This is a must read for anyone interested in human nature. It was in Pinker's book, The Blank Slate that I was introduced to Francis Crick’s, The Astonishing Hypothesis. In the opening passage of Crick's book of the same name, he writes:

The Astonishing Hypothesis is that "You," your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased it: "You’re nothing but a pack of neurons." (p. 3)

Crick’s work, along with others who have refuted René Descartes’ mind-body dualism, suggest that there is no ghost in the machine. This was an epiphany for me. Crick's work, along with Pinker's excellent discussion, was the answer to the big question that I had for all of my life: Who am I?

How liberating it has been ever since reading Pinker and Crick to at least tentatively conclude that I am a glorified biological machine. This is not to say that I, like other humans, do not have the capability to "transcend" the confines of my body and strive for so-called spiritual endeavors, such as love, creativity, knowledge, and relationships.

Crick's hypothesis, as Pinker suggests, is astonishing because it may be true. I say it is also astonishing because if you take it seriously, it has the potential to produce pure amazement at the fact that you were born at all and to treasure every moment of consciousness.

La tabla rasa es el argumento que propone que todo ser humano nace "vacío", sin manchas, sin educación, sin conocimiento. Se afirma además que el ser humano "empieza" a ser un ser humano al momento en el que el cigoto es creado; desde allí el alma se infunde en la materia y se tiene un ser humano. Creer en esto, es negar la naturaleza humana, naturaleza humana que en palabras de Desmond Morris nos deja más que en "monos desnudos". Creer en la Tabla Rasa es otorgar la necesidad de un creador, negar la evolución, decir que toda persona es un instrumento, en palabras de Mao Zedong (el responsable de millones de muertes en su régimen en China) "una hermosa hoja en blanco en donde dibujar los más hermosos paisajes", es entregar a los regímenes seres listos para hacer caso a sus órdenes, es garantizar los regímenes totalitarios.
Pinker apunta, utilizando a la genética conductual y a la psicología congnitiva a establecer firmemente que la naturaleza humana es un factor ineludible; somos el producto de lo que alguna vez fuimos, y también somos el medio que nos rodea. No nacemos vacíos, tenemos predisposiciones, y superarlas o entenderlas, es trascender. Somos el remanente evolutivo de millones de años, contenemos cada uno de nosotros millones de experiencias, todas una encima de otra, nuestro cerebro es triuno, tenemos una naturaleza parte animal, y la herencia, en conjunto con las cien billones de sinapsis cerebrales nos hace quienes somos.
Es increíble, verdaderamente habla de muchas cosas y no lo puedo resumir, me quedaría totalmente corto. Algo que es importante es decir que nuestro círculo moral, se ha ampliado, a tal manera que ya existen menos rasgos racistas, xenofóbicos, o de género, y que lamentablemente pueden ser tergiversados, tanto por políticas de izquierda y derecha para diversos fines; en lo que sí es claro, es que el marxismo ya demostró estar aniquilado, al igual que los estados totalitarios que son partidarios de la Tabla Rasa, y que creen que controlando todo el ambiente humano podrán tener una milicia ciega.
Un libro fascinante, en donde Dawkins dijo que "fue un verdadero placer para su cerebro haberlo leído".

Pinker takes on a perspective regarding human nature that tended to dominate the social sciences in the 20th century (with many adherents of the position still active now), namely that humans are "blank slates" and their life course is highly malleable. He says (Pages 2-3): "That theory of human nature--namely that it barely exists--is the topic of this book. . .Challenges to the doctrine from skeptics and scientists have pushed some believers into a crisis of faith and have led others to mount the kinds of bitter attacks ordinarily aimed at heretics and infidels."

The first part of the book examines the theory of "the blank state," the position that Pinker targets in much of the rest of the book. He notes some of the bitter academic politics going with the struggle over the question of the nature of human nature. Academics advocating the view that biology and evolution play a role in influencing human nature have often suffered at the hands of their critics (some egregious examples are included in the book). However, Pinker argues that we will develop a much richer understanding of humankind if we consider the variety of influences on human nature and move away from the sterile (my words, not his) blank slate metaphor.

Indeed, much of my academic research has focused on how an understanding of the life sciences can enrich our understanding of politics (I am a political scientist). An awareness of the neurosciences, evolutionary theory, genetics, and so on enrich our understanding of policy choices and our understanding of political behavior. Pinker, by addressing the myth of the blank slate, does a boon for those who have a richer, more integrated sense of human nature.