World map indicating literacy by country (2011 Human Development Report) Grey = no data

World illiteracy halved between 1970 and 2005.

Literacy has been described as the ability to read for knowledge and write coherently and think critically about the written word. Literacy can also include the ability to understand all forms of communication, be it body language, pictures, video or sound (reading, speaking, listening and viewing). Evolving definitions of literacy often include all the symbol systems relevant to a particular community. Literacy encompasses a complex set of abilities to understand and use the dominant symbol systems of a culture for personal and community development. In a technological society, the concept of literacy is expanding to include the media and electronic text, in addition to alphabetic and number systems. These abilities vary in different social and cultural contexts according to need and demand.

Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print. Key to all literacy is reading development, which involves a progression of skills that begins with the ability to understand spoken words and decode written words, and culminates in the deep understanding of text. Reading development involves a range of complex language underpinnings including awareness of speech sounds (phonology), spelling patterns (orthography), word meaning (semantics), grammar (syntax) and patterns of word formation (morphology), all of which provide a necessary platform for reading fluency and comprehension. Once these skills are acquired the reader can attain full language literacy, which includes the abilities to approach printed material with critical analysis, inference and synthesis; to write with accuracy and coherence; and to use information and insights from text as the basis for informed decisions and creative thought.^[1]

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines literacy as the "ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society."^[2]

History[link]

Illiteracy rate in France in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Literacy in Europe[link]

In 12th and 13th century England, the ability to sit a particular passage from the Bible entitled a common law defendant to the so-called benefit of clergy provision, which entitled a person to be tried before an ecclesiastical court, where sentences were more lenient, instead of a secular one, where hanging was a likely sentence. This opened the door to literate lay defendants also claiming the right to the benefit of clergy provision, and because the Biblical passage used for the literacy test was always Psalm 51 (Miserere mei, Deus... - "O God, have mercy upon me...") - an illiterate person who had memorized the appropriate verse could also claim the benefit of clergy provision.^[3]

By the mid-18th century, the ability to read and comprehend translated scripture led to Wales having one of the highest literacy rates. This was the result of a Griffith Jones's system of circulating schools, which aimed to enable everyone to read the Bible in Welsh. Similarly, at least half the population of 18th century New England was literate, perhaps as a consequence of the Puritan belief in the importance of Bible reading. By the time of the American Revolution, literacy in New England is suggested to have been around 90%.

The ability to read did not necessarily imply the ability to write. The 1686 church law (kyrkolagen) of the Kingdom of Sweden (which at the time included all of modern Sweden, Finland, and Estonia) enforced literacy on the people and by the end of the 18th century, the ability to read was close to 100%. But as late as the 19th century, many Swedes, especially women, could not write. That said, the situation in England was far worse than in Scandinavia, France and Prussia: as late as 1841, 33% of all Englishmen and 44% of Englishwomen signed marriage certificates with their mark as they were unable to write (government-financed public education was not available in England until 1870 and, even then, on a limited basis).

The historian Ernest Gellner argues that Continental European countries were far more successful in implementing educational reform precisely because those governments were more willing to invest in the population as a whole.^[4] The view that public education contributes to rising literacy levels is shared by the majority of historians.

Although the present-day concepts of literacy have much to do with the 15th century invention of the movable type printing press, it was not until the Industrial Revolution of the mid-19th century that paper and books became financially affordable to all classes of industrialized society. Until then, only a small percentage of the population were literate as only wealthy individuals and institutions could afford the prohibitively expensive materials. Even today^[update], the dearth of cheap paper and books is a barrier to universal literacy in some less-industrialized nations.

From another perspective, the historian Harvey Graff has argued that the introduction of mass schooling was in part an effort to control the type of literacy that the working class had access to. According to Graff, literacy learning was increasing outside of formal settings (such as schools) and this uncontrolled, potentially critical reading could lead to increased radicalization of the populace. In his view, mass schooling was meant to temper and control literacy, not spread it.^[5] Graff also points out, using the example of Sweden, that mass literacy can be achieved without formal schooling or instruction in writing.^[6]

Literacy in North America[link]

Canada[link]

This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. You can assist by editing it. (April 2012)

The literacy rate of Canada, being almost 99% in 2003, has declined, and will be under world's average literacy rates for adults in the next two decades, depending on the rate of declining.^[7]

United States[link]

In 1820 20 percent of the entire adult population was illiterate, and 80 percent of the black population was illiterate. By 1900 the situation had improved somewhat, but still 44 percent of black people remained illiterate. The statistical data show significant improvements for black and other races in the early portion of the 20th century as the former slaves who had no educational opportunities in their youth were replaced by younger individuals who grew up in the post Civil War period and often had some chance to obtain a basic education. The gap in illiteracy between white and black adults continued to narrow through the 20th century, and in 1979 the rates were about the same.^[8]

Full prose proficiency, as measured by the ability to process complex and challenging material such as would be encountered in everyday life there, is achieved by about 13% of the general, 17% of the white, and 2% of the black population.^[9][10] However 86% of the general population had basic or higher prose proficiency as of 2003, with a decrease distributed across all groups in the full proficiency group vs. 1992 of more than 10%, consistent with a general decline.^[11]

Literacy in South America[link]

In 1964 in Brazil, Paulo Freire was arrested and exiled for teaching the Brazilian peasants to read.^[12]

Since democracy returned to Brazil, however, there has been a steady increase in the percentage of literate people.

Literacy in Africa[link]

Africa is the continent with the lowest literacy rate in the world.

Algeria[link]

The literacy rate of Algeria is around the 70% mark, which is attributed to the fact that education is compulsory and free in Algeria up to age of 17.

Botswana[link]

Botswana has among the highest literacy rates in the developing world with around 85% of its population being literate.

Egypt[link]

Egypt has a relative high literacy rate in proportion to its population size. Education is compulsory from the ages six to 15 and free for all children to attend. 93% of children enter primary school today, compared with 87% in 1994. Major universities include Cairo University (100,000 students), Alexandria University, and the 1,000-year-old Al-Azhar University, one of the world's major centers of Islamic learning. ^[13]

Ethiopia[link]

In Ethiopia, a national literacy campaign introduced in 1978 increased literacy rates to between 37% (unofficial) and 63% (official) by 1984.^[14]

Kenya[link]

The literacy rate of Kenya is well over 70% due to fact that the first 8 years of primary school are provided tuition-free by the government. In January 2008, the government began offering a program of free secondary education, subject to some restrictions.

Literacy in Asia[link]

China[link]

The PRC conducts standardized testing to assess proficiency in Putonghua but it is primarily for foreigners or those needing to demonstrate professional proficiency in the Beijing dialect. Literacy in logographic languages like Chinese has been graded on the number of characters in the speaker's lexicon, with a few thousand considered the minimum for practical literacy. Similar tests exist in other countries where Chinese is an official language. Chinese can be expressed phonetically and alphabetically but Chinese speakers prefer the Chinese logographic system.

India[link]

Laos[link]

Three Laotian girls sit outside their school, each absorbed in reading a book they received at a rural school book party.

Obstacles to literacy vary by country and culture. Writing systems, quality of education, availability of written material, competition from other sources (television, video games, cell phones, and family work obligations) and cultural influences all influence literacy levels.

In Laos, which has a phonetic alphabet, the mechanics of reading are relatively easy to learn. It is easier than in English, where spelling and pronunciation rules are filled with exceptions, and far easier than Chinese, with thousands of symbols to be memorized. But a lack of books and other written materials has hindered functional literacy. Many children and adults are able to read, but do it so haltingly that the skill is of no real benefit. For this and other reasons, Laos has the lowest level of adult literacy of any Southeast-Asian nation except for East Timor.^[15]

A literacy project in Laos addresses this by using what it calls "books that make literacy fun!" The project, Big Brother Mouse, publishes colorful, easy-to-read books, then delivers them by holding book parties at rural schools. Some of the books are modeled on successful western books by authors such as Dr. Seuss. The most popular titles, however, are traditional Lao fairy tales. Two popular collections of folktales were written by Siphone Vouthisakdee, who comes from a village where only five children finished primary school.^[16]

Big Brother Mouse has also created village reading rooms, and published books for adult readers about subjects such as Buddhism, health, and baby care.^[17]

Pakistan[link]

In Pakistan, the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) aims to bring literacy to adults, especially women.

Philippines[link]

In the Philippines, the DepEd, CHED, and other academic institutions encourage children to improve literacy skills and knowledge. The government has a program of literacy teaching starting in kindergarten.

Literacy in the 21st century[link]

This idea has forever changed the landscape of information access, and is integral in an understanding of Literacy as a practice, in the 21st Century. It is no longer sufficient to consider whether a student can 'read' (decoding text) and 'write' (encoding text), and it is necessary to consider more meaningful aspects of literacy in education and in society as a whole, if we are to complete the transition we are in, from a society in which communication was never possible on the level of 'many to many', to one in which it is.^[18]

Economic impact[link]

Many policy analysts consider literacy rates as a crucial measure to enhance a region's human capital. This claim is made on the grounds that literate people can be trained less expensively than illiterate people, generally have a higher socio-economic status^[19] and enjoy better health and employment prospects. Policy makers also argue that literacy increases job opportunities and access to higher education.

In Kerala, India, for example, female and child mortality rates declined dramatically in the 1960s, when girls schooled according to the education reforms after 1948 began to raise families. In addition to the potential for literacy to increase wealth, wealth may promote literacy, through cultural norms and easier access to schools and tutoring services.^{[citation needed]}

In 2009, the National Adult Literacy agency (NALA) commissioned an economist to do a cost benefit analysis of adult literacy training in Ireland. He reported that there were economic gains for the individuals, the companies they worked for, the Exchequer, as well as the economy, for example, increased GDP, and society at large. The annual income gain per person per level increase on the Irish ten level National Qualifications Framework being €3,810 and the gain to the Exchequer, in terms of reduced social welfare transfers and increased tax payments, being €1,531 per annum.^[20]

Broader and complementary definitions[link]

Traditionally considered the ability to use written language actively and passively, some definitions of literacy consider it the ability to "read, write, spell, listen, and speak."^[21] Since the 1980s, some have argued that literacy is ideological, which means that literacy always exists in a context, in tandem with the values associated with that context.^[22][23] Prior work viewed literacy as existing autonomously.^{[24][25][26][27]}

Some have argued that the definition of literacy should be expanded. For example, in the United States, the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association have added "visually representing" to the traditional list of competencies. Similarly, in Scotland, literacy has been defined as: "The ability to read, write and use numeracy, to handle information, to express ideas and opinions, to make decisions and solve problems, as family members, workers, citizens and lifelong learners."^[28]

A basic literacy standard in many societies is the ability to read the newspaper. Increasingly, communication in commerce or society in general requires the ability to use computers and other digital technologies.^[29] Since the 1990s, when the Internet came into wide use in the United States, some have asserted that the definition of literacy should include the ability to use tools such as web browsers, word processing programs, and text messages. Similar expanded skill sets have been called multimedia literacy, computer literacy, information literacy, and technological literacy.^[30][31] Some scholars propose the idea multiliteracies which includes Functional Literacy, Critical Literacy, and Rhetorical Literacy.^[32]

"Arts literacy" programs exist in some places in the United States.^[33]

Other genres under study by academia include critical literacy, media literacy, ecological literacy and health literacy^[34] With the increasing emphasis on evidence-based decision making, and the use of statistical graphics and information, statistical literacy is becoming a very important aspect of literacy in general. The International Statistical Literacy Project is dedicated to the promotion of statistical literacy among all members of society.

It is argued that literacy includes the cultural, political, and historical contexts of the community in which communication takes place.^[35]

Taking account of the fact that a large part of the benefits of literacy obtain from having access to a literate person in the household, a recent literature in economics, starting with the work of Kaushik Basu and James Foster, distinguishes between a 'proximate illiterate' and an 'isolated illiterate'. The former refers to an illiterate person who lives in a household with other literates and the latter to an illiterate who lives in a household of all illiterates. What is of concern is that many people in poor nations are not just illiterates but isolated illiterates.

Teaching literacy[link]

The examples and perspective in this section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (April 2011)

Teaching English literacy in the United States is dominated at present by a conception of literacy that focuses on a set of discrete decoding skills. From this perspective, literacy - or, rather, reading - comprises a number of subskills that can be taught to students. These skill sets include: phonological awareness, phonics (decoding), fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. Mastering each of these sets of subskills is necessary for students to become proficient readers.^[36]

From this same perspective, readers of alphabetic languages must understand the alphabetic principle in order to master basic reading skills. A writing system is said to be alphabetic if it uses symbols to represent individual language sounds,^[37] though the degree of correspondence between letters and sounds varies across alphabetic languages. Syllabic writing systems (such as Japanese kana) use a symbol to represent a single syllable, and logographic writing systems (such as Chinese) use a symbol to represent a morpheme.^[38]

There are any number of approaches to teaching literacy; each is shaped by its informing assumptions about what literacy is and how it is best learned by students. Phonics instruction, for example, focuses on reading at the level of the word.^[37] It teaches readers to attend to the letters or groups of letters that make up words. A common method of teaching phonics is synthetic phonics, in which a novice reader pronounces each individual sound and "blends" them to pronounce the whole word.^[37] Another approach to phonics instruction is embedded phonics instruction, used more often in whole language reading instruction, in which novice readers learn about the individual letters in words on a just-in-time, just-in-place basis that is tailored to meet each student's reading and writing learning needs.^[37] That is, teachers provide phonics instruction opportunistically, within the context of stories or student writing that feature many instances of a particular letter or group of letters. Embedded instruction combines letter-sound knowledge with the use of meaningful context to read new and difficult words.^[39] Techniques such as directed listening and thinking activities can be used to aid children in learning how to read and reading comprehension.

Public library efforts to promote literacy[link]

The public library has long been a proponent for literacy in its communities.^[40] The release of the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) report in 2005 revealed that approximately 14 percent of adults function at the lowest level of literacy and 29 percent of adults function at the basic functional literacy level, meaning they are not able to help their children with homework beyond the first few grades^[41] The lack of reading skills hinders adults from reaching their full potential. They might have difficulty getting and maintaining a job, providing for their families, or even reading a story to their children. For adults, the library might be the only source of a literacy program.^[42]

United States[link]

Programs have been instituted in public libraries across the United States in an attempt to improve the literacy rates in this country. Some example of various literacy programs across the country are listed below.

The READ/Orange County program, initiated in 1992 by the Orange County Public Library in California is an example of a flourishing community literacy program. The organization builds on what people have already learned through experiences as well as previous education, rather than trying to make up for what has not been learned. The organization then provides the student with the skills to continue learning in the future.^[42] The program operates on the belief that an adult who learns to read creates a ripple effect in the community. An adult who learns to read impacts not just himself but the whole community; he becomes an example to his children and grandchildren, and can then better serve his community.^[42] The mission of READ/Orange County is to "create a more literate community by providing diversified services of the highest quality to all who seek them." Potential tutors train during an extensive twenty-three hour Tutor Training Workshop in which they learn the philosophy, techniques and tools they will need to work with adult learns^[42] After completing the training, the tutors invest at least fifty hours a year to tutoring their student.

Another successful literacy program is the BoulderReads! program in Boulder, Colorado. The program recognized the difficulty that students had in obtaining child care while attending tutoring sessions, and joined with the University of Colorado to provide reading buddies to the children of students. Reading Buddies matches children of adult literacy students with college students who meet with them once a week throughout the semester for an hour and a half. The college students receive course credit, ensuring the quality and reliability of their time^[43]

Each Reading Buddies session focuses primarily on the college student reading aloud with the child. This helps the child gain interest in books and feel comfortable reading aloud. Time is also spent on word games, writing letters, or searching for books in the library. Throughout the semester the pair work on writing and illustrating a book together. The college student’s grade is partly dependent on the completion of the book. Although Reading Buddies began primarily as an answer to the lack of child care for literacy students, it has evolved into another aspect of the literacy program.^[43] While the children are not participants in the tutoring program, they do show marked improvement in their reading and writing skills throughout the semester, due in part to the admiration and respect they gain for their college reading buddy.

The Hillsborough Literacy Council, operating under The Florida Literacy Coalition, a statewide literacy organization, strives to improve the literacy ability of adults in Hillsborough County, Florida. Working since 1986, the HLC is "committed to improving literacy by empowering adults through education"^[44] The HLC also provides tutoring for English-speakers of other languages (ESOL). Approximately 120,000 adults in Hillsborough County are considered illiterate, or read below the fourth grade level. Through one on one tutoring the organization works to help adult students reach at least the fifth grade level. 95,000 adults living in Hillsborough County do not speak English; volunteers in the organization typically work with small groups of non-English speaking students to help practice their English conversation skills.

See also[link]

• List of countries by literacy rate

References[link]

External links[link]

Look up literacy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• UNESCO Literacy Portal
• UNESCO Effective Literacy Practice Database
• Literacy at the Open Directory Project
• Literacy Assessment
• The National Strategies for Primary Literacy
• The Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives
• National Literacy Trust
• List of countries by literacy rate List of Countries by literacy rate.

Steven Arthur Pinker
Steven Pinker in 2011
Born	(1954-09-18) September 18, 1954 (age 57) Montréal, Québec, Canada
Residence	United States of America
Citizenship	Canadian
Fields	Evolutionary psychology, experimental psychology, cognitive science, linguistics, visual cognition
Alma mater	Dawson College, McGill University, Harvard University
Known for	How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate
Influences	Noam Chomsky, Thomas Sowell, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, Richard Dawkins, Thomas Schelling[1]
Notable awards	Troland Award (2003, National Academy of Sciences), Henry Dale Prize (2004, Royal Institution), Walter P. Kistler Book Award (2005), Humanist of the Year award (2006, issued by the AHA), George Miller Prize (2010, Cognitive Neuroscience Society)
Website
http://www.stevenpinker.com/

Steven Pinker in Göttingen in 2010

Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954, Montreal, Canada) is a Canadian-born experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist and popular science author. He is a Harvard College Professor and the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University,^[2] and is known for his advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind.

Pinker's academic specializations are visual cognition and psycholinguistics. His experimental subjects include mental imagery, shape recognition, visual attention, children's language development, regular and irregular phenomena in language, the neural bases of words and grammar, and the psychology of innuendo and euphemism. He published two technical books which proposed a general theory of language acquisition and applied it to children's learning of verbs. In his popular books, he has argued that language is an "instinct" or biological adaptation shaped by natural selection. He is the author of six books for a general audience: The Language Instinct (1994), How the Mind Works (1997), Words and Rules (2000), The Blank Slate (2002), The Stuff of Thought (2007), and The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011).

Biography[link]

Career[link]

Pinker was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1954, to a middle-class Jewish family. He graduated from Dawson College in 1971. He received a BA degree in psychology at McGill University in 1976, and then went on to earn his PhD degree in experimental psychology at Harvard University in 1979. He did research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a year, after which he became an assistant professor at Harvard and then Stanford University. From 1982 until 2003, Pinker taught at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, and eventually became the director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, taking a one-year sabbatical at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1995-96. As of 2008, he is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard.^[3] In June 2011 it was announced he would give lectures as a visiting professor at the New College of the Humanities, a private college in London.^[4]

Pinker was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential scientists and thinkers in the world in 2004^[5] and one of Prospect and Foreign Policy's 100 top public intellectuals in both years the poll was carried out, 2005^[6] and 2008;^[7] in 2010 and 2011 he was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers.^[8][9] His research in cognitive psychology has won the Early Career Award (1984) and Boyd McCandless Award (1986) from the American Psychological Association, the Troland Research Award (1993) from the National Academy of Sciences, the Henry Dale Prize (2004) from the Royal Institution of Great Britain, and the George Miller Prize (2010) from the Cognitive Neuroscience Society. He has also received honorary doctorates from the universities of Newcastle, Surrey, Tel Aviv, McGill, and the University of Tromsø, Norway. He was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, in 1998 and in 2003.

In January 2005, Pinker defended Lawrence Summers, President of Harvard University, whose comments about a gender gap in mathematics and science angered much of the faculty. Pinker noted that Summers's remarks, properly understood, could form the basis of a testable hypothesis. The remarks, Pinker said, claimed not that men are consistently smarter, but that there are "more idiots, [and] more geniuses" of the male gender.^[10]

On May 13, 2006, Pinker received the American Humanist Association's Humanist of the Year award for his contributions to public understanding of human evolution.^[11]

In 2009, Pinker wrote a highly critical review of Malcolm Gladwell's analytic methods in the New York Times.^[12] Gladwell published a rebuttal in the Times regarding Pinker's comments about the importance of IQ on teaching performance and by analogy, the effect, if any, of draft order on quarterback performance in the National Football League. Pinker then responded to Gladwell's rebuttal.^[13] The exchange prompted Advanced NFL Stats to step in and address the issue statistically, siding with Pinker in that draft order is indeed correlated with quarterback performance.^[14]

Pinker also serves on the Advisory Board of Secular Coalition for America and offers advice to Executive Director Sean Faircloth and the entire coalition on the acceptance and inclusion of nontheism in American life. ^[15]

The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry lists Pinker as one of their fellows. ^[16]

In February 2010 he was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.^[17] Pinker appeared on the Colbert Report on 10/18/11.

Personal[link]

His father, a lawyer, first worked as a manufacturer's representative, while his mother was first a home-maker then a guidance counselor and high-school vice-principal. He has two younger siblings. His brother is a policy analyst for the Canadian government. His sister, Susan Pinker, is a psychologist and writer, author of The Sexual Paradox.^[18][19] Pinker married Nancy Etcoff in 1980 and they divorced in 1992; he married Ilavenil Subbiah in 1995 and they too divorced.^[20] His current wife is the novelist and philosopher Rebecca Goldstein.^[21] He has two stepdaughters: the novelist Yael Goldstein Love and the poet Danielle Blau.

He has said, "I was never religious in the theological sense... I never outgrew my conversion to atheism at 13, but at various times was a serious cultural Jew."^[22] As a teenager, he says he considered himself an anarchist until he witnessed civil unrest following a police strike in 1969.^[23] He has reported the result of a test of his political orientation that characterized him as "neither leftist nor rightist, more libertarian than authoritarian".^[24] Pinker confesses to having "experienced a primitive tribal stirring" after his genes were shown to trace back to the Middle East.^[25]

Theories of language and mind[link]

Pinker is known within psychology for his theory of language acquisition, his research on the syntax, morphology, and meaning of verbs, and his criticism of connectionist (neural network) models of language. In The Language Instinct (1994) he popularized Noam Chomsky's work on language as an innate faculty of mind, with the twist that this faculty evolved by natural selection as a Darwinian adaptation for communication, although both ideas remain controversial (see below). He also defends the idea of a complex human nature which comprises many mental faculties that are adaptive (and is an ally of Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins in many disputes surrounding adaptationism). Another major theme in Pinker's theories is that human cognition works, in part, by combinatorial symbol-manipulation, not just associations among sensory features, as in many connectionist models.

Written work[link]

Pinker's books, The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, Words and Rules, The Blank Slate, and The Stuff of Thought combine cognitive science with behavioral genetics and evolutionary psychology. The Language Instinct has been criticized by Geoffrey Sampson in his book, The 'Language Instinct' Debate.^[26] The assumptions underlying the nativist view have also been subject to sustained criticism in Jeffrey Elman's Rethinking Innateness: A Connectionist Perspective on Development (Neural Networks and Connectionist Modeling), which defends the connectionist approach that Pinker has criticized.

Bibliography[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker in 2005

Books[link]

• Language Learnability and Language Development (1984) ISBN 978-0-674-51055-5
• Visual Cognition (1985) ISBN 978-0-262-66178-2
• Connections and Symbols (1988) ISBN 978-0-262-66064-8
• Learnability and Cognition: The Acquisition of Argument Structure (1989) ISBN 978-0-262-66073-0
• Lexical and Conceptual Semantics (1992) ISBN 978-1-55786-354-6
• The Language Instinct (1994) ISBN 978-0-06-097651-4
• How the Mind Works (1997) ISBN 978-0-393-31848-7
• Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language (1999) ISBN 978-0-465-07269-9
• The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (2002) ISBN 978-0-670-03151-1
• The Best American Science and Nature Writing (editor and introduction author, 2004) ISBN 978-0-618-24698-4
• Hotheads (an extract from How the Mind Works, 2005) ISBN 978-0-14-102238-3
• The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (2007) ISBN 978-0-670-06327-7
• The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011) ISBN 978-0-670-02295-3

Articles and essays[link]

• Pinker, S. (1991). "Rules of Language". Science 253 (5019): 530–535. DOI:10.1126/science.1857983. 
• Ullman, M.; Corkin, S.; Coppola, M.; Hickok, G.; Growdon, J. H.; Koroshetz, W. J.; Pinker, S. (1997). "A neural dissociation within language: Evidence that the mental dictionary is part of declarative memory, and that grammatical rules are processed by the procedural system". Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 9: 289–299. 
• Pinker, S. (2003) "Language as an adaptation to the cognitive niche" In M. Christiansen & S. Kirby (Eds.), Language evolution: States of the Art New York: Oxford University Press.
• Pinker, S. (2005). "So How Does the Mind Work?". Mind and Language 20 (1): 1–24. DOI:10.1111/j.0268-1064.2005.00274.x. 
• Jackendoff, R.; Pinker, S. (2005). "The nature of the language faculty and its implications for evolution of language" (Reply to Fitch, Hauser, & Chomsky)". Cognition 97 (2): 211–225. DOI:10.1016/j.cognition.2005.04.006. 
• S. Pinker (2007), "In Defense of Dangerous Ideas" Chicago Sun-Times, July 15, 2007
• A number of Pinker's articles at Harvard

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Steven Pinker

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Steven Pinker

• Official website

Interviews

• In Depth interview with Pinker, November 2, 2008
• Steven Pinker discusses the "Games People Play: Indirect Speech as a Window into Social Relationships"
• Steven Pinker on The Hour
• Steven Pinker Multimedia. Extensive lists of audio and video files
• Biology vs. the Blank Slate Reason magazine interview with Pinker
• Live interview with Steven Pinker on The Blank Slate
• Radio interview on Philosophy Talk
• Online video interview with Pinker

TED talks

• Chalking it up to the blank slate, 2003
• The stuff of thought, 2005
• A brief history of violence, 2007

Debates

• The Two Steves Debate with Steven Rose
• The Science of Gender and Science Debate with Elizabeth Spelke

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Tyson at the NASA Advisory Council in Washington, D.C., November 2005
Born	(1958-10-05) October 5, 1958 (age 53) Manhattan, New York City, United States[1]
Residence	Manhattan, New York City, United States
Fields	Astrophysics, physical cosmology, science communication
Institutions	Hayden Planetarium, PBS, Planetary Society
Alma mater	Harvard University (AB) University of Texas at Austin (MA) Columbia University (MPhil, PhD)
Influences	Issac Newton, Carl Sagan, Fred C. Hess
Notable awards	NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal

Neil deGrasse Tyson ( /ˈniːəl dəˈɡræs ˈtaɪsən/ born October 5, 1958) is an American astrophysicist and science communicator. He is currently the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, and a research associate in the department of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. Since 2006 he has hosted the educational science television show NOVA scienceNOW on PBS, and has been a frequent guest on The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Jeopardy!. It was announced on August 5, 2011, that Tyson will be hosting a new sequel to Carl Sagan's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage television series.^[2]

Early life[link]

Tyson was born as the second of three children in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, but was raised in the Bronx.^[1] His mother, Sunchita Feliciano Tyson, was a gerontologist and his father, Cyril deGrasse Tyson, was a sociologist, human resource commissioner for the New York City mayor, John Lindsay, and was the first Director of HARYOU.^[3][4] Tyson attended the Bronx High School of Science (1972–1976, astrophysics emphasis) where he was captain of the wrestling team and was editor-in-chief of the school's Physical Science Journal. Tyson had an abiding interest in astronomy from the age of eleven, following his visit to the Hayden Planetarium at age nine. Tyson recalls that "so strong was that imprint [of the night sky] that I'm certain that I had no choice in the matter, that in fact, the universe called me."^[5] He obsessively studied astronomy in his teens, and eventually even gained some fame in the astronomy community by giving lectures on the subject at the age of fifteen.

Astronomer Carl Sagan, who was a faculty member at Cornell University, tried to recruit Tyson to Cornell for undergraduate studies.^[6] During an interview with writer Daniel Simone,^[7] Tyson said, "Interestingly, when I applied to Cornell, my application dripped of my passion for the study and research of the Universe. Somehow the admissions office brought my application to the attention of the late Dr. Sagan, and he actually took the initiative and care to contact me. He was very inspirational and a most powerful influence. Dr. Sagan was as great as the universe, an effective mentor." Tyson chose to attend Harvard University, however, where he majored in physics and lived in Currier House. He was a member of the crew team during his freshman year, but returned to wrestling, eventually lettering in his senior year. Tyson earned a bachelor of arts in physics from Harvard in 1980 and began his graduate work at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a master of arts in astronomy in 1983. In addition to wrestling and rowing in college, he was also active in dancing in styles including jazz, ballet, Afro-Caribbean, and Latin Ballroom. In 1985, he won a gold medal with the University of Texas dance team at a national tournament in the International Latin Ballroom style. He started to work toward a doctorate at the University of Texas, but transferred to Columbia University in 1988 after his committee was dissolved.^[8] At Columbia University, in 1989, he received a master of philosophy in astrophysics and, in 1991, he earned a doctor of philosophy in astrophysics.

Career[link]

Tyson with students at the 2007 American Astronomical Society conference

Tyson's research has focused on observations in stellar formation and evolution as well as cosmology and galactic astronomy. He has held numerous positions at institutions including University of Maryland, Princeton University, the American Museum of Natural History, and Hayden Planetarium.

Tyson has written a number of popular books on astronomy. In 1995, he began to write the "Universe" column for Natural History magazine. In a column he authored for the magazine in 2002, Tyson coined the term "Manhattanhenge" to describe the two days annually on which the evening sun aligns with the cross streets of the street grid in Manhattan, making the sunset visible along unobstructed side streets.

In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed Tyson to serve on the Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry and in 2004 to serve on the President's Commission on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy, the latter better known as the "Moon, Mars, and Beyond" commission. Soon afterward he was awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by NASA.^[9]

In 2004, he hosted the four-part "Origins" miniseries of PBS's Nova,^[10] and, with Donald Goldsmith, co-authored the companion volume for this series, Origins: Fourteen Billion Years Of Cosmic Evolution.^[11] He again collaborated with Goldsmith as the narrator on the documentary 400 Years of the Telescope which premiered on PBS in April 2009.

Tyson in December 2011 at a conference marking 1,000 days after the launch of the spacecraft Kepler

As director of the Hayden Planetarium, Tyson bucked traditional thinking in order to keep Pluto from being referred to as the ninth planet in exhibits at the center. Tyson has explained that he wanted to look at commonalities between objects, grouping the terrestrial planets together, the gas giants together, and Pluto with like objects and to get away from simply counting the planets. He has stated on The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, and BBC Horizon that this decision has resulted in large amounts of hate mail, much of it from children.^[12] In 2006, the I.A.U. confirmed this assessment by changing Pluto to the "dwarf planet" classification. Daniel Simone wrote of the interview with Tyson describing his frustration. "For a while, we were not very popular here at the Hayden Planetarium."

Tyson has been vice-president, president, and chairman of the board of the Planetary Society. He is also the host of the PBS program Nova ScienceNow.^[13] He attended and was a speaker at the Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival symposium on November 2006. In 2007, Tyson, who is known for his vibrant character, cheerful demeanor, and awe of the vastness of the universe itself, was chosen to be a regular on The History Channel's popular series The Universe.

In May 2009, he launched a one-hour radio talk show called StarTalk, which he co-hosted with comedienne Lynne Koplitz. The show was syndicated on Sunday afternoons on KTLK AM in Los Angeles and WHFS in Washington D.C. The show lasted for thirteen weeks, but was resurrected in December 2010 and then, co-hosted with comedians Chuck Nice and Leighann Lord instead of Koplitz. The show is also available via the internet through a live stream or in the form of a podcast.^[14]

In April 2011, Tyson was the keynote speaker at the 93rd International Convention of the Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society of the Two-year School. He and James Randi delivered a lecture entitled Skepticism, which related directly with the convention's theme of The Democratization of Information: Power, Peril, and Promise.

In 2012, Tyson announced that he would appear in a YouTube series based on his popular StarTalk radio show. A premiere date for the show has not been announced, but it will be distributed on the Nerdist YouTube Channel.^[15]

Views[link]

Tyson has argued that the concept of intelligent design thwarts the advance of scientific knowledge.^[16][17][18] When asked if he believed in a higher power, Tyson responded: "Every account of a higher power that I've seen described, of all religions that I've seen, include many statements with regard to the benevolence of that power. When I look at the universe and all the ways the universe wants to kill us, I find it hard to reconcile that with statements of beneficence."^[19] In an interview on podcast Point of Inquiry, Tyson defines himself as an agnostic.^[20]

He has written and broadcast extensively about his views of religion, spirituality, and the spirituality of science including the essays, "The Perimeter of Ignorance"^[21] and "Holy Wars",^[18] both appearing in Natural History magazine and the 2006 Beyond Belief workshop.^[22][23] Tyson has collaborated with evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and presented talks with him on religion and science.^[24]

Tyson lived near the World Trade Center and was an eyewitness to the September 11, 2001 attacks. He wrote a widely circulated letter on what he saw.^[25] On June 6, 2008, after the conclusion of the Democratic presidential primaries, Tyson wrote an op-ed in The New York Times in which he presented a statistical analysis of then recent polling data. From this analysis, Tyson concluded that in a hypothetical election held on the day of the publication of his article, Barack Obama would lose to John McCain, whereas Hillary Clinton would beat McCain.^[26]

Tyson collaborated with PETA on a PSA that stated, "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that kindness is a virtue."^[27] He also granted PETA an interview, in which he discussed the concept of intelligence (both of human and other animals), the failure of humans to heretofore communicate meaningfully with other animals, and the need of humans to be empathetic.^[28]

Media appearances[link]

As a science communicator, Tyson regularly appears on television, radio, and various other media outlets. He has been a regular guest on The Colbert Report, and host Stephen Colbert refers to him in his comedic book I Am America (And So Can You!), noting in his chapter on scientists that most scientists are "decent, well-intentioned people," but, presumably tongue-in-cheek, that "Neil DeGrasse Tyson is an absolute monster."^[31] He has appeared numerous times on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He also has made appearances on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, and The Rachel Maddow Show.^[32] He served as one of the central interviewees on the various episodes of the History Channel science program, The Universe, and . Tyson participated on the NPR radio quiz program Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! in 2007.^[33] He has appeared several times on Real Time with Bill Maher, and he was also featured on an episode of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? as the ask the expert lifeline.^[34]

Tyson has been featured as a guest interviewee on The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, and has been in several of the Symphony of Science videos.^[35][36]

In 2007 Tyson was the keynote speaker during the dedication ceremony of Deerfield Academy's new science center, the Koch Center. He emphasized the impact science will have on the twenty-first century, as well as explaining that investments into science may be costly, but their returns in the form of knowledge gained, and piquing interest is invaluable. Tyson has also appeared as the keynote speaker at The Amazing Meeting, a science and skepticism conference hosted by the James Randi Educational Foundation.

Tyson made a guest appearance as himself in the episode "Brain Storm" of Stargate Atlantis.^[37] and in the episode "The Apology Insufficiency" of The Big Bang Theory.^[38]

Tyson is also a frequent participant in the website Reddit’s AMAs (Ask Me Anythings) where he is responsible for 3 of the top 10 most popular AMAs of all-time. ^[39]

Personal life[link]

Signing a copy of his book Origins, portrait taken at JREF's The Amazing Meeting 6

Tyson lives in Lower Manhattan with his wife and two children.^[40][41]

Tyson is a fine wine enthusiast whose collection was featured in the May 2000 issue of the Wine Spectator and the Spring 2005 issue The World of Fine Wine.

Selected awards and honors[link]

Awards[link]

• 2001 Medal of Excellence, Columbia University, New York City
• 2004 NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal
• 2007 Klopsteg Memorial Award winner
• 2009 Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award from the Space Foundation for significant contributions to public awareness of space programs.^[9]
• 2009 Isaac Asimov award from the American Humanist Association ^[42]

Selected honorary doctorates[link]

• 1997 York College, City University of New York
• 2000 Ramapo College, Mahwah, New Jersey
• 2000 Dominican College, Orangeburg, New York
• 2001 University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia
• 2002 Bloomfield College, Bloomfield, New Jersey
• 2003 Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts
• 2004 College of Staten Island, City University of New York
• 2006 Pace University, New York City
• 2007 Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts
• 2007 Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts
• 2008 University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• 2010 University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama
• 2010 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York
• 2010 Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, Connecticut
• 2011 Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
• 2012 Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts
• 2012 Western New England University, Springfield, Massachusetts

Honors[link]

• 2000 Sexiest Astrophysicist Alive, People Magazine^[43]
• 2001 asteroid named: 13123 Tyson, renamed from Asteroid 1994KA by the International Astronomical Union
• 2001 The Tech 100, voted by editors of Crain's Magazine to be among the 100 most influential technology leaders in New York
• 2004 Fifty Most Important African-Americans in Research Science^[44]
• 2007 Harvard 100: Most Influential Harvard Alumni Magazine, Cambridge. Massachusetts
• 2007 The Time 100, voted by the editors of Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world^[45]
• 2008 Discover Magazine selected him one of the "50 Best Brains in Science".^[46]

Selected books by Tyson[link]

List of books by Tyson:^[47]

• Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier (2012) ISBN 0-393-08210-5
• The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet (2009) ISBN 0-393-06520-0
• Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries (2007) ISBN 0-393-33016-8
• The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist (1st ed. 2000 / 2nd ed. 2004) ISBN 978-1-59102-188-9
• Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution (co-authored with Donald Goldsmith) (2004) ISBN 0-393-32758-2
• My Favorite Universe (A twelve part lecture series) (2003) ISBN 1-56585-663-5
• City of Stars: A New Yorker's Guide to the Cosmos (2002)
• Cosmic Horizons: Astronomy at the Cutting Edge (2000) ISBN 1-56584-602-8
• One Universe: At Home in the Cosmos (2000) ISBN 0-309-06488-0
• Just Visiting This Planet (1998) ISBN 0-385-48837-8
• Universe Down to Earth (1994) ISBN 0-231-07560-X
• Merlin's Tour of the Universe (1989) ISBN 0-385-48835-1

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Neil deGrasse Tyson

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Neil deGrasse Tyson

• Official website
• Neil deGrasse Tyson on Twitter
• CV at AMNH page
• Biography at the Planetary Society
• PBS NOVA scienceNOW with Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Star Talk Radio Show hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Neil deGrasse Tyson at the Internet Movie Database