University News

For immediate release

March 13, 2012, SHERBROOKE, QC— On Monday, March 19, Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker will address Bishop’s University students, faculty and the general public as the University concludes another season of the highly popular Donald Lecture Series. Dr. Steven Pinker will speak about his latest book entitled The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. This book argues that our own human nature has led to a steady decline in violence over the past 2 millennia.  Dr. Pinker will help kick-off activities for Bishop’s University Research Week; the lecture begins at 7:00 pm in Centennial Theatre. No reservations or tickets are required.

“As an intellectual and a researcher, Steven Pinker has contributed to our understanding of the mind, its ability to process language and of human nature itself,” said Bishop’s Principal Michael Goldbloom. “Dr. Pinker’s latest work presents a provocative and fascinating view of the evolution of social conflicts throughout history.”

Born in Montreal, Pinker earned a Bachelor's Degree in Experimental Psychology at McGill University and then moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1976. He earned his doctorate at Harvard in 1979, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT. He is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and has also taught at Stanford and MIT. 

Pinker’s research on visual cognition and the psychology of language has won prizes from the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, and the American Psychological Association. He has received six honorary doctorates, several teaching awards, and numerous prizes for his books The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, and The Blank Slate. He is the Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and writes frequently for The New Republic, The New York Times, and other publications. He has been named Humanist of the Year, and is listed in Foreign Policy and Prospect magazine's "The World's Top 100 Public Intellectuals" and in Time magazine's "The 100 Most Influential People in the World Today."

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