman
Set the Wayback Machine to the 1960s, when the bespectacled dog Mr. Peabody and his pet boy Sherman traveled back in time to make sure that history would come out right in Rocky and his Friends.
In one episode, they helped Paul Revere when he almost missed his epic ride because he only had a statue of a horse, not a real one, to ride on. Also admirable are the alumni of Wossamatta U, the employees of the demolition company Edifice Wrecks and the great spies Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale. I sure hope Bullwinkle doesn't get shot by Sarah Palin.
Calvin of "Calvin and Hobbes"
He always sees the big picture. He wakes his mother to ask, "Do you think love is nothing but a biochemical reaction designed to make sure our genes get passed on?" He wants to quit school to migrate with the wildebeests in the Serengeti, and he asks his teacher, "Given that, sooner or later, we're all just going to die, what's the point of learning integers?" And when taking an exam that asks him to "explain Newton's First Law of Motion in your own words," he writes: "Yakka foob mog. Grug pubbawup zink wattoom gazork. Chumble spuzz."
Griffy
Alter-ego of the cartoonist Bill Griffith. Though his creation, Zippy the Pinhead--with his mu-mu, ribboned hair tuft and pop-culture non sequiturs--is one of the most disturbing characters on the comic page, Griffy is a conservative curmudgeon, especially when it comes to language and reason. In one strip, he says, "What about all those wacky product names, huh? You got your Acela, your Thrivent, your Impreza, Apriva, Alantra, Cintara ... It's patently absurd! They mean nothing! Who makes these things up ... robots?"
Huckleberry Hound
This insipid product of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon factory had no redeeming artistic, literary or moral value. But he had one thing going for him: When I was six, I could draw him with crayons (start with a sock, my mother taught me). And after I saw him depicted on a cereal box in a lovely cerulean, I tried as hard as I could to visualize him in that color on our grainy black-and-white TV.