Dec 30 2012: Yes, in my view, Pinker's thesis about tribal peoples is based on selective (and often questionable) data. And, yes, we should be extremely wary of using terms like 'ancient'. I go into all this in a book, 'Tribal peoples for tomorrow's world', which is intended as a sort of 'beginner's guide'. If anyone wants an ebook copy, let me know.
Oct 22 2012: Pinker carefully selects his, often controversial, data to shore up his point, which in turned is designed to shore up the status quo. This is fine for those in his position, but it perpetuates misery and early death for huge swathes of the world’s population. It’s politics pretending to be science. For example, the 50 million girls killed before (or shortly after) birth in India, as a direct result of ultrasound’s ability to distinguish sex in the womb, don’t count in his statistics. An alternative view of how tribal peoples in general, for example, are not violence-obsessed can be seen in ‘Tribal peoples for tomorrow’s world’ (which I wrote!).
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A comment on Conversation: We of the industrialised countries have a tremendous amount to gain from the tribal peoples of the world, concerning problems of our era.
A comment on Talk: Steven Pinker: The surprising decline in violence