Steve Pinker is a Blank Slater, he just hasn't realised it yet.

[Darat]

If you take Pinker's statement that I quoted and change it just a little to include the parents as one of the influences then I have no problem with it and moreover I expect you would have something that the research is really showing.

But you would have a statement that, far from being need to anyone, is more or less consistent with what most social scientists have been saying since the 1960s.

He isn't saying that parents have no influence at all.

 

[Robin]

He isn't saying that parents have no influence at all.

Maybe he isn't, but as I said above, if he is including parents among the influences then he is saying nothing at all that is in any way at odds with anything social sciences have been saying since the 1960s. Nothing.

And nothing that would come as a surprise to most parents.

He is saying it is a somewhat blank slate, just as everyone else is.

 

[Robin]

Really? Perhaps in your country it is different but in the UK the "cultural folklore" view is that you are moulded from birth by your parents into the adult you become. "What do you expect have you seen her parents" is a refrain I've often heard when people are gossiping.

I was born in the UK and spent a considerable amount of time there.

As I said I have never heard anyone suggest that parental influence was the sole influence that shapes a person.

In any case the claim by Pinker was that the extreme blank slate position was typical of the social sciences, which it is not..

 

[Roboramma]

Maybe he isn't, but as I said above, if he is including parents among the influences then he is saying nothing at all that is in any way at odds with anything social sciences have been saying since the 1960s. Nothing.

Well, here's a change since the 60's:

When Kanner (1943) first characterized autism in 1943, he assumed it was caused “constitutionally.” However, in subsequent decades, autism was thought to be envi- ronmentally caused, either by cold and rejecting parents or by brain damage (Hanson & Gottesman, 1976). Genetics did not seem to be important because there were no reported cases of an autistic child having an autistic parent and because the risk to siblings was only about 5 percent (Bailey, Phillips, & Rutter, 1996; Smalley, Asar- now, & Spence, 1988). However, this rate of 5 percent was 100 times greater than the population rate of autism as diagnosed in those original studies, a difference implying strong familial resemblance. The reason why autistic children do not have autistic parents is that few autistic individuals marry and have children.

In 1977, the first systematic twin study of autism began to change the view that autism was environmental in origin (Folstein & Rutter, 1977). Four of 11 pairs of identical twins were concordant for autism, whereas none of 10 pairs of fraternal twins were. These pairwise concordance rates of 36 and 0 percent rose to 92 and 10 percent when the diagnosis was broadened to include communication and social problems. Co-twins of autistic children are more likely to have communication problems as well as social difficulties. In a follow-up of the twin sample into adult life, problems with social relationships were prominent (Le Couteur et al., 1996). These findings were replicated in other twin studies (Ronald & Hoekstra, 2011). A conservative estimate of the concordance in monozygotic pairs is 60 percent. A review of four independent twin studies suggests a heritability of liability for autism greater than 90 percent (Freitag, 2007). Recent twin studies of autism spectrum disorders find similar results, suggesting substantial heritability (Lichtenstein, Carlstrom, Rastam, Gillberg, & Anckarsater, 2010; Ronald & Hoekstra, 2011; Rosenberg et al., 2009; Taniai, Nishiyama, Miyachi, Imaeda, & Sumi, 2008; but see Hallmayer et al., 2011, for a contrasting view of the role of shared environment).
On the basis of these twin and family findings, views regarding autism have changed radically. Instead of being seen as an environmentally caused disorder, it is now considered to be one of the most heritable mental disorders (Freitag, 2007; Ronald & Hoekstra, 2011).

Quoted from: BEHAVIORAL• GENETICS
Sixth Edition
By:
Robert Plomin
Institute of Psychiatry
London
John C. DeFries
University of Colorado
Boulder
Valerie S. Knopik
Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University
Jenae M. Neiderhiser
Penn State University

 

[Robin]

I always thought the 'folklore' position in the UK was that breeding is everything and that the poor people shouldn't try to get above their station because they come from common stock and they were in the position they were fit for.

 

[Robin]

Well, here's a change since the 60's:

I didn't say nothing had changed since the 60s. Wouldn't be much of a science if nothing had changed since the 1960s.

But your cite only bears out what I am saying.

Pinker is claiming that in 2002 the social sciences are stuck in a blank slate mindset, not considering genetic causes.

And yet here is a study, more than a quarter of a century earlier looking for genetic causes for autism. If they were stuck in a blank slate mindset they wouldn't be looking for genetic causes.

So this contradicts Pinker's claim.

In addition note that the "refrigerator mother" theory was already under attack in 1964 by Bernard Rimland and in 1969 Kanner himself was suggesting that the "refrigerator mother" thing was a misunderstanding of what he was saying and that he had described the condition as "innate" from the very first paper.

Again, what has Pinker said that is in any way consistent with the view taken by social sciences since the 60s?

 

[Bikewer]

It’s been a few years since I read “The Blank Slate”, but Pinker’s main argument was against the notion of the Blank Slate idea… That there was no “human nature”. No collection of characteristics, behaviors, and tendencies unique to humans. That humans were formed entirely by experience.
That such a notion was twaddle should be fairly obvious, I read Desmond Morris’ “The Human Animal” many years ago, and he details the variety of behaviors and responses that are essentially hard-wired in us, just as other animals exhibit unique characteristics and behaviors.

 

[Roboramma]

I didn't say nothing had changed since the 60s. Wouldn't be much of a science if nothing had changed since the 1960s.

You said that Pinker's view with respect to the impact of environment vs. genetics is the same as the view in the 60s. I showed a cite that in the 60s autism was seen as caused by environmental factors in the 60s but is seen as significantly influenced by genetic factors today. Pinker's view is in line with the latter but not the former.
Maybe you're thinking "Okay, sure, the view of Autism shifted, but that's just one thing"?
Should we look at other things that have shifted in the same direction since the 60s? Schizophrenia for instance? Personality traits?

Are you arguing that there hasn't been a shift in view toward genetic influence on traits in the last sixty years?

 

[Robin]

It’s been a few years since I read “The Blank Slate”, but Pinker’s main argument was against the notion of the Blank Slate idea… That there was no “human nature”. No collection of characteristics, behaviors, and tendencies unique to humans. That humans were formed entirely by experience.
That such a notion was twaddle should be fairly obvious,

Yes, but my point is that no-one was advancing this twaddle.

Pinker claims that this was the mindset of the social sciences at the time and this is just not true.

The entire Blank Slate thing is a massive straw man.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Hell, if I were as publicly associated with Jeffrey Epstein as Pinker is, I'd want a blank slate too!

hyuck yuck yuck

 

[Robin]

Pinker's poster boy for this alleged blank slatism was Ashley Montagu, an anthropologist whose academic career ended in 1955.

Montagu was not claiming that evolution was false or that genetics played no role. On the contrary his was an evolutionary thesis, claiming that mental adaptability was a survival advantage.

In any case, he was writing in the first part of the twentieth century. In 1961 S L Washburn published the influential paper "The New Physical Anthropology" which recast this subfield of anthropology in terms of evolution and genetics and its new emerging tools.

https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2164-0947.1951.tb01033.x

Hardly something that would happen in a field stuck in a mindset of so-called blank slatism.

 

[Robin]

OK, let's get it clear the view that Steve Pinker is advancing that I am claiming is false.

He claimed in 2002 that social scientists were stuck in a Blank Slate mindset and not considering genetic explanations.

I am saying that since the 1960s at least and probably before, social scientists have considered both environmental and genetic explanations.

It does not matter if the ground has shifted on this and which way.

If they were stuck in a Blank Slate mindset and not considering genetic explanations then they would not have been considering genetic explanations.

Robborama's own cite proves that genetic explanations for autism were being actively researched in 1975. I showed environmental explanations for autism were being critiqued in 1964 and that in 1969 the person responsible for the main environmental explanation - the "refrigerator mother" - claimed to have been misunderstood and to have been considering genetic explanations all along.

So I am at a loss to understand how they could be stuck in a "Blank Slate" mindset and not considering genetic explanations and also considering genetic explanations.

Explain that to me.

 

[theprestige]

Did you read nothing of my post except for the first line???

Pinker says that we are shaped partly by genetics, partly by environment, right?

So the social scientists of the 1960s and onwards said that we are shaped partly by genetics and partly by their environment, right?

So --- the same.

How much was due to genetics and how much was due to environment was an empirical question to be settled by research.

The fact that the view has changed about some things as to whether they were genetically based or environmentally influenced does not contradict what I said in any way and I am puzzled as to why you think it does.

What it does contradict is the claim that the social scientists were not even considering the genetic option.

I have no way of knowing which way the shift has been, I am saying it was driven by research. It may have been towards greater genetic explanation or it may have been away from the extreme genetic positions of the earlier 20th century, ie Social Darwinism and towards an empirically based view of the nature/nurture mix.

Both of these cases would completely contradict Steve Pinker who was saying that the social sciences were stuck in a blank slate mindset, which would imply that they were not even considering genetic factors.

I am just pointing out the fact that they were actively researching genetic explanations completely contradicts the claim that they were not even considering genetic explanations. I am not sure how I can put that any simpler.

Are you saying that Steve Pinker was correct in saying that in 2002 the social sciences were stuck in a Blank Slate mindset?

If so then you would be saying that scientist were actively researching genetic explanations for things while stuck in a mindset completely inimical to that research.

Is that what you are arguing?

I think you're being too doctrinaire about this.

I think a wide variety of research papers, including unusual outliers, is entirely consistent with a claim that the (mainstream) view is generally not reflected by the outliers. Two studies that reject the Blank Slate mindset don't mean that the mainstream view rejects the Blank Slate mindset.

As you pointed out, there's reputable studies showing that paranormal abilities might exist. But I can still safely say that the mainstream scientific view is that paranormal abilities probably don't exist.

 

[Robin]

I think you're being too doctrinaire about this.

Really? What doctrine do you think I am pursuing?

I think a wide variety of research papers, including unusual outliers, is entirely consistent with a claim that the (mainstream) view is generally not reflected by the outliers. Two studies that reject the Blank Slate mindset don't mean that the mainstream view rejects the Blank Slate mindset.

One of Pinker's examples was Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's not even a social scientist. The other was an anthropologist whose academic career ended in 1955. Pinker keeps dragging him up to defend himself against the criticism that he has misrepresented social science.

There are your outliers..

And the "refrigerator momma" theory is a discredited and widely derided theory from the 1940s which was publicly disavowed in 1969 by the person credited with devising it.

You don't think that might be an outlier?

Heritability studies have been mainstream in autism research since the early 1970s, a few of which have been cited here but there are many more.

I have worked with social scientists and had friends in the area since the 1970s and they have all put forward the view that human nature is partly due to genetics, partly due to environment. The context of this has generally been things like criminal behaviour and juvenile delinquency (as it was called them).:This is all well before 2002 when Pinker's book was written.

 

[theprestige]

Really? What doctrine do you think I am pursuing?

That's not what doctrinaire means.

One of Pinker's examples was Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's not even a social scientist. The other was an anthropologist whose academic career ended in 1955. Pinker keeps dragging him up to defend himself against the criticism that he has misrepresented social science.

There are your outliers..

And the "refrigerator momma" theory is a discredited and widely derided theory from the 1940s which was publicly disavowed in 1969 by the person credited with devising it.

You don't think that might be an outlier?

Heritability studies have been mainstream in autism research since the early 1970s, a few of which have been cited here but there are many more.

I have worked with social scientists and had friends in the area since the 1970s and they have all put forward the view that human nature is partly due to genetics, partly due to environment. The context of this has generally been things like criminal behaviour and juvenile delinquency (as it was called them).:This is all well before 2002 when Pinker's book was written.

I'm not talking about Pinker's outliers, I'm talking about yours.

Pinker claims that social science has been stuck on Blank Slate.

You claim to have found some counter-examples, and that this disproves Pinker's claim.

My claim is that a few counter-examples aren't sufficient to disprove a claim about the mainstream of social science. In order to disprove Pinker, you would have to produce enough counter-examples to establish that they do represent the prevailing/mainstream view in social science, and aren't just outliers.

 

[Robin]

That's not what doctrinaire means.

I looked it up: "seeking to impose a doctrine in all circumstances without regard to practical considerations."

Again, what doctrine would that be?

I'm not talking about Pinker's outliers, I'm talking about yours.

No, of course not. Heaven forbid that Pinker should have the same burden of evidence as me. Pinker can cite a bodybuilder movie star and an anthropologist from the first part of the twentieth century and that is apparently fine and dandy to prove his case.

I give examples of mainstream research going from the 1970s to the present day and you allege they are outliers

So however many examples I give you will dismiss them as outliers.

But a quote from a bodybuilder/movie star is just fine for Pinker.

Pinker claims that social science has been stuck on Blank Slate.

Yes he claims this. It is not true. He has not given any evidence it is true. The evidence is that it is not true.

You claim to have found some counter-examples, and that this disproves Pinker's claim.

They really are counter-examples and they do represent the mainstream. Don't forget that these were found by Robborama, not myself and he seemed to think they disproved my contention. I only pointed out that they actually favoured my contention and went against Pinker's contention.

My claim is that a few counter-examples aren't sufficient to disprove a claim about the mainstream of social science.

And two examples Pinker used do not provide any evidence at all for his claim, and yet you seem to think this is fine.

Many in the social sciences have pointed out that this is a straw man and we have seen examples of mainstream social science over a number of decades actively researching genetic explanations, we have seen that there is a whole subfield of anthropology which looks only at evolutionary explanations.

Can you give me any reason at all to suppose that Pinker's claim that social sciences are stuck in a Blank Slate mindset is true?

Is it even plausible that an entire field have largely ignored a whole area of science over a number of decades? All the evidence that anyone can find from 1960 onwards shows that this is not the case.

 

[Robin]

To be fair Pinker does give more examples, but none support his claim.

Franz Boas, who died in 1942 and was a strong proponent of Darwinian evolution and particularly in its role in shaping our mental characteristics he just said that culture was also a large factor too. Hard to see that as a Blank Slater. What he criticised was Social Darwinism.

B F Skinner. Again, a little difficult to see Skinner's behaviourism as blank slatism. After all he is the one who says that superstitious behaviour in humans happens by the same mechanism that it does in hens. That is blank slatism? Really?

Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould were biologists and not part of social sciences. And don't forget that Mismeasure of Man was actually criticising the mainstream.

John Money, the child abusing sexologist is also mentioned. Money did say that gender roles were malleable under different environments, but also held that many more cultural and personality traits were genetically determined and consistent across the world and throughout history, so again, a little difficult to see him as a blank slater.

Finally there is Margaret Mead. Mead followed in the Boas tradition and she had said that sexual mores were conditioned, not just by genetics, but also to a large extent by culture and environment. But as the quote from Pinker in my OP shows he also agrees that we are shaped by culture and environment as well as genetics. Which is all that Mead was saying. So where is the difference?

So all of these are examples are either not social scientists or people who held that we are shaped by a combination of genetics and environment.

Again, where is the evidence that the social sciences are locked into a Blank Slate mindset?

 

[Robin]

Should we look at other things that have shifted in the same direction since the 60s? Schizophrenia for instance?

Psychiatric genetics stretches back as a field to the 19th century.

Personality traits?

If you check you will find that those twin studies that Pinker is relying on themselves go back to 1950.

Are you arguing that there hasn't been a shift in view toward genetic influence on traits in the last sixty years?

Can't you see that if there has been a shift towards genetic influence on traits over the last sixty years then that would contradict Pinker's view that the social sciences are stuck in a Blank Slate mindset?

How can a field be moving towards recognising greater genetic influence over 60 years and at the same time be stuck in a Blank Slate mindset? How does that even make sense?

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Here is what Steve Pinker writes in his article "The Blank Slate" for the magazine "General Psychology":

What all this suggests is that children are shaped not by their parents, but in part—but only in part—by their genes; in part by their culture, both the culture of the surrounding society and the children’s own culture, which we condescendingly call their peer group; and in large part by sheer chance—chance events in the development of the brain in utero, such as whether some neurons zigged or zagged at a particular day in brain development, and perhaps chance events in life, such as whether at some point you were chased by a dog, or inhaled a virus, or were dropped on your head, or got the top bunk bed as opposed to the bottom bunk bed.

Now, help me out here, how is that not a "Blank Slate" position?

Because it isn't?

Blank Slate

Tabula rasa (/ˈtæbjələ ˈrɑːsə, -zə, ˈreɪ-/; "blank slate") is the theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content, and therefore all knowledge comes from experience or perception. Epistemological proponents of tabula rasa disagree with the doctrine of innatism, which holds that the mind is born already in possession of certain knowledge...

Psychology_and_neurobiology
Psychologists and neurobiologists have shown evidence that initially, the entire cerebral cortex is programmed and organized to process sensory input, control motor actions, regulate emotion, and respond reflexively (under predetermined conditions). These programmed mechanisms in the brain subsequently act to learn and refine the ability of the organism. For example, psychologist Steven Pinker showed that—in contrast to written language—the brain is "programmed" to pick up spoken language spontaneously.

Clearly Steve Pinker is not saying that genetics have no effect on personality. What he is saying that the environmental contribution is largely 'random' rather than caused by culture, and definitely not from parents.

I don't see any way that you could call that a 'blank slate' position. He's wrong of course, but not in the way you are suggesting.

The real problem is...

Important evidence against the tabula rasa model of the mind comes from behavioural genetics, especially twin and adoption studies (see below). These indicate strong genetic influences on personal characteristics such as IQ, alcoholism, gender identity, and other traits. Critically, multivariate studies show that the distinct faculties of the mind, such as memory and reason, fractionate along genetic boundaries. Cultural universals such as emotion and the relative resilience of psychological adaptation to accidental biological changes also support basic biological mechanisms in the mind.

...one of definition.

Personality, intelligence, memory, reason and emotion are not knowledge.

knowledge
noun: knowledge; plural noun: knowledges

1. facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.

2. awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.​

By definition, all knowledge comes from experience or perception. That is 'blank slate'. No matter how much innate intelligence or what personality a human is born with with, being deprived of experience and perception has a huge impact on their mental development and behavior. Equally as obvious is that what knowledge and experiences they are exposed to also has a huge impact.

Steve Pinker says that children are 'shaped' by both genetics and experience - but that most of the shaping is caused by 'random' factors, and none is parental influence. You can argue about how much of the 'shaping' is 'random', but saying that parents have no influence is obviously wrong. But what does he even mean by 'shaped'?

Psychologists seem to be preoccupied by personality, when it doesn't have as much influence or importance as they think. The 74,223,369 people who voted for a malignant narcissist in the last presidential election didn't do so because they all suffer from an innate personality disorder. The 40,000 insurgents who fought against our soldiers in Iraq weren't all homicidal maniacs from birth. The 50 million highly paid skilled workers in the US didn't all pop out of the womb with the knowledge they needed to do their jobs.

The term 'blank slate' is supposed to refer to when and how humans acquire knowledge - the memories and skills that are a large part of who we are. But to some this knowledge is irrelevant. Experience and perception have no bearing on who we really are they say. Whether your parents showered you with love and taught you everything they knew, sent you to the best schools and did everything they could to realize your potential - or locked you in a cage and beat and raped you every day - makes no difference to the person you became.

 

[Robin]

Because it isn't?

Margaret Mead said that we are shaped partly by genetics and partly by culture/environmental factors.

According to Pinker she is a blank slater.

Steve Pinker says that we are shaped partly by genetics and partly by culture/environmental factors.

So how does the thing that makes Margaret Mead a blank slater not make Pinker a blank slater?

In other words, either Pinker is a blank slater himself or else no-one that he references, with the possible exception of Montagu, are not blank slaters.