Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk.

Radio 4. My castaway this week is the cognitive psychologist Stephen Pinker, an author and

Harvard professor he's been named by Time magazine as one of the world's 100 most influential scientists and

thinkers.

The psychology of violence and where language comes from are just two of his specialist subjects.

Bill Gates is officially a fan.

The man who sends him hate mail related to his work on irregular verbs is not.

It would seem that whenever he publishes yet another best-selling book controversy is never far behind.

His recent contention that we live in an unusually peaceful time drew a

opprobrium from many quarters. Born and brought up in Montreal his drew a

Probrium from many quarters. Born and brought up in Montreal, his parents encouraged vigorous

debate around the dinner table. Indeed it was his mother's interest in the

psychology of language and linguistics that sparked his own. He says I appreciate what my

parents did for me beyond words not in making me what I am but in my view of

what's important in life what I think about and cherish. Now isn't that an

interesting quote Stephen Pinker because it would seem contrary to so much of your

pronouncements you almost seem in that quote to be subscribing to the notion of

nurture over nature as what is central to your life and your personality.

I don't believe that nature and nurture are alternatives. I just believe that nature can't be

ignored in understanding nurture. I don't think my parents shaped my personality or my intellect

...