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Nature versus nurture

Weekend Edition featured an interview with psychologist Steven Pinker this morning, about his new book The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. Pinker's avowedly anti-social constructionist agenda is to debunk the notion of tabula rasa human character. Disclaimer: I have not read the book, but being of a vaguely social constructionist bent I nonetheless feel obliged to offer some thoughts on the subject in general. Pinker's thesis is that all our understandings of human learning, even the most constructionist, are founded on some biologically-centered assumptions about cognitive mechanisms. These mechanisms, he argues, are rooted in neurological things like perception and emotion, and Pinker marshals evidence that these phenomena are universal, cross-cultural, and timeless. Pinker extends these biological characteristics to explain, for example, fundamental differences in gender behavior: Boys punch and kick and girls do not, he argues, and claims that this difference is not explained by socialization. Therefore, he argues, all claims for varying kinds of social construction -- which he calls the "blank slate," "noble savage," and "ghost in the machine" perspectives -- are defeated by biology, by inherent and built-in characteristics.

Pinker argues that ideology should be separated from biology; biological inequality should not translate to discrimination because we should commit ourselves to a moral and political position against discrimination. While such a committment seems reasonable to me, the construction of it seems no more strongly defensible than a perspective that comes from a non-biological basis. To put it differently: Pinker wants to use science to separate, for example, differential treatment of men and women from the causes of the differences between men and women. The differences, he argues, are biological and unavoidable, while the way we treat those differences is ... a social and moral decision? Does this approach not require that we socially construct an understanding of the differences between people? It seems that Pinker simply shifts the location of socialization, away from behavior and towards perception of behavior.

Finally, Pinker's approach seems to be based on attacking a lot of straw men. When was the last time you read a truly tabula rasa-based account of behavior and learning? "Noble savage?" "Ghost in the machine?" If, as Pinker claims, these explanations of behavior are more philosophical than scientific, why does he work so hard to marshal scientific evidence against them? Pinker instead ought to work with the research in behavioralism, deviance, and culture, on their merits, not as representatives of particular moral philosophies.

  1. Read the book pleas!!!!
    —    Dec 4, 03:30 AM    #
  2. I tend to agree that "boys will punch and kick and girls will not (as much) based solely on having raised 5 children. My girls were naturally inclined towards dolls and playing "princess" and my boys were very inclined to wrestle, play guns, soldier, etc. Take a gun away from a boy and he'll make one out of anything!!. I, also, agree that sexes are different for a reason and that I would have to read the book to see if I agree that Pinker is trying to shift the location of socialization. Also, how can you begin to know what Pinker is trying to say in his book, if you have not read it yourself?!!!
    — Cynthia Maritato    Jun 30, 04:37 PM    #
  3. Yes, boys and girls do act diffently and have dissimilar preferences, but what about the different expectations placed upon them? As soon as parents find out what sex their child is, they paint and decorate the room with gender specifics in mind. Boys are expected to "roughhouse" with their dads while girls are expected to play with dolls. We live in a society that likes to separate what it is to be male from what it is to be female. Humans are certainly not blank slates, as they are not purely biologically driven. The behaviors and predispositions of monozygotic twins cannot be explained simply by genetics, or there would be a 100% correlation between the two. One must also think of the cognitive influences of human character. Two people can experience the very same event, but interpret it in vastly different manners.
    — Dean Ernle    Jun 30, 09:51 PM    #
  4. I was one of three girls and i acted and "played" contrary to the perception of what a girl should and shouldn't play and act. I was categorized as a Tomboy and hated dolls and dresses and all that "girly" stuff. My daughter on the otherhand is the opposite of me, she has tea parties and all the girly things. My 3 sons all have different ranges of typical "boy activity". I still am not too sure that our gender behavior is inherent. I think that from the time we are born we pick up on subtle clues as to what our gender role is and how we are to "play" that role. Once we are old enought, the media flouds us with gender role guidelines...when we break these roles we are looked at differently. Do we wnat to be separated by gender or do we want to be treated equally? Seems there is a lot of confusion today on that issue. Minority groups want to be treated equal but expect preferential treatment in certain matters, women want equality in the work place but need different guide rules to follow in their work environment. We are who we are because of our genetics, environment, niche and how all of this comes together, we are hard wired with all the behaior and traits that we will every have, we learn and formulate them over time and through interaction.
    — vivian stark    Jul 1, 12:32 AM    #
  5. Can somebody tell me what http://tychoger.ed.umuc.edu/psyc441/ is, any why it's sending people my way? Not surprisingly, I don't seem to have a password to access the site. I'm rather curious why this seven-month old post is getting this much traffic. What is it about multiple exclamation points? Does a single one not do the trick anymore? My Pinker post was based on listening (several times) to his interview on Weekend Edition and then googling around the web for other pieces of his work. Being familiar with debates over social construction, I simply wanted to make the primary point that I think Pinker's constructions of "noble savages" and "ghosts in the machine" are silly, especially when his other arguments (expressed very clearly in the interview) fall back on the same kind of social construction (this time of value, perception, and appropriateness) he seeks to debunk. They're overly-simplistic conceptualizations of social construction that evidently lead back to the same-old debates and anectodal offerings about gender. So, what's happening at UMUC?
    — Alan    Jul 1, 01:36 AM    #
  6. Web tyco is a host server for the University of Maryland and the resonses you are getting are from a Psychology course on human learning. Students were asked to read the article and respond to it. Thanks for your response. Several more students may respond and they'll obviously see your posting.
    — Cynthia Maritato    Jul 1, 04:03 AM    #
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