Acquiring A Great Mind

It’s not unusual for Harvard’s science programs to best MIT’s. And last week’s announcement that preeminent neuroscientist Steven Pinker would leave our neighbor down the river for our ivied halls reinforces Harvard’s dominant position.

Pinker’s addition as an endowed professor to the Department of Psychology reflects a recent shift in educational philosophy for the University. When he assumed Harvard’s University presidency, Lawrence H. Summers—an MIT alumnus—promised to increase focus on the sciences and further expand Harvard’s renown in fields outside the humanities. Pinker’s arrival here will be a decisive step in that process. His controversial study of the extent to which evolutionary forces and the genes shaped by them control individual human nature seems tailor-made for Harvard’s Mind, Brain and Behavior program.

It is particularly pleasing that Pinker plans to teach a course in Harvard’s Core Curriculum next year. One of Harvard’s greatest assets is its roster of noteworthy professors who still remain accessible to large numbers of students outside their individual departments through Core classes. In the tradition of late Agassiz Professor of Zoology Stephen Jay Gould, big names and great thinkers like Clowes Professor of Science Robert P. Kirshner have helped to stimulate a broad-based interest in the sciences at the College; Pinker’s addition will make sure this important practice continues. Though Pinker will continue with his research, a balance between ground-breaking scholarship and public prominence—Pinker’s The Blank Slate rocked best seller lists last year—represents exactly what the University needs to invigorate its science departments.

Explaining his defection, Pinker said to the Boston Globe, “For human nature and its implications, Harvard is the most important place.” Harvard is on the right track, and with the gradual addition of science all-stars like Pinker to the Faculty, the University’s sciences will only continue to improve.