This book is a warhead, and this warhead lays waste to an entire field of intellectual laziness, dishonesty, and plain incompetence through the sharp eye for reality of its writer. This isn't to say the disciplines Pinker discusses are fundamentally lazy or dishonest or incompetent, but that a number of the practitioners of these disciplines are on record for being each of these things, by favoring ideology and worldview over objectivity, by supplanting empiricism with wishful thinking, and engaging in a laundry list of other disreputable tactics to try to forcefully align reality with a preconceived idea of truth, and he presents their flawed positions before thoroughly debunking them. He masterfully presents his case for nature's influence on the human mind and our cognitive abilities with a series of examples and studies, as well as fairly representing the cases of ideologues within sociology and other social sciences who forward theories that are incompatible with reality (the blank slate, the noble savage, the ghost in the machine). He eloquently dismantles them from the inside out with a wealth of peer reviewed resources and a refreshing honesty that is lacking in particular academic fields.

His characterization of the zealots who are responsible for the various problems reviewed in the book is spot on and reveals his deep understanding of human psychology and human sociology, which appears to be superior in some instances to sociologists' grasp of their own field. The way he dissects postmodernism with a zest for fully exposing its nastier facets is almost unheard of this day and age, and is for that reason all the more awe inspiring.

One of the telling features of this book's power is not even a trait of the book itself, but of the reviews the book has garnered over its years of publication. Interestingly, the reviews on Goodreads are all of the same flavor. You'll find that the negative reviews come overwhelmingly from those who are followers of the ideologies Pinker crushes under his gavel of intellectual acumen, and their appreciation for the book is colored by this devotion to creed, rather than a curiosity for the complex beauty of reality. Another brand of review comes from those not familiar with the ideologies Pinker is criticizing, and so many see it as a bizarre attempt to debunk outdated ideas that no one holds. None of these criticisms address his actual claims or show a strong familiarity with the ideas he is going after. One gets the sense that massive cults devoted to the preservation of ideological purity have poured through the cracks to unleash their displeasure at the iconoclast who dared question their dogma.

There are a number of criticisms of Pinker's book available online, though I've yet to find one that seems like the product of someone who actually read the book, or who was not fundamentally and romantically attached to the ideologies he debunks, thereby turning their reviews into a cage match of, "Look, our ideas are great, and I am not going to listen to some deviant try to take this dogma away from us!" Mis-characterization abounds, and ideological pleading takes the place of what could instead be reasoned reviews. Even scientifically literate reviewers (some of whom are supposedly scientists) have engaged in full-fledged anti-scientific analysis of his work, and have promoted intellectually fraudulent claims as a strange rebuttal to his examination of human nature. Almost every review that is not pleased with this book comes from someone desperately wanting to defend the ideologies Pinker spends 500 pages dismantling and eviscerating, far more eloquently than any reviewer has yet been able to try to piece them back together.

Another unfortunate finding in many reviews of Pinker's book is the seemingly universal ignorance of third wave feminism and gender studies programs, (although, judging by the political fountain from which these writers seem to unanimously come, their ignorance seems staged to conveniently dismiss Pinker's valid criticisms instead of undertaking the laborious act of meeting his criticisms with a fair acknowledgment of the plagues from which the bad ideas are derived) which allows many reviewers and critics to believe that Pinker is concocting an extremist straw man, or addressing fringe views and attributing more power to them than they hold. Unfortunately, Pinker is profoundly right in his assessments, and the swarth of reviewers unaware of the institutions he's discussing imagine he is debunking some radical fictional thing existing only in his head. He is not. He is one of the few public intellectuals keen enough on the latest trends in postmodernist philosophies to adequately address them and give them fair treatment.

Unfortunately, much of the wrong-headedness that has resulted in these bad ideas is not limited to University professors or impressionable undergraduate students, but is accepted and celebrated by people from all walks of life, including those who write book reviews for publications that somewhat foster the same politics and platforms championed by these vogue creeds. You can see the conflict. Pinker is crushing trendy ideas that have been celebrated by a large number of people for a long time, and it would have been remarkable if his groundbreaking work had not been met with a lot of unhappiness. Read some of these poor reviews here:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2002...
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/200...


Pinker presents the conflicting ideas of some prominent social scientists in the context of non-fiction for the first time, and lets us watch as they fall down under their own inconsistency, nonsense, and inability to accurately explain the very phenomena they were designed to. It should be no surprise that many thinkers devoted to the vogue creeds that are rampant in academic and public intellectual life are unhappy about Pinker's work. At every step, Pinker shows us the amazing capacity for anti-science within the social sciences, and how so many academics and intellectuals are susceptible to fashionable thinking and vogue views of reality that are so far out of line with observation and experiment that it makes one wonder how such fields have found funding for so long. But Pinker touches on this, too, and gives us a tragic view of where some of academia may be heading, but with a hopeful eye for where it could, instead, go.

There is, to my knowledge, no better book for completely refuting the unfortunate (anti-)intellectual fashions of the era, while simultaneously enlightening the reader on the complex nature of human psychology and behavior. A wonderfully engaging and informed book from cover to cover.

Recommended for: Individuals attached to postmodernism, cultural Marxism, critical theory, or related ideologies who are willing to engage with facts and objectivity outside their comfort zone. Particularly important for those whose years in academia were spent in Gender Studies programs in lieu of anything related to critical thinking (you'll see a lot of worldviews reduced to nothing but the silliness that set them in motion, presenting an honest picture of a sad vista of bad science). This will be a hurdle, but a worthwhile and enriching one. Also for anyone wanting a better understanding of how we work as humans.

Personality, physical strength, health, behavior... Are these characteristics genetically related? Yes.
Are these environmentally related? Yes.

So what are we debating here?

Alright, let's put it to radical. If all of these characteristics are pre-installed before birth, is it possible to, after birth, re-install, or modify? Yes. Therefore it does not matter if they are of human nature or not.

On the other hand, if these characteristics are fully learnt after birth, can't they be re-learnt, or modified? Yes. Then it does not matter if they are of environment nurture or not.

So what are we debating here?

I have full respect in Steven Pinker's knowledge, and in his hard work to brew this 500+ page tome. I just can't see any sparkling points, despite that he had tried so hard, so clumsily, so arduously. Maybe it is a bit unfair, as the golden age of great thoughts is over long long ago. We are live in such a world, that the best scholars we can have are merely Steven Pinker's sort.

Çok uzun süredir böyle iyi bir kitap okumamıştım. Sanat üzerine yazdıkları kısmı hariç neredeyse tüm bölümler iyiydi. Bir kitaptan yeni bir şeyler öğrenmek zaman geçtikçe daha güç hale geliyor. Bu kitap zaman zaman öznel yorumlar yer alsa da kafanızdaki fikirleri sarsan, sağlamlaştıran ve yerine başkasını koyan bir kitap. Çok iyi okuyamam. Çarpık okurum, okuduğumdan yazarın anlattığı dışında şeyler çıkarırım. Maalesef yanlış anlarım zaman zaman. Düşünce yolu açılmış olur çünkü ve yazılanları kendi kişilik ve deneyimlerimizden geçiririz.

Bu kitap çok önemli. Bugün bile söz konusu olan yüzlerce şaklabanlığın nedenini anlamamızı sağlıyor. İsmine bakıp basit bir tabula rasa eleştisi olduğunu düşünmemeli. Evrimsel psikoloji ve sinirbilimin son bulgularına yer veriliyor kitapta. Kuru bilimsel bilgi değil ama bunların hayata yansımaları. Çocuk yetiştirmeki, sanat, toplumsal cinsiyet gibi harika konulardan bahsediliyor. Biraz abartı olacak belki bu kitap için ama herkesin okumaması gereken kitaplardan. Ergo Proxy animesinde bir replik vardı. Gerçek, sen hazır olana kadar sana versem de anlayamayacağın bir şey. Buna benziyor. Dücane Hoca bir hikaye anlatmıştı:

İki kişi kahvehanede yıllarca hergün otururlarmış. Birgün birisi diğerinin kulağına bir şey söylemiş. Adam başlamış oynamaya ve göbek atmaya. Kahvehaneci bozulup "Bana da söylesene demiş." Sen hazır değilsin demiş adam. Söylersem kaldıramazsın. Kahveci ısrar edince söylemiş adam ama kahveci ölmüş. Hoş hikaye. Neden bilemem. Güneşe çıplak gözle bakabilmek için önce mağaradan çıkıp nehirleri izlemek gerekiyordur belki Platon'un mağara alegorisindeki gibi.

No es un libro fácil de leer, sino que es denso, complejo y polémico. Cuesta leer sus 625 páginas (más anexos) ya que la mente debe pensar sobre las implicaciones de lo que está leyendo. Trata de derribar tres planteamientos muy arraigados en el pensamiento moderno, a saber:

1) La tabla rasa;
2) El buen salvaje;
3) El fantasma de la máquina.

El autor explica estos tres planteamientos y muestra sus implicaciones a varios niveles; antropológicas, sociales, políticas...

Ha conseguido que cambie algunos de mis propios puntos de vista, que no es poco. Por otro lado, habrá muchos lectores que no estén de acuerdo con lo que el autor expone. Ese es precisamente mi caso respecto al capítulo referido a los hijos. Según mi parecer, sus argumentos son claramente parciales y sesgados en el mismo.

Eso no quita para que me parezca un gran libro, de lo mejorcito que he leído últimamente y le conceda la máxima valoración.

Though this took me a fortnight to read, this is in no way a reflection of the book being hard going - this is a dense and well-researched exploration of a number of interlinked aspects of sociology, biology, genetics and politics.. and it was absorbing and rich and full of interesting points.

Difficult to review, however, because it feels like a buffet of information that I have been snacking on for a couple of weeks. I've turned over the corner of ten or twelve pages of particular interest wanting to re-read particularly important paragraphs that piqued my interest. Pinker argues well about a number of things, discusses various sociobiological (and less scientifically grounded) statements about subjects as wide-ranging as parenting, violence, art, rape, left/right wing politics, neuroscience, morals, selfishness/altruism, intelligence, game theory, religion.. I got more of a general sense of his arguments about the nature/nurture debate than an unequivocal answer - but I think that's Pinker's point, there is no easy or neat conclusion to draw.

Pinker argues cleanly and decisively against the theory of the Blank Slate (and its corollary, the Noble Savage). You might say he wipes the Blank Slate clean. Or that he breaks it over his knee.

He examines how motivations for wanting to believe in a Blank Slate come from four fears of human nature:

1. The Fear of Inequality: if people are innately different, oppression and discrimination (like sexism and racism) would be justified. But people are, in fact, different. Ignoring this fact doesn't help address the real cause of discrimination, which is to judge people as a member of their group, instead of as an individual. It also opens up rational against discrimination to attack by any evidence against the blank slate.

2. The Fear of Imperfectibility: if people are innately immoral, hopes to improve the human condition would be futile. Ignoring human nature doesn't make people any less likely to commit crimes. When they do, it doesn't help us decide when and how harshly to punish them. Ignoring human nature is especially foolish in the case of rape. Denying that rape is a sexual crime, and insisting that it's only a violent crime (which it is, also) isn't going to deter any would-be rapists, who, as it happens, are motivated by sexual urges, not the urge to commit violence.

3. The Fear of Determinism: if people are products of biology, free will would be a myth and we could no longer hold people responsible for their actions.

4. The Fear of Nihilism: if people are products of biology, life would have no higher meaning and purpose.

He attacks proponents of the Blank Slate like Stephen Jay Gould, parts of the political left, some feminists, etc.

He draws an important distinction between gender and equity feminism.

He draws an interesting distinction between the Utopian vs. Tragic vision, and how these influence political leanings.

He even calls out modern and post-modern art for their philosophical denial of human nature!

In this book, Dr. Steven Pinker attempts to dispel the three theories of the Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost in the Machine. Does he succeed? I think he did a pretty good job in his attempt. For those not in the know, the Blank Slate is the idea that human beings have no innate tendencies or habits, the Noble Savage is the idea that human beings are basically good but corrupted by society, and the Ghost in the Machine is the idea that there is an immaterial thing that operates your body, like a soul or something.

All of these theories crumble under close scrutiny, but people cling to these ideas since they feel that the alternatives open the door for bigotry and the dissolution of all morals. It is not something that I ever considered. I feel that even though I don’t really believe in that sort of thing, I still need to live in society and follow its rules. So although I liked this book a great deal, I don’t really have anything deep or meaningful to add. I give it five stars out of five.

A bittersweet reading.

I incredibly enjoyed most of this book, Pinker is a talented and delighting writer with a really good educational background, a prominence in the cognitive sciences.

As the title says, he takes the hyphotesis of the blank slate, that though been socially accepted for many, it's untenable. In the first parts he will completely discredit this hypothesis, while exposing some findings of geneticians, evolutionary psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists, this to present a perspective that although being a ''dangerous idea'' (that can have fatal repercussions, think of eugenics) has strong scientific studies, a more ''nature'' explanation for behavior. This summarizes it:

This book is primarily about human nature —an endowment of cognitive and emotional faculties that is universal to healthy members of Homo sapiens. Samuel Johnson wrote, ―We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope,obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure. The abundant evidence that we share a human nature does not mean that the differences among individuals, races, or sexes are also in our nature. Confucius could have been right when he wrote, ―Men's natures are alike; it is their habits that carry them far apart.

The book is divided in six parts, I especially liked the first part: ''The blank slate, the noble savage, and the ghost in the machine'' and the third part ''Human nature with a human face.'' In general, the parts that were related to cognitive Neuroscience (a little repetitive, but acceptable).

Well, it was a 5 star book in my opinion, up until when I got to the last part, there, it became a really frustrating and exasperating reading, not only because of the extreme ideas (the chapter about children), just because he didn't explain or base his opinions on solid evidence, he just started critiquing other scientists' findings with speculations (a really arrogant attitude). This put me in conflict, I had never asked myself my position on these ideas and I don't know yet what to think about those matters. I think that if you are going to criticize a bunch of theories, you need to strongly base your allegations and I feel he didn't do that.

Though the end was hard to read, I will stay with the good opinion I got when reading the majority of the book. He really does a good job ''destroying'' the blank slate hypothesis.

Note: I read this book in that I read about as much of it as I wanted to (I forget how much, but at least 100 pages). It was not the book I was hoping to read, which may mean that I have rated it lower than it objectively deserves.

Pinker's book is an amalgam of science, philosophy, and contemporary commentary. I found the science very interesting, the philosophy moderately interesting, and the contemporary commentary a wrench in the works. His chief interest is to defend, against what he thinks is a dominant paradigm, that humans both collectively and individually come equipped with a significant amount of biological pre-programming. Our evolutionary history and basic biological configuration place significant constraints on our choices. He argues that this is not "reductionism," but a fair accounting for the evidence. He also alleges that his viewpoint has been persecuted by the academic and political community. Such examples litter the book.

I am interested in Pinker's work and his arguments, but this book seemed to be doing too many different things at the same time. To me at least, it lacked flow. However, some sections were quite interesting. I am open to reading more by Pinker, if I can find the right book.

Pinker examines the concept of the mind as a blank slate capable of taking any impressions that arose in England and France in the mid-18th century and became the basis for liberal democracy in the 19th and 20th centuries. The "blank slate" underlies the nurture pole of the nature/ nurture debate and looms huge in political and social policies. Drawing on an immense body of research in psychology and other social sciences, linguistics, and evolutionary biology, Pinker makes the case for the nature pole, arguing that it is now apparent that the human brain is not a blank slate, but in fact bears powerful imprints of our evolutionary past that in effect hardwire us to feel, respond, and behave in specific ways. The denial of this human nature is now an impediment to solving many problems that are now plaguing Western democracies. -- This is an exciting read for anyone interested in contemporary social and political issues. It powerfully summarizes a huge body of knowledge that is forcing us to rethink who we are and how we ought to organize our collective behaviors.

Wow What an interesting and exquisitely written book!!!

This is my first read by this author “Steven Pinker”. He is a psychologist and author of several books and articles on cognition and linguistics. In n  The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Naturen he refuted the widely held belief that the human mind at birth is a tabula rasa /blank slate to which the environment (nurture) gives form and substance.

He further explained that neither genetics nor environmental conditions are solely responsible for determining a person's behavior instead; individuals are created by a combination of both innate human nature and the conditions of upbringing and environment.

A must read for those who want to be introduced to the nature-nurture debate by examining scientific evidence.

n  Some of my favorite parts from the book:n

n   There are different kinds of truth for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.n

n  As technology accumulates and people in more parts of the planet become interdependent, the hatred between them tends to decrease, for the simple reason that you can't kill someone and trade with him too.n

n  The Darwin Awards, given annually to “the individuals who ensure the long-term survival of our species by removing themselves from the gene pool in a sublimely idiotic fashion”, almost always go to men.n

n  Much of what is today called "social criticism" consists of members of the upper classes denouncing the tastes of the lower classes (bawdy entertainment, fast food, plentiful consumer goods) while considering themselves egalitarians.n

Just when I started lamenting how seldom I read a book anymore that forces me to re-think my assumptions, The Blank Slate comes along! This is an ambitious book, 528 pages cutting across our entire culture, leaving nothing untouched--politics, morality, philosophy, economics, psychology, history, gender, anthropology, violence, children, the arts, and language.

The premise is that a philosophical invention of the 20th century has created a lot of confusion and social ills, justified by a misunderstanding that it could eliminate racism and inequality. That invention Pinker calls the "blank slate," the idea that we're all born into the world as malleable, with no innate tendencies, completely shaped by society. This philosophy has two corollaries that tend to run alongside it: the "noble savage" and the "ghost in the machine." The "noble savage" philosophy is the belief that our nature, if isolated from our wicked modern culture, is pure and peaceful. The "ghost in the machine" is the idea that each of us has a self that drives the body, existing separately from it.

Sounds harmless enough, right? This stuff is at the heart of many of our political and philosophical debates, with far-reaching implications. Misunderstandings about human nature have been used to justify damaging social policies, disastrous economic experiments, and horrific violence. The blank slate is at the heart of Marxist regimes, for example.

This book meticulously sets up a persuasive argument against the blank slate, in favor of a scientific understanding of human nature, informed by Darwinism, particularly the burgeoning field of evolutionary psychology. It counters misunderstandings about human nature, and dispels fears about what this line of thinking could lead to, most notably the Holocaust. This man's poignant logic is practically flawless. He has a knack for raising excellent points that made me think hard, and question my beliefs, since I too harbored many of the misunderstandings and fears this book addresses. He won me over, big time.

I do wish he'd better addressed the subject of moral relativism and ethical dilemmas. He's arguing for human nature, which is objective and universal. Some thinkers like Ayn Rand take this to its logical conclusion and argue that there are black-and-white definitions of Right and Wrong written in human nature. That leads to the questions of how we can discover these rules, and which authority we should trust to interpret them. Rand says it's self-evident to anyone thinking rationally, and of course she counts herself as such a person, so this is a clever way of electing herself the authority on Right and Wrong. Those who don't obey her edicts are outlaws and should be forced to obey. This ended up creating a cult of personality that still exists among many Republicans and Libertarians, and it creeps me out.

So I still have a fear that the philosophy of human nature can be used to justify such intolerance. Of course, this book also made a strong case that the opposite can be just as terrible, allowing horrific violence to persist in the guise of tolerance.