Excellent so far, so much of our policy and thinking is based on the three errors of:
- The blank slate
The ghost in machine
The noble savage
These errors have sent (western) human society way off course and have resulted in great harm.
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Equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group.
Asta666 wrote:I liked it very much too, it also led me to a lot of studies I wasn't aware of, but I think too often he argues against strawmans . Also I think his own ideas as expressed in other books still imply the ghost in the machine premise, although more like a skynet type of ghost .
scott1328 wrote:Asta666 wrote:I liked it very much too, it also led me to a lot of studies I wasn't aware of, but I think too often he argues against strawmans . Also I think his own ideas as expressed in other books still imply the ghost in the machine premise, although more like a skynet type of ghost .
I agree. It would be difficult indeed to find actual proponents now-a-days of the Ghost in the Machine, Noble Savage, and Blank Slate among secular scientists.
However relics of "blank slate" kind of thinking are still discernible every time parents are blamed for the poor outcomes of their children.
Imza wrote:
Oh and parents are for a large extent responsible for their children's outcomes
romansh wrote:So you will be able to cite "twin" studies separated at birth showing your position?
NoFreeWill wrote:
Because twins studies control the genotype as a variable.
If both twins end up schizophrenic regardless of how they are brought up then we can say that schizophrenia is caused by the genes.
Imza wrote:romansh wrote:So you will be able to cite "twin" studies separated at birth showing your position?
Why only twin studies? Twin studies are valuable but certainly not the only methodology used in the field. Relying on them exclusively will naturally lead to error as any one research methodology does not make a scientific enterprise. One of the key flaws of twin studies being that the separate and different environments for twins separated at birth tend not to be very different (same country, same social class, same race, etc...). I don't have the time to go through every study of this but Robert Sapolsky does a great job of distilling all the key features of twin studies and how to be wary of making too strong conclusions from them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0WZx7lUOrY
NoFreeWill wrote:If both twins end up schizophrenic regardless of how they are brought up then we can say that schizophrenia is caused by the genes.
Imza wrote:As for "relics" of blank slate, I don't think many people ever held that view in psychology. Not even someone as radical as John Watson held a blank state view, despite the often cited quote from him regarding turning any child into whatever he wants (the quote is out of context, the next sentence he clarifies that he is exaggerating). Off course Pinker is intellectually lazy and portrays people like Skinner, who held a very high regard for genetic influence in human behavior, as being a blank slate proponent.
Animavore wrote:For the record: the conclusion I remember from the book was that we're a mix of nature and nurture.
Beatsong wrote:Imza wrote:romansh wrote:So you will be able to cite "twin" studies separated at birth showing your position?
Why only twin studies? Twin studies are valuable but certainly not the only methodology used in the field. Relying on them exclusively will naturally lead to error as any one research methodology does not make a scientific enterprise. One of the key flaws of twin studies being that the separate and different environments for twins separated at birth tend not to be very different (same country, same social class, same race, etc...). I don't have the time to go through every study of this but Robert Sapolsky does a great job of distilling all the key features of twin studies and how to be wary of making too strong conclusions from them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0WZx7lUOrY
I suspect you're being generous. Some of the methodology behind twin and adoption studies that lead to the conclusions of people like Pinker is so faulty it's ludicrous. The Gene Illusion by Jay Joseph is another good exploration of some of the problems involved.
Beatsong wrote:Animavore wrote:For the record: the conclusion I remember from the book was that we're a mix of nature and nurture.
What's the point of the book then, given that that's about as contraversial as claiming that dogs bark. Why didn't he then entitle the book, "THE ONLY PARTLY FILLED-IN SLATE"?
The argument running through the book is basically a deconstruction what Pinker describes as "blank slate" mentality in the likes of Gould, Lewontin, even Skinner as Imza described above. That argument is largely a mixture of strawman-fighting (since none of those people actually believed in a blank slate anyway - they just believed in the far more reasonable proposition that any claims about genetic causes for human traits require actual, scientifically robust evidence before being accepted) and misrepresentation (since it relies on highly dubious and biased twin and adoption studies, and incorrect application of concepts like heritability).
The "oh well it's all a mixture after all" is just a cop-out after the fact to accommodate the weakness of his position.
Animavore wrote:The whole point is that we have innate traits which are uncoupled from learning or background. But background still affects us.
I see no controversy in that.
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