STEVEN PINKER and THE BLANK SLATE

In his book The Blank Slate, Harvard Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, Steven Pinker argues against the concept that all humans are born innately equal. His work has faced severe criticism, not the least because many social scientists fear that dogmas challenging concepts of equality may eventually shift the emphasis from environment to innate ability before the playing field is leveled.

Perhaps critics have been over reacting!

As an Editor of The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004, this is what Pinker had to say in his Introduction to the Volume.

"In anticipating a steady turning of science to the mind and its products I am thinking not just of fancy technologies but of an extension to human affairs of the scientific mindset itself. This does not mean reducing the human condition to genes or neurons or primate behavior but rather seeking to ascertain whether a claim about human affairs is consistent with the facts and with everything else we know about how the world works."

Isn't to "know how the world works" all about the environment and its role. Albeit in a roundabout way!

Here is Pinker on Colbert Report.