Those who are falling on either side of this so-called nature versus nurture debate must eventually come to the conclusion that duality is the prevailing constant in our universe, and most likely exists in order to "propel" our very evolution. Steven Pinker has brilliantly summarized all the disciplines of science into a cohesive operational theory of humans and their place in this world, with no candy-coating and no apologies, explaining the light and dark sides of behavior which are both programmed and random. A lifetime of study has come full-circle for me through this marvelous work on the "denial of human nature".

This book is about the idea that the brain is sort of a Swiss Army knife of cognitive functions. The alternative idea is that there is some form of pure reason which exists in brains - and maybe computers too - that has reached critical mass in humans.

(There is also the idea that our souls are "shards of the Creator" split off at conception, or the breath of life, or reincarnated cows, or fallen angels, or something, but none of that is handled here.)

The idea of critical mass of pure reason is very widely accepted. It is the basis of Behavioralism, and it is widely cited by sci-fi authors & naive AI fans. A good example of the latter is Raymond Kurzweil's (truly awful) book, "The Age of Spiritual Machines". Kurzweil claims that when individual computers get as big as huaman brains, they will automatically start saying "I am lonely and bored; please keep me company."

Pinker has argued convincingly in his other pop sci books that this is not going to happen - you need some kind of specific mechanism to get complex behavior like loneliness, not just lots of transistors. This is the emerging science of neuropsychology. As the ability to observe the brain's behavior in real time improves, neuropsychology will get more and more interesting.

"The Blank Slate" fights what I regard to be a rearguard action against Postmodernism. Postmodernism is firmly in the "critical mass" camp. For example, there are feminists that claim that there is absolutely no difference between boy and girl brains, and that all behavioral differences between the sexes are cultural artefacts. Such talk obviously drives Pinker nuts, and "The Blank Slate" is his answer.

Ok, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's not a rearguard action. But when I read popular science, I want to be wowed by cool ideas, not embroiled in effete academic disputes. So I give the book three stars, and recommend you read some of Pinker's other stuff.

I see that there are many positive reviews of this book and I would like to add my own brief review. First, I must say that I passionately hate postmodernism and have hated it after being exposed to it in university and being forced to spew its nonsense out in essays.

Pinker explains the conceptual origins of modern (or should I say "postmodern") ideas on the nature of humanity, especially the "noble savage" and the "blank slate." In great detail, Pinker exposes the evidence contradicting the arguments used by postmodern "intellectuals" to support their ideas about humanity. Then, Pinker offers good reason for us to open-mindedly accept and contemplate a scientific view of human nature.

I fundamentally agree with Pinker's sentiment that it is dangerous to ignore human nature and even more dangerous to defend doctrines about human nature. As he eloquently shows, doctrines of human nature have led to the Orwellian nightmares of the 20th century. Thus, one should read Pinker's book and contemplate the factual evidence supporting the various views of human nature presented.

Pinker does not opt to present us with one view of who we are, but presents us with the facts and then discusses the possible interpretations of those facts. His style of writing is much in line with his attitude towards the relationship between morality and science: we determine our moral attitudes (science does not do it for us, which he reminds us of constantly by alluding to the dangers of making the naturalistic fallacy). Science can only help clarify moral issues.

Pinker's point in the end is excellent and convincing: we do not have a definitive understanding of human nature, but The Blank Slate and Noble Savage are obsolete and clearly false. We shouldn't fear discussing, openly, all of the information we have available to us about what makes us human. This book, in many ways, is a great inspiration for guiding moral thought in the context of scientific knowledge.

I like how Pinker can instill a sense of moral outrage in the reader (I guess I should speak for myself . . .) by illustrating the ridiculous responses to totally reasonable hypotheses to human nature: for example, one person was called "racist" because they asserted that blacks and whites have the same facial expressions.

If you feel that the world needs a new perspective on (for example) how to rationally deal with social and moral problems, then I would recommend this book to you. If you need a boost because of the ridiculous infiltration of postmodernists in the social sciences (or in any sphere of reasonable discourse) then this is also the book for you.

The Blank Slate is not so much a book as a 3 pound container of Vaseline specifically engineered to lubricate people's heads--so that they have an easier time pulling them out of their rectums. Pinker makes a case, with brilliant clarity, for why people should slaughter the still-too-revered sacred cows of post-Marxist post-modernism and wake up to the reality that human brains are not merely pieces of clay to be molded by social constructions and dominant paradigms.

He elegantly explains how humans might have evolved a moral sense, and why ideas about an innate human nature and inborn personality traits and aptitudes (that tend to vary across gender & possibly racial groups, on average) do not have to result in a new wave of eugenics or lead to other discriminatory dystopias. In fact, he shows how ignoring the idea of human nature may lead and have lead to even more disturbing scenarios--like totalitarian socialist and communist regimes.

Paradoxically, his explanation of how ideologues have suppressed, disputed and manipulated scientific data over the past century may make one want to take his own claims to scientific truth and understanding with a grain or two of salt. However, his take on heredity and human nature in most cases seems to ring true in terms of everyday experience and common sense. Our genes may determine our talents and personalities to a large degree, but we still make choices and are influenced by our peers and experiences.

This book should prove a challenging read for virtually anyone, no matter how sympathetic or unsympathetic to the idea of innate human nature.

As a bonus, his critiques of postmodernist art and gender feminism are deliciously dismissive.

My main complaint is that it is another misguided attack on the concept of the "Nobel Savage". While I understand it is fashionable to do so in hopes of appearing appropriately "skeptical" and "realistic", it is, in fact, neither; and I suggest such claims are both naive and anthropocentric.

A "realistic" analysis has to begin with a very basic principle of biology: "Every organism is optimally expressed within the original environment that shaped it". If you want to get an idea of what is an "optimally expressed" giraffe, for example, you don't look at the animal within a zoo environment ---rather you analyze its behavior within the original "wild environment" of that animal (its Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness ---E.E.A.).

Now it is naive and anthropocentric to imagine that the human animal is somehow different from every other organism existing on the planet. As such, to obtain the optimal expression of the human animal, we must follow the same procedure. One cannot look to our expression within the modern "zoo" in which we have now "contained" ourselves. Instead, one must look to the "human wild environment" to gain this deeper understanding. The E.E.A. of the human animal is defined by the hunter-gatherer nomadic extended families of Paleolithic times. Thus, based the above foundational biological principle, that particular human expression within the E.E.A. must reasonably be defined as the "optimal hunter-gatherer" ---which is a simple rephrasing of the more popular term, the "Nobel Savage".

Even outside this analysis, it is readily apparent that all of us, presently, are "wilted flowers" in comparison to human animals who optimally "blossomed" within the environment that spawned them. These original humans experienced the best developmental trajectory imaginable. Every child grew up within an environment keyed to satisfying the very hard-wired needs that that same environment originally designed.

Like any animal growing up in a zoo (well-designed or not) the experience of a child growing up in the modern "human zoo" simply can't compare to the secure base of a non-dysfunctional extended nomadic family that prides itself on ending a child's tears usually within a few seconds (see chapter 8, "The Natural Child", within THE PALEOLITHIC PRESCRIPTION by Melvin Konner, et.al.). And Pinker would somehow ignore that such a relatively "ideal" childhood developmnetal environment just might have an especially positive effect on the adult humans thereby produced? Again, such a view, I maintain, is representative of a naive faith in our current "normality". My cynicism is, contrariwise, that the modern human is so far removed from what is the optimal human expression that it is now almost hopeless to somehow find our way back. It's very much as would happen if all the wild tigers were killed and we had to derive what is the optimal expression of that animal, artificially, from a survey of various zoos. Could we ever re-create the original tiger in all its splendor outside the wild? And, in turn, can we ever re-create the original optimal human expression, in all its splendor, outside the wild environment of the original savage --- The Nobel Savage?

Dale G., Clinical Evolutionary Psychologist