Thursday, January 24, 2019
7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, University at Albany Downtown Campus.

Free and open to the public.

Steven Pinker. Photo: Rose Lincoln / Harvard University

Steven Pinker, cognitive neuroscientist, one of the world’s most influential thinkers on the subjects of language, mind, behavior, and what it means to be human, presents the University at Albany 175th Anniversary Keynote Presentation: "Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Sience, Humanism and Progress."

The event is free and open to the public.

Pinker's new book is Enlightenment Now (2018), a passionate argument for the enduring values of reason and science in the face of resurgent anti-intellectualism, prejudice, and magical thinking. Bill Gates called it, “my new favorite book of all time,” and Michael Shermer, writing for Science magazine, called it, “the most uplifting work of science I’ve ever read.”

Pinker’s previous books include How the Mind Works (1997), The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) and The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century (2014).