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Essential look at the fear of human nature,
October 30, 2002
As far as I'm concerned, the most important book in the last five years (I'm a practicing evolutionary psychologist, so I care about these things more than most people). Pinker is brilliant, a great communicator, and obviously truly enthusiastic about every psych. He believes that every psych theory can help us see the truth about human nature and the innate structure of the brain. And his enthusiasm is not that of some dogmatic close-minded partisan, it's that of a scientist who has applied every psych theories, seen their effectiveness, and actually acquired objective knowledge as a result of this process.
The book concentrates less on reviewing psych research (for that, see his 1997 book How the Mind Works), and more on analyzing why so many social scientists and people in general continue to be so frightened by the prospect that natural selection might affect neural tissue in the same way it that it affects every other kind of organismal tissue. Many people loathe the idea that there is a human nature, that behavior is the product of a brain that evolved by natural selection. Why are people so scared? Read this excellent book and find out.
If you read one book in your life, read "The Blank Slate.",
November 2, 2002
This is the book I've been waiting for all my life.
"The Blank Slate" is an utterly brilliant work. Its science is unassailable, its conclusions are astounding, and its implications for the future of both science and the humanities are enormous.
Like Samson toppling the temple of Dagon, Pinker casts down three of the major pillars of modern political and academic debate: the Blank Slate (the view that the mind is infinitely malleable, and is shaped entirely by parents and/or the media), the Noble Savage (the view that indigenous peoples of the world are far more peaceable and enlightened than the citizens of modern societies, and, consequently, that modern civilization itself is the root of all social ills), and the Ghost in the Machine (the belief that the human "soul" is made up of some magical material somehow separate from the operation of the human brain).
This book builds a desperately-needed bridge between the sciences and the humanities. It presents a worldview that is simultaneously pragmatic, moral, ethical, scientifically defensible, and unflinchingly moderate. In the process, Pinker brilliantly smashes many of the most extreme intellectual and political fallacies of our day -- the intellectually bankrupt social constructionism of academia, the racist theories of modern Nazism, the fallacious social-engineering ideals of modern Marxism, the absurd relativism of modern gender feminism, and the sanctimonious moralistic paranoia of modern religious conservatism.
I should note that a few reviewers inaccurately complain that "Nobody believes in the blank slate any more." This is a gross mischaracterization. Pinker's book is not intended for the scientific community, which has generally accepted the facts and conclusions presented in this book for decades. The Blank Slate is intended for a much broader audience. The arts, the media, the humanities, and the political extremes of both the right and the left frequently behave as though the doctrines of the Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost in the Machine were self-evident truths. As science continues to shovel dirt onto the graves of these fallacies, much of modern political and intellectual debate continues as though they still lived.
This book has the potential to radically transform our shared worldview. We as a society desperately need to heal these mischaracterizations of the human mind and learn from the discoveries of modern science.
Evolutionary Psychology Stronger than Positive Psychology?, November 13, 2002
There are many good reasons to read Steven Pinker's informative new book -- pondering the nature of human nature can indeed be time well spent. For example, Professor Pinker suggests that "realism about the imperfect emotions we actually have may bring more happiness than an illusion about the ideal emotions we wish we had" (p. 165). Naturally, one expects evolutionary psychology to see the potential adaptive value of negative emotions. What is interesting here is the implied criticism of the focus on illusory optimism by the American 'positive psychology' movement. Perhaps we would be better advised to read Julie Norem's "The Positive Power of Negative Thinking" than Martin Seligman's "Learned Optimism." Psychology may be on its way toward a realistic understanding of individual differences -- even if that task requires a certain amount of "constructive pessimism" to reach the goal.
Clear but Written for Inconsequential English Professors,
November 13, 2002
The book is a great exposition of modern scientific thinking and understanding of the nature of man--but it spends some time on topics that to anyone has has read a few issues of Scientific American would be entirely obvious. The fact that Marxists, Freudianists and those in some English Department who read each other too much do not find these point obvious does not merit a book. The book addresses too much those who came of age in the 70s and are rather inconsequential. Indeed Pinker gives them too much respect by honoring them with such a lengthy reply.
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