Why I love Wikipedia
From the unedited Wikipedia discussion page on Harvard psychologist, bestselling author and most importantly, member of the PGP10, Steven Pinker:
- The man was born and raised in Canada and spent a large sum of his life within the nation of Canada (Pinker himself points this within his books). Make mention of it in the article with due respect and be done with it.
- “just like we don’t call Henry Kissinger a German statesman or Tolkien a South African author (at most, German-born American statesman or South African-born author), we shouldn’t call Pinker a Canadian… Mikkerpikker.”
- I am at a loss as to this elusive WE!! Wikipedia belongs to the world not one Ameri-centric view point. The foly of the above stated logic is that infact famous people do often get recognised with multiple nationalities, it just depends on what text you refrence (and where the text was published). Alexander Graham Bell is credited as a Scotish, Canadian, and American, inventor of the telephone, regardless of where he was working at the time he created his invention. Sir James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, is credited as both a Canadian, and an American inventor. Following this line of logic, Pinker has invented many theories and can be credited in this method.
- Further, Pinker spent his university days studying experimental psychology at McGill University in Canada this information can be found within any of his recent publications, such as: How the Mind Works, About the author, penguin books, 1999.
- I would appeal to peoples commonsense that it is clearly accepted that a man born, raised, and schooled within a nation is clearly of that nationality in our commonsense use of the word, despite whatever documents he may posses of citizenship at the time. (How else would people be capable of conceptualizing such terms as 2nd or 3rd generation Italian-Canadian.)
- The encyclopedia britannica has decided to call Steven Pinker Canadian-born American.
- “At the forefront of cognitive science in 1999 was Canadian-born American experimental psychologist Steven Pinker, who in October published an eagerly anticipated book, Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language. In a highly praised earlier book, How the Mind Works (1997), Pinker discussed the development of the human brain in terms of natural selection, applying a Darwinian…”[3].
- At the very least it seems fitting to follow in suit with this title. It does not follow that this is to deny Steven Pinkers Canadian-ness, but to recognise it. And as is fitting, he can be cited as both a Canadian and American Professor (as in the above examples of famous people).
- In closing (jestfuly) I must point out that Steven Pinker enjoys the game of Hockey, unofficially that makes anyone 90% Canadian, by default.–Scottmcmaster 10:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Clearly the genotype-phenotype problem continues to dog us. (Who is this elusive “US?!” — ed.)
I work as an Assistant Professor in the Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy (although this site and its content are my own).
In 2007 I became the fourth subject in Harvard geneticist George Church's Personal Genome Project. As the PGP moves forward, I am chronicling the dawn of personal genomics, that is, people obtaining their genomic information for whatever reason(s) and figuring out what to do with it. I am interested in the relevant technologies and especially the attendant privacy and other ethical/legal/social issues.
This blog may also discuss some of my non-genome interests or, to paraphrase Dwight Yoakam, "Guitars, Cadillacs, hillbilly music, etc etc."
The header image comes from the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange's multimedia performance piece, "Ferocious Beauty: Genome."