[split from May low content thread here]
@JJ: Great clip, I'm going to use that way of explaining the problem.
I'll also note that the Blank Slate theory of human psychology plays a huge role in this dichotomy between biological evolution and market-based evolution. The mainstream view asserts that the mind is a blank slate - nearly infinitely malleable - that is filled in by culture. so that there is no such thing as human nature. Hence, there is no reason to expect "good outcomes" from a process of unregulated or decentralized competition for resources between human beings. Because the brain is a blank slate, the laws of biology and culture are fundamentally different.
This is why challenging the blank slate theory of mind is so important to free market theory.
Clayton -
Clayton: @JJ: Great clip, I'm going to use that way of explaining the problem. I'll also note that the Blank Slate theory of human psychology plays a huge role in this dichotomy between biological evolution and market-based evolution. The mainstream view asserts that the mind is a blank slate - nearly infinitely malleable - that is filled in by culture. so that there is no such thing as human nature. Hence, there is no reason to expect "good outcomes" from a process of unregulated or decentralized competition for resources between human beings. Because the brain is a blank slate, the laws of biology and culture are fundamentally different. This is why challenging the blank slate theory of mind is so important to free market theory. Clayton -
Excellent. Insight of the month for me.
The tabula rasa assumption inevitably leads to the necessity for "society" (i.e. the humans whose slates have been previously properly filled by society) to expend resources toward filling the blank slates with "proper", "socially beneficial" constructs. Leaving that to the "randomness" of the "market" would risk the very existence of "society" as we know it! Moreover, "society" -- via the democratic process -- chooses the proper constructs necessary for its own perpetuation and elects individuals with properly filled slates to allocate "societal resources" toward properly filling the blank slates (education) or correcting improperly filled ones (law, enforcement).
I think this may be getting to the root of the differences between the individualist (free, bottom-up, uncoerced, grown-up) and collectivist (controlled, top-down, coerced, infantile) view of humanity. It seems that the individualist vs. the collectivist debate could easily be distilled down to the nature vs. nurture debate: If -- as I believe -- most of what/who we are is determined by previous natural and social evolution (and is already reflected in our genes) then the fear of the "market" (freedom) is completely unfounded. If however, most of what/who we are is determined by nurture or "society" then I could see how a statist would be afraid to leave this societal process of nurturing (filling the slates) to the vicissitudes of the "market". For the statist, "society" must guide each person out of his Hobessian beasty self.
EDIT: Even the Keynesian "animal spirits" stem from the above worldview. There's this animalistic, Hobessian human energy boiling under the "society's" surface waiting to endanger its structure and viability. That's why we need central planners and central bankers to make sure that this destructive energy is controlled and harnessed for the good of "mankind".
Clayton: @JJ: Great clip, I'm going to use that way of explaining the problem. I'll also note that the Blank Slate theory of human psychology plays a huge role in this dichotomy between biological evolution and market-based evolution. The mainstream view asserts that the mind is a blank slate - nearly infinitely malleable - that is filled in by culture. so that there is no such thing as human nature. Hence, there is no reason to expect "good outcomes" from a process of unregulated or decentralized competition for resources between human beings. Because the brain is a blank slate, the laws of biology and culture are fundamentally different. This is why challenging the blank slate theory of mind is so important to free market theory.
I had never even heard the notion that man doesn't have instincts. That's the most ridiculous thing I think I've heard in a while. I had no idea there was a demand for someone to debunk the idea that newborns are "taught" to suckle or that an infant who essentially can't communicate was "taught" that he shoudn't crawl off an obvious ledge.
What a bunch of nonsense.
But it does speak to the "conflict of visions" that Thomas Sowell illucidates in his work:
A Conflict of Visions is one of my favorites books ever.
I had never even heard the notion that man doesn't have instincts.
Well, they try to dance around it - the conventional wisdom accepts that we have a few instincts but these are all non-cognitive, things like your knee jerking when tapped with a mallet.
Really, all modern psychology implicitly denies humans have a nature. Look at all the nonsense surrounding female-male equality, for example. They don't just mean that men and women should have the same rights, but that men and women are actually the same, mentally. Such an assertion would be laughable except they have battalions of PhDs all saying the same thing. So, we need people like Steven Pinker to go and actually give point-by-point debunking of this nonsense.
Just because Steven Pinker is so awesome:
Clayton:Well, they try to dance around it - the conventional wisdom accepts that we have a few instincts but these are all non-cognitive, things like your knee jerking when tapped with a mallet.
Again, I've never heard anyone claim a "knee jerk" was an "instinct". It's called the "Patellar reflex". A reflex is not an instinct. Again, who taught a newborn not only how to suckle, but to even try to suckle in the first place??
Really, all modern psychology implicitly denies humans have a nature.
I call bullshit. I've never been in a psychology class that didn't bring up the "nature vs. nurture" debate. Again I have no idea where any of this is coming from. I could pull out all kinds of textbooks that talk about that.
Look at all the nonsense surrounding female-male equality, for example. They don't just mean that men and women should have the same rights, but that men and women are actually the same, mentally. Such an assertion would be laughable except they have battalions of PhDs all saying the same thing.
Do you have any evidence of this? Any sort of professional assertion of this kind? Perhaps a major textbook or something?
@JJ:
The EP term for it is the Standard Social Science Model.
A seminal paper by the "founders" of EP discusses the SSSM in more depth.
Same authors, in more depth.
The criticisms of EP against the SSSM really have nothing to do with nature versus nurture - everybody recognizes the importance of both. The problem is methodological - how do you reason about the origins and causality of psychological phenomena? The SSSM applies a statistical correlations approach - behavior A is observed to occur in correlation with behavior B. EP, on the other hand, employs an evolutionary argumentative approach - what function did behavior A serve in the ancestral environment where humans spent the majority of their evolutionary history? How has our environment - which behavior A was designed to respond to - changed since we were last in the ancestral environment? What are the consequences of behavior A in the new environment?
JJ - Steven Pinker in The Blank Slate relates some episodes that illustrate the enormous opposition to the idea of innate characteristics within the social sciences (as I recall it; I read the book about 5 years ago).
Also, I think the methodological errors go far beyond the denial of innate characteristics. The idea that individuals make decisions - regardless of whether these decisions are shaped by nature or nurture - is viewed with contempt, in favour of the belief that all human behaviour (as opposed to Misesian action) is a result of productive or cultural 'forces', i.e. that the origin of human behaviour does not occur in the mind at all.
Clayton:The EP term for it is the Standard Social Science Model.
Well I guess that explains part of it: "(SSSM) was first introduced to a wide audience by John Tooby and Leda Cosmides in the 1992 edited volume..."
The criticisms of EP against the SSSM really have nothing to do with nature versus nurture - everybody recognizes the importance of both.
The how in the hell can it be argued "man has no nature"? (A direct quote from the video you orginally linked.)
The problem is methodological - how do you reason about the origins and causality of psychological phenomena? The SSSM applies a statistical correlations approach - behavior A is observed to occur in correlation with behavior B. EP, on the other hand, employs an evolutionary argumentative approach - what function did behavior A serve in the ancestral environment where humans spent the majority of their evolutionary history? How has our environment - which behavior A was designed to respond to - changed since we were last in the ancestral environment? What are the consequences of behavior A in the new environment?
What does any of that have to do with the idea of whether humans have nature/instinct? Again,
-"man has no nature"
-"man has no instincts"
-"the human brain is capable of a full range of behaviors and predisoposed to none."
Aristippus:Also, I think the methodological errors go far beyond the denial of innate characteristics. The idea that individuals make decisions - regardless of whether these decisions are shaped by nature or nurture - is viewed with contempt, in favour of the belief that all human behaviour (as opposed to Misesian action) is a result of productive or cultural 'forces', i.e. that the origin of human behaviour does not occur in the mind at all.
That's fine...My whole point is that the existence of this belief is all news to me. I've never in my life heard the idea that "man has no nature", and I certainly had no idea that this was a widely enough held belief that someone needed to write a book as late as 2003 to argue against such a ridiculous notion. Again, throughout my life I've never been in any sort of basic discussion of psychology where the phrase "nature vs. nurture" didn't come into play.
John Colapinto even published the feature story that later became the book As Nature Made Him in 1998, a work which to my understanding just added further and deeper support to an already largely held belief...suggesting that nature played an even greater role than was thought before.
And here we have this guy writing a book and being told he would have to fear for his safety, and giving TED talks, simply trying to suggest that man does have nature and instincts. And what's more, it gets posted here and someone calls it the "insight of the month."
I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone.
Nikolas Lloyd agrees with Pinker that the belief is widespread in academia: http://www.thegreatdebate.org.uk/GDBlankLloyd1.html
Pinker must have something more concrete on this, but I don't own his book so I can't check it right now.
the existence of this belief is all news to me
Therefore, it must be news indeed.
Clayton:Therefore, it must be news indeed.
Did I say that?
I'm sure you'll find in every post in this thread I've said how "I had never even heard the notion", "I had no idea there was a demand for someone to debunk the idea", etc. Scroll up to your first response. You even quoted it.
That's all I was saying all along. And in your effort to make excuses for it even you have to claim they leave room for "some instincts" by alleging that the Patellar reflex is considered one (when, even if it was, it shouldn't matter, as again, "man has no instincts".)
I bring up the ever-present phrase "nature vs. nurture" and your response is that the term is "SSSM" and that "The criticisms of EP against the SSSM really have nothing to do with nature versus nurture" and that "everybody recognizes the importance of both."
But again, "man has no nature".
So it doesn't sound like you're making a very good case for this. It sounds to me that you can't really provide any support for this idea and have to constantly make concessions that fly directly in the face of the contention of a "blank slate", yet that you allege "everybody recognizes."
Read the linked articles by Tooby and Cosmides. They provide cites showing where leading authorities in mainstream social science characterize the human mind as a "general purpose computer". This is an example of where EP diverges from the mainstream - the brain is not a general-purpose computer that is about as good at solving any problem as another (depending only on how it is programmed by culture). It has specialized, hard-wired modules that evolved to solve specific problems and which are not subject to re-programming by "culture". The slate is not blank, you can't rewire human brains with social conditioning in just any way you please.
He has no nature within the confines of the mind. The mind's contents are "filled in" by culture in his youth and depending on the culture he is born into, he will be a completely different individual. EP disagrees. The chatracteristics of the individual are determined by his genes and those aspects of the environment that the genes respond to. Cosmides and Tooby:
Evolutionary psychology is not just another swing of the nature/nurture pendulum. A defining characteristic of the field is the explicit rejection of the usual nature/nurture dichotomies -- instinct vs. reasoning, innate vs. learned, biological vs. cultural. What effect the environment will have on an organism depends critically on the details of its evolved cognitive architecture. For this reason, coherent "environmentalist" theories of human behavior all make "nativist" claims about the exact form of our evolved psychological mechanisms. For an EP, the real scientific issues concern the design, nature, and number of these evolved mechanisms, not "biology versus culture" or other malformed oppositions. There are several different "nature-nurture" issues, which are usually conflated. [They go on to discuss these individually]
There are several different "nature-nurture" issues, which are usually conflated. [They go on to discuss these individually]
EP rejects the nature versus nurture dichotomy as malformed. This is a crucial point to understanding the whole debate. If you think EP is saying "nature not nurture", then you've missed the whole criticism EP makes of the SSSM.
It seems to me that you keep characterizing EP vs. SSSM as Nature vs. Nurture - or, at least that that is what EPs are trying to say. EP is a rejection of nature/nurture dichotomies because there are no such dichotomies in biology. Genes and environment (gene expression) both play a cooperative role in determining the organism's phenotype. To completely reject one side or the other is downright silly and even EPs would not accuse the SSSM of actually doing that. The problem is that the SSSM characterizes the issues of human behavior in terms of nature vs. nurture at all.
Clayton:It seems to me that you keep characterizing EP vs. SSSM as Nature vs. Nurture - or, at least that that is what EPs are trying to say.
Well, you're wrong. I bring up the phrase "nature vs. nurture" to show that nature has long been considured a contributing factor in what makes man the way he is.
And to suggest that "man has no nature", and "man has no instincts" is not only absurd, but can't be very popular, and certainly not having a long history. And as your link shows, at least the latter is admittedly the case.
To completely reject one side or the other is downright silly and even EPs would not accuse the SSSM of actually doing that.
You mean they make excuses for people who claim unequivocally that "man has no instincts" and claim "well, they don't really mean that like it sounds...of coures they acknowledge man has some instincts..."?
I mean EPs are trying to be fair and intellectually honest - the opposition to EP really has no methodology and that's why there are as many opinions about the importance of nature versus nurture as there are social scientists. EP begins by placing the human brain in its evolutionary context, just like any other part of our anatomy. The brain is subject to the same laws of biology as the rest of our body. Nature and environment (nurture) each play the same role in determining the structure and organization of the brain (mind) as they do in determining the structure and organization of the pancreas.
Pinker specifically calls out anthropologists in one of his TED lectures (it may be the one I linked above, not sure) - anyway, he says it's kind of an "occupational pleasure" of anthropologists to discover cultures which are purportedly incomprehensibly different from our own. But he asserts that closer examination invariably shows that such discoveries are exaggerations and that the fact is that every culture without exception has many features in common with every other culture. Every human culture is recognizably human. There are laws of human nature to which there are no exception in any culture.
It should be obvious how this conflicts with dominant ideas across the social sciences.
I still don't see where any of this removes fault and flaw from (apparently) prominent people in the field who say:
Those were statements quoted by Pinker in the lecture that you linked that started this entire discussion. Indeed he began his lecture with those quotes to illustrate the opinion that he was going to spend the next 23 minutes claiming was false. He says he wrote a book basically going against the sentiment expressed by those quotes, and passed it around to colleagues and was in turn warned to fear for his job and his physical safety.
And throughout this thread you've been telling me that these people don't really mean exactly what they've said. So either,
a) You're wrong
or
b) Pinker took their quotes out of context (to a ridiculous and dispicable level) not only to build a straw man, but to literally put words in their mouth (as in, imply that they made assertions that they in fact did not really make...like if someone said "It is absurd to say that man has no nature", and then someone else comes along and puts the phrase "man has no nature" in quotes and puts that person's name next to it.)
*sigh - I'll try this one last time.
EP's criticisms of the SSSM are primarily concerned with the methodology - the bad conclusions that SSSM draws (for example, that man has no nature or other less absurd but still wrong conclusions) are the result of their bad methodology. Not everyone who falls under the broad umbrella of the SSSM says man has no nature.
You started off this thread expressing amazement that there are people who believe man has no nature. I explained that the SSSM itself doesn't say man has no nature, as in nature plays no role at all. There are some who are that extreme (Gould's is notable), but they are not representative of the SSSM establishment, only its fringes. But the very fact that such "fringe" beliefs are possible is an indictment of the methodology itself. If you had a physics theory where some physicists who hold to that theory believe that you can freely float by the power of your will, that would be a pretty good indictment of the validity of the theory and its methodology, even if most who hold to the theory do not believe such ridiculous things.
This is important because, with the rise of EP, some of the SSSM defenders are now trying to say that EP is straw-manning SSSM with these extreme positions and that they have always acknowledged that nature plays a role in human behavior. It is true that the SSSM has always reserved some role for nature. But this defense misses the point that EP's criticism is not merely that SSSM sees too little role for nature in human behavior but that SSSM has no methodology and nature-vs-nurture is a false dichotomy.
If you think you can refute SSSM by simply pointing out that nature plays a role in determining human behavior, you are mistaken. You're only refuting a few extremists on the fringe.
The root dispute is whether the laws of biology (in particular, evolutionary theory) extend to the study of the mind. In SSSM literature, you will never find discussion of the evolutionary origins of human behaviors. In fact, this is precisely what sets EP apart from the SSSM. As soon as you ask the question, "Does this behavior have an evolutionary origin and, if so, what are its origins?", you are following EP methodology, not SSSM.
Clayton:If you think you can refute SSSM by simply pointing out that nature plays a role in determining human behavior, you are mistaken. You're only refuting a few extremists on the fringe.
I have done nothing of the kind. I'd never ever heard the term "SSSM" until you introduced it here. (And evidently, no one had ever heard it before the early 90s.)
Even Pinker didn't even bring this thing up. Indeed, it has only appeared in this thread as you have tried to sidestep what it sounded like Pinker's point was. Again, he was the one who quoted those statements. He was the one who used them as examples and the basis for his talk (and apparently his book.)
So I take it this means you are suggesting Pinker is one of these people "straw-manning" the "real" issue?
I'm just a spectator to this thread but I'm just trying to be clear on something really quickly.
Clayton, are you saying that in Pinker's attempt to summarize this "SSSM" that he has misrepresented the position of that school of thought or are you saying that his position is actually not well encapsulated by the title of his book?
EDIT: Nevermind I think I get it now. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
Pinker: There are people who believe man has no nature. Such a belief is obviously discrediting of the ideas that led to it. I am criticizing those ideas in this lecture and in my book The Blank Slate.
JJ: What?!? I never heard of such a thing! Who can deny babies are born knowing how to suckle?
Clayton: Pinker's right - he actually quotes people to prove his point. But don't confuse his assertion with a claim that the SSSM denies any role whatsoever for nature. Only some extremists do that. It is the ideas behind the ridiculous claims that he quotes that he's actually targeting.
JJ: So I take it this means you are suggesting Pinker is one of these people "straw-manning" the "real" issue?
Clayton: No, those who cling to the SSSM in the face of the advances of Evolutionary Psychology are asserting (I'm not going to dig up cites right now, look at the link Aristippus gave, there are some adversarial critics linked from there) that Pinker et. al. are strawmanning the SSSM. Pinker's quotes (for example of Gould) are what they are. They don't prove that all who hold to the SSSM hold those beliefs, only that such beliefs are possible within the umbrella of the SSSM, which suggests that there's something seriously wrong with the SSSM. Which is the point of his lectures and books.
Why are you still confused?
Neither. Go back to my illustration of a theory of physics in which some physicists believe that it is possible to float by force of will. Let's say I am debunking this theory of physics and I open my lecture with the following quote:
" 'It is possible, by dint of will, to defy the 'law' of gravity and float in mid-air.' This is quote from a leading proponent of the Foo Theory of Physics which I will refute in this lecture. The fact that anyone who holds to the Foo Theory of Physics can derive such ridiculous conclusions on that basis shows that there is something seriously wrong with the Foo Theory."
Someone in the audience stands up and shouts "You're strawmanning Foo Theory, not all Foo Theorists believe this, only a few Foo Theorists have made such assertions." To which my response would be "OK, so then you're claiming I've misunderstood Foo Theory - it is not possible to claim on the basis of Foo Theory that one might be able to defy the 'law' of gravity?"
There is nothing in the SSSM that prevents complete denial of human nature. That is the problem. Such a theory of human behavior is clearly deficient. EP simply points this out: a theory of human behavior in which it is possible to completely deny all human nature (and in which some theorists do) is useless, at best, harmful and misleading at worst. Those who want to deny human nature (often, for motivated reasons) can fly under the same rubric with more fair-minded social scientists.
The statistical methods of the SSSM avoid entirely the question of human behavioral dispositions and even where they treat such questions, they do not present a causal theory, only meaningless statistical correlations. Pinker says in the above lecture: almost all parenting studies ever done are useless. Not wrong, useless. They are useless because they do not control for heritability, so there is no way to determine how much - if any - of the studied effect is the result of the parents' behavior (e.g. violent behavior) and how much is the result of the parents' genes (e.g. heritable disposition to violent behavior).
The title of his book - The Blank Slate - captures the essence of the SSSM. Man's mind is a blank slate that is filled in by the particular circumstances of his culture and upbringing. Of course, the details get really complicated but that doesn't change the underlying stance of the SSSM - man has no innate disposition. But specific studies published by scientists who adhere to the SSSM rarely discuss such fundamental issues because it is all just left unsaid and taken for granted as "standard scientific practice."
This is not entirely unlike how mainstream economists ply their trade, publishing useless statistical studies of real data but without any kind of causal theory. This is why I think that Austrians should feel some kind of fraternity with Evolutionary Psychologists.
I can't believe a word Pinker says. He misrepresents primitive man in his new book on violence.
@F4M: This isn't that thread. Why not take it up in the other thread, I'll be happy to debate you there.
The Latest Science of Nature Versus Nurture - From Freedomain Radio Stefan Molyneux
I remember as a child that eventually I started drawing. I picked up crayons at some point and drew trees, my family, the usual toddler things. Then I began drawing things from cartoons, movies, dinosaurs, all kinds of things.
The thing is my earliest memories are only knowing crayons existed. I knew crayons existed before I knew the concept of drawing, ie I had the urge to draw. While I was taught that crayons, pencils etc could be used to write and mark things down on paper, I never once received any direct motivation or cue from my parents/other kids/etc that they could be used to recreate images and invent things in my imagination as well as things that inspired me. This is all largely being in the house as a toddler up through kindergarten where I reached a point where I would leave the household and be with peers.
I was nurtured to view the crayon as a writing tool. Yet was it entirely direct input from society that taught me how to use them to draw imaginary creatures and places too, or was there a more subtle mixture of different elements, external and internal here?
Just something I've thought about and would be interested in opinions.
Yes, we have instincts. Ever jump back when a reptile or insect runs by you suddenly? That's proof.
EP is redundant. If you look at the facts produced by biological research you can see that there is a combination of neural links that develop independent of experiential feedback and neural links that develop from experiential feedback. The two are not in isolation of each other. For example, you can experience something that changes your chemical balance, which physically changes the brain. That same result can come from genes affecting that chemical action. So, you could think of genes as a program for inter-generational memory reconstruction and learning as in vivo memory construction that expires upon death. I suppose "instinct" refers to the former. How to know how much a case behaviour is from one and the other is the only real challenge here.
I was not aware that "blank state" was so popular. It must be a "social science" thing.
It is redundant for establishing that man has a nature. It is not redundant for filling out the details of what that nature is.
I would like to see someone with EP credential discuss the connection between the human nature debate in social science and the same debate in theology which, in many ways, mirrors the social science debate. Calvinists believe that humans have very specific attributes (dispositions) whereas Armenian Protestants either deny this or at least heavily de-emphasize it. Catholics and Armenian Protestants are in agreement on this point (man has little or no innate disposition when he is born).
In fact, tabula rasa plays a crucial role in Catholic/Armenian theodicy (reconciliation of the existence of evil with God's goodness and omnipotence). Their argument is that each infant is born "neutral" with no disposition towards either good or evil. In addition, God grants them free will in order that they can be moral agents with the caveat that they alone are responsible for whatever evil they bring into the world through their own choices. Often, this theological line of thinking is accompanied with some concept of an "age of accountability" - some say 11, others 13, etc. According to this line of thinking, God is not responsible for evil because he created man a blank slate. Man - by virtue of having been created neutral and yet choosing to do evil - is the agent solely responsible for the existence of evil. This does not violate God's omnipotence because it is a logical condition for moral agency that the moral agent have plenary power to choose, that is, to not be subject to any sort of predestination.
Just wanted to say that I'm pretty close to finishing Blank Slate now and it's definitely one of my favorite books of all time. The book is absolutely chock full of brilliant insights that often put words to thoughts I'd sort of already had but couldn't find grounds for or flesh out properly. Anyways I highly recommend it.
Coincidentally it appears Molyneux has displayed more than a passing interest in this area recently...
Nature, Nurture and The Freedom of Self-Knowledge
Genes, Nature, Nurture and The Freedom of Self-Knowledge (HD)
I'll also note that the Blank Slate theory of human psychology plays a huge role in this dichotomy between biological evolution and market-based evolution.
I presume you mean supposed materialistic evolution (of first dead matter to become living primitive organism and secondly of primitive organisms to become higher order organism) and social evolutions (the way society changes over period from primitive to more advanced). Both have elements of fiction to it, while I think some of the later was at least observable within long recorded periods.
The mainstream view asserts that the mind is a blank slate - nearly infinitely malleable - that is filled in by culture. so that there is no such thing as human nature. Hence, there is no reason to expect "good outcomes" from a process of unregulated or decentralized competition for resources between human beings. Because the brain is a blank slate, the laws of biology and culture are fundamentally different.
Now reflect on this and you'll see what kind of garbage that is. The mind needs to have a lot into place (in terms of biological infrastructure as well) in order to be receptive to nature. And from what I know there are even far more problems with this statement of blank state and behavioral moldability. Some of those have already be mentioned.
How can anyone seriously separate the laws of biology and culture? Most philosophers didn't. And I recall Plato, Bacon, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche arguing for a strong relationship.
The Blank slate theory combined with the denial of human nature and postulate of human moldability lends it self to justify a state agency to program and reprogram people "for their own good". It's kind of an argument that those that are "more advanced" have now to reprogram those that are "less advanced". It's a bit of Marxism-Leninism in new clothes.
@JJ: Just now watched his first installment. He cites studies showing that environment affects behavior and brain - but this is irrelevant to the point of the EPs who assert that both genes and environment inform behavior. The point is that the slate is not blank and the brain is not a "general-purpose computation device."
The slate already has things written on it, some of them put there by our genes, some of them put there by our environment. We cannot erase and re-write our slate as we see fit.
The brain is comprised of special-purpose computational modules designed to solve specific problems in our environment. There is variation in these modules between individuals, just as there are variations in human anatomy between individuals. But these variations are parametric, not qualitative - there are no anatomically normal humans with three arms or no elbows or whatever.
Nothing Molyneux says does the slightest damage to this position.
Clayton:
A note on the Theology aspect.
It is true that typically Calvinists emphasise the (sinful) nature of man and hold a compatibilst position on freedom of the will i.e. freedom of the will is acting in accordance with ones nature. It is also true that Arminians (the term derived from Joseph Arminius) tend to down play man's nature and come accross as holding the neutrality of the nature of man to retain man's freedom of the will this time broadly defined as the power of contrary choice. I'm not as familiar with the Catholic position but given their emphasis on natural law I don't think they'd down play man's nature that much.
Related to this is the much underdiscussed traducianism vs creationism- it is a debate on the origin of the soul. The former holds that in procreation the man and the woman create a new soul embedded withing the embyo, the latter holds in procreation the physical embryo is created but the soul is independently created and attached by God.
This has huge implications for the doctrine of original sin and the problem of evil. Some Arminians hold the creationist position and thus reject orginal sin (defined here as a general disposition towards sin) so hold a tabula rasa position; this is because it would require that God make something sinful. If one holds the traducian position then the sinful seed of Adam is no problem as Adam was created good by God but his sinful seed was created by Eve and himself.
On the age of accountability it can split Arminian/Calvinist but not necessarily. I think it's more Baptist/ Presbyterian- for the Baptist one only joins the community when one has personal faith in Christ whereas the latter it can ALSO take place as being a member of a believing household. So the Baptist would tend to hold universal infant salvation at their deaths since they haven't been condemned by creation (Romans 1) since their cognitive faculties aren't developed enough (the Calvinist Baptist John Piper holds this position); and the Presbyterian would hold the children of believers would be save whereas those of unbelievers would not; however when the children of believers reached a certain age they would then be accountable. If you are a Calvinist though God's predestination undergirds all of this.
For the record I'm a Traducian Open Theist. I firmly believe man's nature is corrupt but that libertarian freedom of the will is retain i.e we have the power of contrary choice. So much so that I believe the future literally unknowable since it does not and has not existed even to God; I call this dynamic omnipotance. The parts he does "know" derive from his power to bring about those events he has decided for example the second coming; so the future is partially open hence the Open Theist label
The atoms tell the atoms so, for I never was or will but atoms forevermore be.
Yours sincerely,
Physiocrat
@Physiocrat: (this is a quick reply, going to bed...)
I was raised Calvinist (Reformed Baptist, to be specific). Believe it or not, I've actually debated open theists on internet theology forums, LOL. Anyway, it's definitely an interesting subject and I am highly fascinated by the formative effect that religious belief and practice have on the social order.
What does the mind or bodies structure in the history of a few past Man-Ape's that somone randomly chose and constructed a narrative around matter? There is no possible way this matters one way or the other in any academic sense, if all we are doing is afirming how people acted. It is a minor technical point.
If Pinker is merely a tradesman, acting as an auto mechanic and telling me how to soup up my car for maximum advantage, so be it. Than he can market his product just like every other auto maker and let the market decide how satisfactory it is.
Furthermore, I simply just don't think it's true that the mainstream academic world thinks blank slate is correct. I was under the impression that was a very antiquated model. Furthermore, I honestly thought this form of scientism has been en vogue since the late 19th/early 20th century. I can't say for sure, but all my sociology classes certainly had hard ons for behaviorism, evolutionary psych, cog psych, model making econ, etc.
Either way, I would like a citation that Blank Slate is mainstream, as that is a very surprising claim to me.
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
I would like a citation that Blank Slate is mainstream
Please follow the links I provided and look up their cites showing both the historical roots of tabula rasa as well as contemporary thinkers expressing support for this concept (Stephen J. Gould's quote is particularly extreme). Behaviorism is absolutely compatible with the tabula rasa theory of human behavior. In fact, if you look at the work of a behaviorist like Donald Ewen Cameron (of MK ULTRA infamy), you see that his underlying theory of mind was precisely tabula rasa - he was trying to "erase the slate" through intense, extended electro-chemical torture. He did prove that you can inflict permanent amnesia through such torture but there is no reason to believe that people who went through his program actually were brought back to a "neutral" state of any sort.
"Blank slate" dogma is definitely hegemonial within mainstream (meaning: state sponsored and public) academia. Of course there is no official directive that states professors, researchers and lectures have to stipulate the truth of blank slate egality. But try to stipulate race or gender differences, or just dare to mention that social position isn't to blame on society alone and see what the responses are. I did mention the importance of ancestry for forming identity once and the lecturers innuendo suggested that I would be something in the line of a Naziwhowantstogassixmillionshoes. I did however refrain from debating the falsity or absurdity of those implied claims and left it, as I also know that the lecturer wasn't alone with that kind of beliefs. You may ask what does have identity to do with (blank) slate. Well, stressing the ancestry for forming identity has its reason in the fact that one is a copy of ones parents inheritance giving one a initial content and that from this one shapes though and feeling from birth onward. So there is some innateness, but politically correct academics do not like to hear this, due to their prior emotional investment in egalitarianism.
Of course there are also many academics and intellectuals that do disagree with this, but they also know from where the wind is blowing. So they rather shut up on the subject and do what they do in a less dangerous manner.
Amendment and retraction:
You are right to think this could be very compatible with Austrian thought,and even ought be studied, particularly for Hayekian accented social theory. To attack it or question it from an "Austrian perspective", even if I may ultimately disagree with it, demands a more sophistacted answer or even line of questioning, which I did not provide.