Steven Pinker
- The Language Instinct
As you are reading these words, you are taking part in one of the wonders of the natural world. For you and I belong to a species with a remarkable ability; we can shape events in each other's brains with exquisite precision. I am not referring to telepathy or mind control or the obsessions of fringe science; even in the depictions of believers these are blunt instruments compared to an ability that is uncontroversially present in every one of us. That ability is language.
