2002_12_pathways

JULY/SEPTEMBER 2002 • PATHWAYS THE NOVARTIS JOURNALJANUARY/MARCH 2003 • PATHWAYS THE NOVARTIS JOURNAL

The most fundamental question in psychology,indeed in all the social sciences, is: What is thenature of human nature? The dominant answer forthe past century has been the ‘Blank Slate’, thetheory that the human mind comes equipped withlittle or no inherent structure. Each person’s mindhas been inscribed during development, accordingto this view, by parents, teachers, society, culture,and media messages. The corollary is the doctrineof the Noble Savage, the theory that “humans intheir natural state are selfless, peaceable, anduntroubled”, and that jealousy, greed, conflict, andaggression are contemporary ills caused by thecorrupting influence of civilization.

These core doctrines come in many guises – radicalbehaviorism, social constructionism, postmodernism,environmental determinism, cultural determinism, andeven some current theories of neural “plasticity”. In TheBlank Slate (TBS), a book monumental in scope andscholarship, Professor Steven Pinker shows that thisdominant dogma has long outlived its scientific warrant.

Contrary to the blank slate, Pinker argues, humans arenot passive receptacles or empty vessels. Anyone whohas raised a child knows this, of course, but scientifictheories sometimes lag behind what everyone knows. Wecome equipped, according to TBS, with an astonishingarray of evolved mechanisms – innate fears of heights,predators, evolved desires for particular mates; hostilitytoward out-group members; biases toward investing inchildren and kin; and dozens of others.

TBS keeps the reader riveted by interspersingpenetrating arguments with evidence, anecdotes, humor-ous illustrations, historical accounts of academic disputes,and well-placed quotations from literature, film, andpopular music. I was simultaneously amused and horr-ified to read of the debating tactics of some blank slateproponants, including prominent professors, who have re-sorted to doctoring the quotations of opponents, callingthem nasty names, and even impugning their sex lives.

Debates about human nature have long beenacrimonious. Pinker brings a calm and incisive voice tothese contentious issues. He shows how acknowledgingan innate human nature does not have commonly fearedconsequences, such as resignation to an unalterable fate,despair about improving the human condition orjustification of evil deeds. Indeed, he shows how thedoctrine of environmental determinism has led to someof the most common modern travesties. Mass killings

by Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao were all driven, in part, byblank slate ideology. Recent decades have also witnessedpeople fobbing off personal responsibility for crimes byusing the abuse excuse, the Twinkie defense, the“pornography made me do it” defense, or by blamingmedia violence, rock lyrics, or different cultural norms.

Pinker is at his best when dissecting the underlyinglogic of scientific arguments, exposing flaws inreasoning, and showing the errors of scientists who letideologies cloud their thinking. TBS could be criticizedfor failing to provide pat prescriptions for grapplingwith the multi-faceted human nature that modernscience illuminates. How can we strive for meaning andmorality, for example, when confronted withcontradictory components of a nature that containsboth sexual treachery and life-long love, homicidalimpulses and compassionate self-sacrifice? But Pinker’sgoal is not primarily prescriptive. He aims to uprootdeeply entrenched but now outmoded assumptionsabout the human mind and confront a nature that isglorious in its complexity, if sometimes disturbing in itscontents. On this goal, his aim is true.

This may be the most important book so farpublished in the 21st century. It touches practicallyeverything we care about, from mating to children toviolent international conflict. I suspect many featherswill be ruffled by TBS. But I think Pinker’s final analysisis correct – the core doctrines of the blank slate andnoble savage will go down in the history of science asexamples of “extraordinarily popular delusions” thathave had an unseemly stranglehold on the past centuryof scientific thought.

Dr. David M. Buss is Professor of Psychology at the University ofTexas at Austin. He has published more than 150 scientificarticles and six books.

By Steven Pinker

Published by Allen Lane,The Penguin Press,London, 2002.ISBN: 0713992565 -Hardback; 560 pages:GBP25.00.

VIEWSBOOK REVIEW

The Nature of Human NatureThe Blank Slate: The Modern Denialof Human Nature DR. DAVID M. BUSS

49