Who is Steven Pinker from The Language Instinct and what is their importance?

Steven Pinker is a linguist, author, cognitive scientist, and experimental psychologist. At the time the book was published, Pinker worked as a professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and was the director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Currently, Pinker is a professor at Harvard College and works as the Johnstone Family Professor at Harvard's Department of Psychology.