This is very good book, very badly written. It starts with 200 pages of assertions that Pinker disagrees with, quoting liberally from offending texts. Because he hasn't, at this stage, explained his position, the effect is like walking into the middle of a pair of drunks arguing - it might make sense to the participants, but without more information it is hard to feel passion for either side of the argument. It is not until Part IV of the book that Pinker starts to set out his views. His thinking is wonderful, but his writing tends to drown the sense. I found myself at the end of a chapter struggling to pin down the key points just discussed. Jared Diamond and others can mount complex arguments with a clarity that Pinker's ideas deserve. But in the end, he has produced a book that is thought provoking and well worth reading. It is just such a shame that it could have been so much better. ( )

Of the books I've read thus far in 2009, I expect that Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate is likely to be the most influential on my ongoing intellectual development. I got much more from it than what I had expected going in. I had imagined that the focus of this book would be on the empirical evidence confirming predictions about the human mind coming out of evolutionary psychology. About half of the book (the second half) covers those topics. That portion of the book is admirable, although the generalities, say, of consciousness and altruism as emergent phenomena, are perhaps better covered by other writers, notably Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins. Pinker, however, is more interested in empirical confirmations of evolutionary psychology's game-theoretical predictions, and gives more space to those results than Dennett and Dawkins do.

Still, the more valuable part of the book, in my opinion, was the first half, where Pinker exposes the intellectual history of what he calls the "Blank Slate": the idea that the human mind has no intrinsic properties, that the human mind is radically malleable, and that all differences between human minds are the results of environmental factors. People have held this view for any number of good reasons. For instance, if true, it grounds the political equality of persons of different races, genders and classes in scientific fact rather than in wishful thinking. Devastatingly though, the Blank Slate theory of mind is inconsistent with evolution by natural selection, inasmuch as it is inexplicable how the brains of our non-human ancestors, which presumably did vary among themselves—otherwise how did we get here?—managed to bootstrap themselves into general computing devices that did not vary among themselves.

The story of what the Blank Slate academics did when their theory started to look shaky is taken up in the darkest and most captivating chapters of Pinker's book. Stephen Jay Gould, the paleontologist, and others, contributed to an intellectual atmosphere so toxic that any researcher who turned up a shred of evidence that the qualities of the human brain might have a genetic component was derided as a Nazi, a eugenicist, a bigot, a chauvinist, and a proponent of genocide, even when the genetic marker at issue was utterly unconnected with race or gender. Such researchers found their classes boycotted, their public lectures protested, received death threats, and were physically assaulted by people who had never read their work, but had only heard it sensationalized. Meanwhile, Gould and company were stating explicitly that the purpose of their scientific work was to prepare mankind for the coming socialist revolution, which presupposed an infinitely malleable human nature. In other words, if living through the second Bush administration has left you convinced that the right has a monopoly on politically-motivated junk science concerning human nature (Intelligent Design/Creation Science), you need to inform yourself about Gould's "Dialectical Biology."

Pinker's treatment of the intellectual atmosphere surrounding these issues in the 70's and 80's was a total revelation to me. Or rather, my previous readings on these topics never brought home Gould's invidious importance to the debate. For example, when Dennett takes on Gould's anti-adaptationist ideas in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, and more general postmodernist critiques of evolution in Breaking the Spell, he, like most good philosophers, is perhaps too charitable to his opposition, too focused on the argument and not on the man making it. When Dennett systematically demolishes Gould's position, you're left with the illusion that Gould was really just a harmless crank; nobody could possibly be led astray by such transparently faulty arguments. By focusing on the history of the ideas, and not only on the ideas themselves, Pinker manages to illustrate that Gould was anything but harmless.

Another book in the neverending nature vs nurture debate. Pinker overall does a good job, but some times he goes a bit too far. Luckily, it is easy to see when he does that, and hence you can disregard those minor parts. Some people will say that he is fighting a strawman, and that most people believe that both nature and nurture plays a part. That may be true of many people, but a lot of the people you meet in academic circles will make that claim, but when pressured about concrete answers they will rarely say that this or that is nature. They give lip service to nature, but they believe in the blank slate. Therefore this is an important and thought provoking book, though not the final chapter in the debate. Read it. ( )

The Blank Slate is Steven Pinker's ambitious attempt to close the gap between the conventionally accepted dogma that human beings come into this world free of innate characteristics, ready to be molded and shaped by society, and what science has begun to reveal about genetic predisposition.

Prior to reading this book, I had no idea that the origin of human nature was such a contentious topic amongst modern intellectuals. Seems that a lot of people think acknowledging that something like violence might have been evolutionarily adaptive is the same thing as condoning violence and excusing those who engage in it, or that admitting that men and women are genetically different justifies discrimination against women. Pinker spends a lot of time in this book carefully addressing these concerns while at the same time making a compelling argument that the current tendency to deny any genetic influence on society's more vexing ills only handicaps our ability to successfully deal with our most serious problems.

Pinker is not shy about tackling controversial topics as he makes his points. The chapter in which he pointed to evidence showing that a child's intelligence and personality are shaped far more by genes, peers and random influences than they are by parents got him an enormous amount of mail, as did the section in which he discussed genetic influences on our appreciation of the arts.

Despite the radical nature of many of the theories Pinker presents, I found myself having continuous "ah-ha!" moments as I read this book. At its core, the idea that we are shaped by our genes as well as our experiences fits far better with reality than the idea that we are all moldable blank slates. Though these theories may not intellectually fashionable, Pinker makes it clear that there are a wealth of benefits to be gained by accepting what science has to tell us about the true origins of human nature.
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A wonderful book. Just a smidgen shy of the almost impossible five stars for me.

Here we are given a detailed and yet enjoyable tour of the various theories of the human mind. Are we born a blank slate, do noble savages exist and is there a ghost in your machine.

We are given a history of the various explanations and how they have been used and abused over the centuries. Just how much this question has been the subject of religious and political intrigue, flag waving and prejudice is pretty mind boggling.

Pinker takes us through the traditional objections to the apparent facts, why people don't like them and why. Not understanding the theories of the mind seems to lead to many unfounded fears which in turn leads many genuine people to nail their colours to irrational masts.

Ultimately we are given and uplifting view of the scientific thinking and of how it can be life affirming and supportive of moves to widen equality and a caring society.

Clearly written for the lay person. If you have a brain then read this book, it will help you to you yourself a little bit better - and you can't really get a better recommendation for a book than that. ( )