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A DJ of Ideas, Pinker Rocks Stanford
By
Shannon Snow
November 16, 2004
As Steven Pinker prepared to take the stage at a packed Kresge
Auditorium at Stanford on Wednesday night, a rock concert atmosphere
permeated the room. Big band music blasted from the house
speakers as the Harvard cognitive scientist tested his audiovisual
equipment. Two assistants attached a microphone to his tie as
he shook hands with fans. Copies of Pinker’s signature
long hair – which has been compared to that of Peter Frampton
and Robert Plant – dotted the crowd. One young man shot
candid digital photos of Pinker before he took the stage.
"Yes!" the young man exclaimed as he reviewed the
picture in his viewfinder and excitedly pumped his fist.
Pinker, who turned 50 in September, is no stranger to generating
excitement. A renowned pioneer of evolutionary psychology,
he is known for arguing that behavior, especially language acquisition,
is largely predetermined by genetics honed by evolution. His
books appeal to both a scientific and popular audience, and include
best sellers "The Language Instinct," "How
the Mind Works," and "The Blank Slate." The
last was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2003.
Advocating greater cooperation between the arts and sciences,
Pinker’s lecture set the stage on fire with his mix of
scientific prowess, compassion for the humanities and amiable
wit. He argued that the arts and sciences should inform
each other, a unification he called "consilience."
His speech kicked off "Story, Metaphor, Vision," a
three-day conference on cognitive science and the humanities
sponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center.
The humanities have seen a decline in enrollment, faculty appointments
and resources in recent years, said Pinker, who recently left
M.I.T after 21 years to work at Harvard. He noted that
only 9 percent of high school students report plans to major
in the liberal arts. This lack of progress has caused many
in the field to feel resigned.
Pinker believes that new collaborations with scientific disciplines
could re-energize the lagging humanities. Areas in which
art and science could reinforce each other include the visual
arts, perception, and evolutionary aesthetics; jurisprudence,
moral philosophy and moral psychology are others.
Spinning ideas from a variety of disciplines into his talk,
Pinker played the role of an intellectual DJ for the responsive
crowd. He culled theories from the top minds in fields
including evolutionary biology, linguistics, and literature and
synthesized them into a mix greater than any individual track.
To demonstrate the confluence of disciplines, Pinker told a
story about the quest to solve the central problem in linguistics:
explaining the expressive power of language. The knowledge
search employs methods as diverse as the brain mapping procedure
magnetoencephalography, historical analysis of Old English, and
the theories of linguists Noam Chomsky and Paul Kiparsky.
According to Pinker, not even science can exist in a vacuum. Instead,
scientists must work with historians, philosophers and other
humanities experts to develop context for their work – and
vice versa. Biologist Jared Diamond's popular book "Gun,
Germs, and Steel," which examines the history of the West
in terms of ecology, geography and demography, was cited by Pinker
as a prime example.
In another case study, Pinker explained how audio streaming
and other principles of auditory perception can be used by composers
to produce compelling works. In an example that drew applause
from the audience, Pinker played a techno-mix made by one of
his students that employed segregation of high and low notes
to give the impression of two separate melodic lines.
It was a successful show for Pinker, who earlier this year was
named one of the "100 Most Influential People of the World
Today” by TIME magazine. He fielded audience questions
for a half an hour after his talk. The most common
concern expressed by the audience was that he failed to give
enough examples of where the humanities could inform science,
instead of the other way around.
Perhaps it can be good material for an encore.
Contact Shannon Snow at ssnow@stanford.edu
