Rating: 
Summary: Required Reading
Review: I found Pinker's previous books (The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works) to be too closely linked to Chomskian views on language, so I was prepared to dislike The Blank Slate a great deal. Imagine my surpise, then, when I discovered a book that is not only amazingly readable but remarkably researched. Pinker uses the debate over whether humans are influenced primarily by nature or by nuture to tackle the most important questions facing us today: Why are humans prone to violence? Is reality simply a social construct? Are gender roles socially determined? Why is intelligence, like height and hair color, largely hereditary? Why has liberalism become obsolete? The answers will astonish many people and anger many others who cannot move beyond their wishful thinking about the human condition. Are there some problems in Pinker's analysis? Yes. His discussion of connectionism, for example, seems sadly uninformed, sometimes even confused. However, overall, this book is insightful and well written. It should be required reading for everyone over the age of 15.
Rating: 
Summary: Families and children
Review: On the whole, I thought the "Blank Slate" was a thought- provoking and lively book on human nature. I disagree with Mr. Pinker, however, on his argument that parents are not central to their children's development. It is true, as he states, that the general personality and intelligence of children are determined by their genes. But, even though nature gives children the "chess pieces" they will have in life, it is parents who must teach their children how to play the game. Biological parents are most effective at nurturing their own offspring because parents share their children's traits and have learned the coping strategies that best exploit family talents. Extended families -- grandparents, uncles, fathers, mothers-- develop unique family cultures that provide a rich source of advice and understanding for new members, who after all, are "chips off the old block."
Rating: 
Summary: Actually pretty one-sided
Review: Pinker's other books have established him as a great popularizer of generative linguistics and evolutionary psychology. This certainly does a valuable service to the general reader, as most that's written in these fields is incomprehensible to the average layman (for examples see any Chomsky linguistics books). However, Pinker consistently, especially in this book, misrepresents the "blank-slaters" as they are called here. Most of this book is devoted to a ferocious attack on social science ideas that are fairly dead in the university: Sapir and Whorf, Cartesian Dualism, etc. This is accompanied by a clear misrepresentation of the "plasticity" and "connectionist" work that's been done in recent years at the west coast universities he's so keen to attack. Recent research on ways in which the brain responds (by changing physically and chemically) to differing environments is almost totally ignored in this book. See Quartz and Sejnowski (2002) for a very interesting alternative view of the brain (not perfect either unfortunately). Surely, Pinker is partly right: human beings have a nature, and that nature clearly includes differences between the sexes, a propensity to violence, and competition for social status. This makes perfect evolutionary sense and fits what we know about other animals as well. We get this evidence from not just psychology but from history and our own lives. Nonetheless, the picture isn't nearly as complete, nor is the science nearly as settled, as Pinker claims. If you buy this, don't make it your only book on the subject. Read Damasio or Tomassello as well.
Rating:
Summary: Thanks, Steve.
Review: I adored this book, but this review for myself. How valuable it may be for others is especially difficult to tell in this case; it strongly depends on how much you care one way or the other, what are your present beliefs, and how patient you are (this is not an easy reading, for the most part). But consider this: Steven Pinker seem to have read them all. Not only those you've read yourself and glad you did, and those you would want to read. He read all the vicious, all the nudniks, all those who have nothing to say but still claim they do and write sophisticated, unintelligible books. He read the very abstract ones, the ones that are written in difficult language, the ones that are hard to find. And he gives you the essence of it, with the strongest arguments I've encountered. I adore his deepness and grateful for doing or us all what I consider to be very exhausting and sometimes down right a dirty job.
Rating:
Summary: Human Nature Makes a Comeback
Review: The Blank Slate deserves all the praise it has received. Steven Pinker presents an extremely eloquent, well reasoned, comprehensive and entertaining renunciation of the holy trinity of social science - the blank slate, noble savage, and ghost in the machine; ideologies that have created serious obstacles to the application of modern scientific research in genetics, biology and psychology to a better understanding of who we really are.The more widely this book is read, the sooner we can increase the effectiveness with which we understand and tackle real personal and social problems from a fact-based and positive perspective of human nature. The book is academically very strong and the arguments are well presented and convincing, so much so that this book will doubtless receive future credit for putting the study of human nature back onto the social science agenda. Steven Pinker may surprise you, perhaps provoke you but he will definitely educate you, entertain you and leave you thinking about human nature in a very new way.
Rating:
Summary: Not What I Expected
Review: As I read the first part of The Blank Slate, I thought to myself repeatedly, "This is OK, but it's pretty fluffy." When the first part ended, I found myself begging for the earlier "fluff." I eventually realized that Pinker didn't intend for his book to be informative or ground breaking; it was just supposed to be enlightening and challenging for individuals who aren't aware of what science has been discovering for the past half century. This is not to say that Pinker's book is pointless. There's obviously a disconnect between science and public opinion in the area of human nature, which Pinker points out was caused by intellectuals and idealists early in the 20th century and perpetuated by the media. So Pinker's book is very good at bridging that gap between what the scientists know and what most ordinary people know - the issues Pinker discusses are issues which should be available to everyone, so on the one hand I want to recommend this book. But on the other hand, The Blank Slate just strikes me as watered down. I notice that another reviewer said Pinker "takes no prisoners," but his book is actually rather weak in its positions. Pinker spends a lot of time whacking confused Marxists and religious extremists but not very much time developing the hereditarian position, except to say "Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as human nature." Pinker's book is in many ways ideololgically unadventurous and informationally aenemic. For instance, while he does give us a chapter on gender differences, he spends most of his time talking about feminism, rape, and gender roles, without exploring topics like the fact that women see color better than men. And as far as ideology goes, Pinker predictably bashes popular scapegoats like Communism and Nazism, while at the same time attacking eugenics without even discussing why he thinks it's so awful. If you understand what Pinker is saying - that human traits are, to a certain extent, transmissable through heredity - you'll have to wonder why he summarily dismisses eugenics as bad. I think everyone can agree that involuntary sterelization is unethical, but does Pinker actually believe it would be a terrible sin for all the healthy, intelligent people to try to have more children for the purpose of improving humankind? He doesn't seem to have given any thought to the subject. Also, Pinker doesn't talk about the fact that evolution is an ongoing process - humanity is still evolving. Tall men have higher fertility rates than short men, and height is as much as 90% genetic. Are we going to get taller? Criminals have more children than non criminals, and criminality also has a hereditary component. Are we going to see an increase in criminality? The answer, in these two cases, is "probably yes," but Pinker gives me the impression that he's not aware of (or not interested in) where we are headed genetically. So I recommend this book for anyone new to the subject of human nature; The Blank Slate introduces concepts everybody should know about. But I myself lost interest in the book before getting all the way through, and think that readers who are already well versed on the issue of human nature will probably also find The Blank Slate disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: Upsetting but mind opening book
Review: This is not a book for those who are comfortable with their view of life and human nature. It will confront your most basic beliefs about human nature with very well presented arguments. If you use deductive reasoning, you will find your most basic premises challenged by this great book. Like the definitions of human freedom, human nature does not lead to simple definitions. It is a matter of understanding and education with no absolute boundaries. Steven Pinker makes this point clear but some of the reviewers assumes this book presents the argument that a person's nature is all predetermined - it does not and in fact refutes that premise. It also rejects with facts the premise that a person's environment determines their nature. This magnificent book can be upsetting but if read in context, it will lead the reader to a better understanding of human nature and our world. Thank you Steven Pinker for a true gift.
Rating:
Summary: Read this!
Review: Pinker instills in the reader from point one his misnomer that this IS NOT another book about whether nature or nurture is the greater force in the determination of human behavior and thought. Indeed, we all agree in principle that both are prominent and undeniable factors. However, Pinker shows that, despite this, the lag of such archaic ideas as a ghost in the machine (Descartes soul/body distinction), the myth of the noble savage, and the infamous blank slate of the behaviorists are still powerful forces in the political and ideological circles of our culture. But Pinker doesn't just debunk this academic hangover--he tells us why an understanding of how the mind really works (pardon the covert citation to his other wonderful book) is a necessity in building a culture that can be content and educated without contradiction. Strong and lucid arguments about why gender differences in brain function (and they do exist in the population) do NOT justify discrimination and why the political right should cease its obsolete goal to make quick, top-down change are the highlights of this book's practicality. If you don't like the science, skip right to the real-world application, but understanding the science that Pinker's philosophy is founded on is essential if you really want to have a solid concilience of understanding. This is not intrinsically a book about evolutionary psychology. It is about what we know about human nature and why that should determine how we construct our economics, morals, and politics (indeed, the founding fathers of America made a lucky guess). The fact that evolutionary psychology comes up quite often is a testament to its increasing utility in a science that is now becoming something other than random research with no real underlying rubric to follow.
Rating:
Summary: More warship than debate
Review: This is a reasonable and impressively documented, deep yet colorful discussion of nature vs. nurture, making convincing points against nurture extremists. It's a breath of fresh air in a modern world where thinkers are more worried about belonging to the elite of intellectuals (so they reject common sense because too obvious) rather than using their acumen to understand.
However, the simple reader may find somewhat disturbing the animosity of the nature/nurture confrontation, which resembles more to warship than to a scholarly debate (I'm not saying sociobiologists should avoid fighting back, I just find this situation unfortunate). One result is that the opponents become defensive, spending more time stressing what they didn't say than saying what they think, and treating awkwardly certain arguments in order not to give ammunition to the enemy. One example is the thorny question of the "black-white IQ tests". Pinker starts saying (p. 142) that "human nature does not mean that the differences among individuals, races, or sexes, are also in our nature". Then he admits that "each person is genetically unique", but the differences are "random mutations" which, being random, converge presumably to the same average in large groups, such as the totality of black or white persons. So the differences "are found to a far greater extent among the individual members of an ethnic group or race than between ethnic groups or races". But then he remembers, p. 144, that genetic traits are not random but inherited, and that "Europeans, having mostly bred with other Europeans for millennia, are on average more closely related to other Europeans than to Africans" so that "races are still discernible" and "some of the varying genes could affect personality or intelligence". But this is not really important, he concludes p. 145, since our morality "condemns judging an individual according to the average traits of certain groups". Great. Now, why not saying this to start with, and then searching for truth? One problem may be the objectionable choice of the parameter, intelligence, which is perceived as an index of superiority rather than specificity, and which does not appear to be a direct consequence of genes. More directly genetic are certain personality traits (as stated p. 50 or pp. 374-5) such as introversion, neuroticism or conscientiousness. Now, if it was observed, say, that Central Europeans are on the average more introverted, neurotic, and pessimistic than Central Africans, one could look for possible causes. One might say, for example, that because of the hardship of european winters only the most anxious and thus forward-thinking individuals could survive in Paleolithic Europe. While in central Africa, because of the abundance of fruits and wild game all year around, the evolutionary advantage may have been related less to survival and more to sexual choice. Which might have favored individual characters such as exuberance, in the same way that male birds are selected according to the splendor of their feathers or the charm of their singing. And finally, one could observe that a typical Polish American, being more introverted and less easy-going than the average African American, is normally quieter, more conscientious, and less promiscuous, thus faring better at school. And for similar reasons he's more used to musing and thinking, analyzing and rationalizing, so he's better in IQ tests. Which may not be exactly the same as saying he's more intelligent, as EI (emotional intelligence) tenants stress. But, as Pinker says p. 149, "Academics are obsessed with intelligence". Perhaps because they love talking about intelligence, of which they are proud, rather than about introversion, of which they are not.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, Excellent Book
Review: There are some books that you read in a rush. There are other books that are like eating chocolates. You enjoy every bite, but you know with every bite you are getting closer to the end and when you get to the end it's the end. That is how I felt about this book. It turned into a real page-turner for me because I kept getting drawn into the book. With every page I knew I was getting to the end. I started reading this book because I wanted to learn more of the cognitive sciences. I did learn a great deal. There were, however, many other lessons that I picked up along the way. The most important is that our children are not lumps of clay waiting to be made into something. Our children are our children and we need to focus more on the experience of parenting them. When I finished this book I spent the evening at the movies with my son. I think this is the most important lesson I have learned from the book. As a Christian, I found this book challenged my faith. I do not mean that as a bad thing in any way. The book raised important questions that we as Christians need to ask ourselves. I am not sure if I have any answers to the questions this book raises, but I am glad that it has forced me to think more deeply about my beliefs. Also, I enjoy a book that pulls in things from many different disciplines. You have to love a book that quotes Hobbes, Vonnnegut, and Orwell. This book is well worth whatever investment you might make in the time and money to read it. I would strongly recommend this book.
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