# Steven Pinker **Domain:** Cognitive Science / Language / Public Intellectual History **Doc Type:** Thinker Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition **Steven Pinker** is a cognitive scientist and author known for work on language, cognition and public arguments about human nature and social change. ## Project Steve Context NCSE lists Pinker as Project Steve signatory number 4. [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]] uses the roster not as an appeal to celebrity but as satire directed at creationist lists of dissenting scientists. Signing Project Steve indicates support for evolution education; it does not make every position held by a signatory part of NCSE doctrine or this corpus. ## Machine-Intelligence Context Pinker belongs here primarily through cognitive science and public evolutionary literacy. Claims about language models, human uniqueness and cognitive continuity should engage the empirical disciplines of language and mind rather than use “intelligence” as an undefined scalar. ## Relationships - **Edge source route:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] connects this topic to exact Annual Question passages promoted into the Simple Reminders archive. ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > "A human-made information processor could, in principle, duplicate and exceed the powers of the human mind." > **— Steven Pinker**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/AI Control/Information Processors Could Exceed the Human Mind by Steven Pinker|Information Processors Could Exceed the Human Mind by Steven Pinker]] > “Natural selection favors the allocation of resources not just from parents to offspring but among genetic kin such as siblings and cousins. Just as a gene that encourages a parent to invest in offspring will be favoring a copy of itself that sits inside those offspring, so a gene that encourage an organism to invest in a brother or cousin will, some proportion of the time, be helping a copy of itself, and will be selected in proportion to the benefits conferred, the costs incurred, and the degree of genetic relatedness.” > **— Steven Pinker**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, Or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Evolutionary Genetics Explains the Conflicts of Human Social Life by Steven Pinker|Evolutionary Genetics Explains the Conflicts of Human Social Life by Steven Pinker]] > “The development of organisms must use complex feedback loops rather than blueprints. Random events can divert the trajectory of growth, but the trajectories are confined within an envelope of functioning designs for the species defined by natural selection.” > **— Steven Pinker**, *2002, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Question? ... Why?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Natural Selection Constrains the Trajectories of Human Design by Steven Pinker|Natural Selection Constrains the Trajectories of Human Design by Steven Pinker]] > “2. Hunter-gatherers. Large-scale agriculture, cities, and other aspects of what we call "civilization" are recent inventions (< 10,000 years old), too young to have exerted significant evolutionary change on the human genome, and have led to cataclysmic changes in the human lifestyle. The best information about the ecological and social lifestyle to which our minds and bodies are biologically adapted lies in the few remaining foraging or hunting and gathering peoples. These peoples are now assimilating, being absorbed, being pushed off their lands, or dying of disease.” > **— Steven Pinker**, *2000, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Today's Most Important Unreported Story?”* [[reminders/Evolution/The Loss of Our Species' Biography by Steven Pinker|The Loss of Our Species' Biography by Steven Pinker]] > “For one thing, human nature is a complicated system. Even if we do have urges that can result in violence, we also have systems that can inhibit our urges toward violence. Whether we behave violently depends on which part of human nature prevails, and this balance can change with the circumstances.” > **— Steven Pinker**, *Skeptical Inquirer, “Steven Pinker on Violence,” July/August 2013* [[reminders/Human Animality/Human Nature Contains Violence and Its Restraint by Steven Pinker|Human Nature Contains Violence and Its Restraint by Steven Pinker]] ## Sources / Provenance - NCSE, “Twenty years of Project Steve”: https://ncse.ngo/twenty-years-project-steve - Harvard faculty profile: https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/steven-pinker ## See Also [[wiki/The National Center for Science Education|The National Center for Science Education]], [[wiki/Stephen Hawking|Stephen Hawking]], [[wiki/Language|Language]], [[wiki/Cognitive Science|Cognitive Science]] ## Directory Context [[Recommended Institutions and Signals]] · [[Team Leela]] ## STEVE Routing [[articles/STEVE|STEVE]] places this entry within the article’s scientific, intellectual, or institutional topology. The article documents that connection; formal membership in [[Team Leela]], shared intent, and coordinated program activity remain unverified. [[articles/STEVE|STEVE]] · [[Team Leela]] · [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism]] · [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]] · [[articles/The Hawking Continuity|The Hawking Continuity]] · [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]]