Word: pinkering
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...these bits of research are, they barely begin to address the mysteries of music and the brain, including the deepest question of all: Why do we appreciate music? Did our musical ancestors have an evolutionary edge over their tin-eared fellows? Or is music, as M.I.T. neuroscientist Steven Pinker asserts, just "auditory cheesecake," with no biological value? Given music's central role in most of our lives, it's time that scientists found the answers...
...think you'll be pleased by the lineup of scientists who agreed to write for this issue, including Stephen Jay Gould, Freeman Dyson, Steven Weinberg and Steven Pinker. "I usually have to cajole scientists of this caliber to take time off to do articles for us, but this time they all quickly said yes," says Philip Elmer-DeWitt, who oversaw the package. "I chalk it up to what I call the POC effect, which means that by naming Albert Einstein Person of the Century, we underscored how serious TIME is about covering science and the ways that science shapes...
...prediction hard to believe, because scientists and journalists breathlessly hype each new breakthrough, whether genuine or spurious, and ignore all the areas in which science makes little or no progress. The human mind, in particular, remains as mysterious as ever. Some prominent mind scientists, including [TIME Visions contributor] Steven Pinker, have reluctantly conceded that consciousness might be scientifically intractable. Paul, you should jump on the end-of-science bandwagon before it gets too crowded...
...Steven Pinker is a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at M.I.T. and author of How the Mind Works and Words and Rules
...Pinker conceded that although change in the English language and the function of words is inevitable, he said that some degenerative transformations "ought to be resisted on aesthetic grounds...