Word: pinker
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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That's probably because humans are hardwired to swear cathartically, says Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist and author of The Stuff of Thought, an exploration of the psychology of language. Pinker distinguishes cathartic cursing from using profanity descriptively, idiomatically, abusively or for emphasis, and points to similar behavior in animals that suggests its evolutionary roots. If you step on a dog or cat's tail, it will let out a sharp yelp of pain, for example. "Swearing probably comes from a very primitive reflex that evolved in animals," Pinker says. "In humans, our vocal tract has been hijacked...
...practical change has been slow on the heels of this shift. So far, Gen Ed offerings consist more of old Core and departmental classes than newly created courses, and many professors were obliged to change absolutely nothing about their courses in order to reclassify them. (As Psychology Professor Steven Pinker, who teaches a Science B core, wrote to me in an e-mail, “I am not changing my course at all!”).This is partly because many Gen Ed suggestions were simply common sense: Students listen more if your teaching applies to their lives...
...Cultivating Compassion and Wisdom,” at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel, organized by the Harvard Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry and the Cambridge Health Alliance. There, the Dalai Lama will speak on compassion and wisdom along with several Harvard professors, including psychology professor Steven Pinker. On May 2, the Tibetan Organization of Boston is sponsoring a morning sermon, on the Four Noble Truths, and a public talk on the path to happiness at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough according to Harvard Buddhist chaplain Lama Migmar Tseten. Tickets for the event are available on Ticketmaster.com...
...nothing else, at least check out the site to watch Steven Pinker go absolutely crazy. There are few things in life that are simultaneously more terrifying and more entertaining than watching this man's luscious locks fly about as he takes a bat to an old television...
...those poor experimental bunnies' ears and I'm convinced. You can be dubious about global warming if you want - but not about cigarettes. They absolutely do cause cancer, vascular and lung disease - the things that kill most of us. I've watched scores quit too, seen their skin get pinker, their wounds heal faster, their lungs work better. It's true: No matter when they quit they're better...