1. Comment #224771 by ordeneus on August 5, 2008 at 3:51 pm

I think the intro was better than the main speech!

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2. Comment #224776 by J Mac on August 5, 2008 at 4:05 pm

Pinker is an amazing author. Every one of his books should be required reading. I have been through all of them hardly able to put them down.

However this did not seem to be as enthralling of a speech.

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3. Comment #224777 by mordacious1 on August 5, 2008 at 4:05 pm

A lot of different things in this film which were sort of patched together. One of those "you had to be there" to get the whole picture, events. I'm glad that Adams' philanthropic works are continueing, albeit without him.

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4. Comment #224834 by PristinePanda on August 5, 2008 at 6:01 pm

What does Steven Pinker's talk have to do with Douglas Adam's memorial?

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5. Comment #224837 by DarwinsChihuahua on August 5, 2008 at 6:36 pm

Haha, great camera work. I was just thinking that I'd like to get a better view of that woman's breasts. Thanks!

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6. Comment #224875 by Clappers on August 6, 2008 at 12:40 am

I was there, it was a great evening, Steven Pinker was brilliant. The audience was laughing at most of his presentation.

Earlier that evening I had a chance to ask Steven if he was going to apply for RD's vacant chair, but he politely declined.

The Blank Slate is my favourite non fiction book

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7. Comment #224886 by Ilovelucy on August 6, 2008 at 1:12 am

Couldn't you have put a warning up that the odious Natasha Beddingfield sings at the beginning of it? I hate that woman. I hope her feet fall off.

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8. Comment #224888 by SilentMike on August 6, 2008 at 1:16 am

From the bits that were in the clip, I believe that Pinker's talk at that event is similar to his google talk, available here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBpetDxIEMU

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9. Comment #224897 by beeline on August 6, 2008 at 1:35 am

I was there too. After the initial annoyance that he was simply reading out every single word of every bullet point that he put on the overhead projector, his talk was very enjoyable, and had some cracking facts in it that I'd not heard before, despite being an avid reader of his work.

Th Douglas Adams Memorial Lectures are held each year around Douglas's birthday, and are a chance for any clear-thinking person to share their knowledge and enthusiasm about the way the world works, especially in the areas of science and technology.

I liked John Lloyd's nose joke. He'd been working on that for a while. :-)

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10. Comment #224993 by King of NH on August 6, 2008 at 4:25 am

What does Steven Pinker's talk have to do with Douglas Adam's memorial?

I'm not sure I follow the question. Why wouldn't a memorial lecture for Adams be an intellectual lecture? Adams was, from my best experience, a very academic person, so Stephen Pinker's work probably would have thrilled him. In addition, the Hitchhiker's series uses many twists of language. But I think we should remember that Douglas Adams was not the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, he was a man with, like the rest of us, a life outside of work. A memorial lecture in his honor need not include infinite improbability drive and depressed robots.

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11. Comment #225007 by divcoman on August 6, 2008 at 4:41 am

Garfield was shot in Washington, DC, not Baltimore.

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12. Comment #225013 by Vaal on August 6, 2008 at 4:48 am

11. Comment #225007 by divcoman

What? Poor Garfield has been assassinated?

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13. Comment #225114 by Dr. Syn on August 6, 2008 at 8:34 am

Vaal: Don't worry. Nobody ever dies in fiction. He'll be back in three days, tops.

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14. Comment #225169 by pete on August 6, 2008 at 10:08 am

Woohoo! I've been waiting for this. Can't think of anyone better suited to give the DNA memorial lecture, especially considering the interest Mr. Adams had in artificial intelligence.

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15. Comment #225260 by nrvous on August 6, 2008 at 11:28 am

Where did this talk take place?

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16. Comment #225617 by decius on August 7, 2008 at 5:55 am

Incompetently filmed, recorded and encoded. Heavy cuts maim an otherwise excellent lecture.

I suggest to follow SilentMike's advice and watch the same talk that Pinker held at authors@google.

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17. Comment #225633 by FollowTheGourd on August 7, 2008 at 6:23 am

"Where did this talk take place?"

At the Royal Geographical Society

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18. Comment #226214 by LDmiller on August 7, 2008 at 7:38 pm

I found the spam to meat ratio WAY too high on this. In spite of the woman's assets. Not enough Pinker.

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19. Comment #227961 by michaelrose on August 11, 2008 at 5:06 am

Pinker also gave a version of this talk at Edinburgh university.

If you've got iTunes, this should work and you can download as a past podcast.

http://icanhaz.com/pinker_edinburgh

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20. Comment #239285 by spaghettifier on August 29, 2008 at 11:37 am

my biggest regrets is that the people i look up to the most (Douglas Adams, Richard Feynman) have died long before i may get a chance to meet them (am currently in senior year of high school). How lucky Dawkins must have been to know at least Douglas Adams. By the way, Richard Feynman's books contain a story of how his father raised him that is truly inspiring to any logical and rational mind. His father raised him to look for what is at the root of everything, to observe, and to try to get his own findings instead of just follow authority.

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