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PINK_SLATE

                                                     April 6, 2017

Let's roll back the clock to
those golden days of 2008.
                                      2008

   Steven Pinker's essay "A Biological Understanding
   of Human Nature", published in John Brockman's
   "Science at the Edge".

                                     I presume this is covering
                                     the same ground as Pinker's
                                     book, "The Blank Slate".


Pinker is annoyed at the left's rejection of
biological explanations of human nature.  He's          PINKER_BIOLOGY
convinced that the evidence-- that is, twin
studies-- shows that half of human behavior is
biologically inherited and the other half isn't
exactly "nurture"-- it's complicated and unclear,
but to start with you might call it "random".

Among other things, he makes the point that this
view of human nature does not obviate social
progress:

   "We know that there can be social improvement because
   we know that there *has* been social improvement-- the
   end of slavery, torture, blood feuds, despotism, and
   the ownership of women in western democracies."


                               So, in the Pinker-verse, despite a relatively
                               inflexible human nature that you might think
                               might make changes in the behavior of
                               individuals and societies difficult, there are
                               ways this can still happen.


  Might I suggest that the blank
  slate doctrine has also led in
  directions that most of us would
  approve?  Many of the examples of
  social progress Pinker cites
  early on would seem to be the
  results of the efforts of people
  who were motivated in part with a        You see: Pinker could be
  belief in something like "the            correct that the "blank slate"
  blank slate".                            is severely in error, he could
                                           be right that biological
                                           determinism theoretically need
                                           not convince that social
                                           progress is impossible-- and
                                           still be completely wrong about
                                           the actual impact of belief in
                                           biological determinism.

                                                 Is he willing to take
                                                 responsibility of the
                                                 misapplication of the
He closes with a bit that claims                 doctrine he advocates?
the example of the Soviet Union                  Not even when it's
cancels the example of Nazi                      likely and predictable?
Germany--
                                                     (For extra-credit: use
See, you can get authoritarianism                    socbiology to prove that
without the racism, so racism                        socbiology is socially
need not lead to authoritarianism.                   harmful.)
So it's all okay then.

Or something like that.




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