Dear White Fella When I am born Iโm black When I grow up Iโm black When I am sick Iโm black When I go out ina sun Iโm black When I git cold Iโm black When I git scared Iโm black And when I die Iโm still black. But you white fella When youโre born youโre pink When you grow up youโre white When you git sick youโre green When you go out ina sun you go red When you git cold you go blue When you git scared youโre yellow And when you die youโre grey And you got the cheek to call me coloured?
Steven PinkerIn many Muslim countries, witchcraft is not only on the books as a crime, but is commonly prosecuted. In 2009, for example, Saudi Arabia convicted a man for carrying a phone booklet with characters in an alphabet from his native Eritrea, which the police interpreted as occult symbols. He was lashed three hundred times and imprisoned for more than three years.
Steven PinkerSo no, it's not all in the genes, but what isn't in the genes isn't in the family environment either. It can't be explained in terms of the overall personalities or the child-rearing practices of parents.
Steven PinkerWe instinctively fear snakes, but we appear not to be afraid of fast cars, which are a real danger now. This suggests our emotions were shaped by our evolutionary environment not the one we grew up in.
Steven PinkerI spent 20 years doing research on regular and irregular verbs, not because I'm an obsessive language lover but because it seemed to me that they tapped into a fundamental distinction in language processing, indeed in cognitive processing, between memory lookup and rule-driven computation.
Steven Pinker