IT'S GETTING HARDER TO SEE HUMANS AS BLANK SLATES

Saturday, June 28, 2003

Most professors writing books about exciting new research in their fields choose a title reflecting the results of the research. Steven Pinker, professor of brain and cognitive science at MIT, instead named his book for the old theory being displaced by the new results.

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature explores why it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain that the human slate is blank, ``that the human mind has no inherent structure and can be inscribed at will by society or ourselves,'' as Pinker describes it.

``That theory of human nature -- namely, that it barely exists'' is, Pinker says, ``the secular religion of modern intellectual life.''

The theory of the blank slate dates back roughly to John Locke (writing in 1690), but it burst into full totalitarian flavor only in the 20th century. Why totalitarian? If human beings can be molded and formed into better creatures than they commonly are, it is incumbent on the people who understand that to get on with the molding and forming. (Thomas Sowell calls these people ``the anointed `` -- self-anointed, that is.) And those who resist are obstructing progress, so the anointed are fully justified in using coercion to bring them into line.

Two additional principles bolster the theory of the blank slate. One is ``the noble savage,'' associated with Jean-Jacques Rousseau writing in 1755 (though the phrase is earlier), the idea that without the pernicious trappings of civilization, human beings would live in a gentle idyll.

The other, ``the ghost in the machine,'' is a later philosopher's description of Rene Descartes' view, dating from around 1640, that the mind and the body are not only separate things but entirely different kinds of things.

OK, that's all the Philosophy 101 we'll be doing. But the point is that these ideas have been around so long that people scarcely perceive them, and yet they influence everyday decisions in very striking ways.

Obviously, babies are born uncivilized, in the sense that they have virtually no information about the civilization and culture in which they will live. Is it your responsibility as a parent to let them blossom unconstrained into the fine and noble people they naturally are unless the world corrupts them? Or is it to train them in self-discipline and virtue that does not come naturally, but must be learned and practiced?

I incline toward the latter view, though I can't say I was very good at it as a parent, but the choice is artificial. In his chapter on children, Pinker sums up what are called the ``three laws'' of behavioral genetics:

* First: All human behavioral traits are heritable. That doesn't mean content-specific knowledge such as whether you grow up speaking Japanese or Swahili. But the five major axes along which psychologists commonly measure how personalities vary -- Pinker lists them as openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion/introversion, antagonism/agreeableness, and neuroticism -- are all substantially influenced by genes.

Are children like their parents because they share part of their genome, or because of the way they're brought up? Both.

Generally speaking, Pinker says, ``about half of the variation in intelligence, personality and life outcomes is heritable.'' That means variation within groups, by the way, not between them. And for some traits, such as intelligence, heritability increases over time. ``Forget 'As the twig is bent,' '' Pinker writes, ``think 'Omigod, I'm turning into my parents!' ''

* Second: The effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effect of the genes.

* Third: A substantial portion of the variation in complex human behavioral traits is not accounted for by the effects of genes or families.

This is nothing like ``genetic determinism.'' Identical twins, even when raised apart, are strikingly similar, if you are looking for similarities. But identical twins, even when raised together, are also unlike in many ways, if you are looking for differences.

People are appalled, Pinker notes, by the idea that parents will use genetic engineering to design their children. ``But how different is that,'' he asks, `` from the fantasy that parents can design their children by how they bring them up?''

Of course it matters how parents treat their children (and vice versa); it may just not matter quite in the way that we're used to expecting.

But it also matters who else is in the child's society -- ``peer group,'' Pinker observes, ``is a patronizing term we use in connection with children'' while adults refer to the members of their own peer group as friends and colleagues.

``It is children, above all, who are alleged to be blank slates,'' Pinker says at the end of this chapter, ``and that can make us forget they are people.''

The Blank Slate suggests we ought to rethink many things we've long thought we knew.