Talk:The Blank Slate

Why is the summary of the book only one sentence long, while the feminist critique gets a whole paragraph?

Good point I think. This article as it stands is but evidence that Pinker may be right when he claims the questions addressed in his book are rarely discussed openly, without feminist bias. (Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to add more details about his book but perhaps someone else can...) -Abaris

The book has problems, you can read the reviews on amazon.com and the Skeptic magazine's critique and then add to this article based on what you read there. What one editor has already removed that I wrote here is that people with free will can choose not to do the things the statistics for their group suggest they are likely to do. The feminist's critique is gone now -- I personally know intellectual women and left it alone after it was added as it was an inoffensive personal appraisal of the position stated in the book, and also to see how the article would grow without further input from me (I started this article not so long ago.) You might consider looking at the history of the article to see how it "evolved"... However, I don't think wikipedia should link to blogs either, I didn't want to be the one to remove a dissenting opinion. I enjoyed reading the book, mind you. Jok2000 02:13, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No! You can't put a summary of Amazon or Skeptic Magazine's user comments into an encyclopedia! That's essentially hearsay. The integrity of the word encyclopedia demands more than that.

Further, the book itself makes it very clear that statistical correlations describing social groups are rough predictions, and that there are many exceptions to any model that can be drawn based on the stats.

I removed the feminist criticism because unattributed opinion is even worse than opinion from an unworthy source. If the opinion of that one feminist weblogger is to be included in this article, the reader should be made aware where it comes from. If someone wants to reinsert the feminist criticism with proper attribution to the specific source, I have no objections. I personally feel the article is better without it for now, but I have no strong opinion on whether blog entries should be cited in Wikipedia and won't bother reverting over it. -- Schaefer 02:23, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Confused by the word "conservative"

I'm confused by the word "conservative" in this sentence:

Reviews of the book have been mixed. Steven Johnson praised the book in a review in The Nation, arguing that Pinker's Darwinian theory of the mind is not intrinsically conservative.

Does this mean "not intrinsically politically conservative"? Considering the quote is from The Nation, I think this must be so. But The Blank Slate is not really a political theory at all. Of all the possible reviews one could cite, it seems to me strange to site a politically-based review. If one is going to have several sections of the article, one entitled "Political Consequences" or something, it would make sense. But in a stub like this it seems like one should provide a review based upon the scientific basis of Pinker's argument.

In response to Jok2000's comment: "What one editor has already removed that I wrote here is that people with free will can choose not to do the things the statistics for their group suggest they are likely to do" - I can see why it was removed. "People with free will" is a loaded term. And as for that people can behave different from the "statistics for their group", I'm not too sure what that means either. What is "my group" or anyone's group? Assuming a group is defined and agreed upon (sex is a pretty clear grouping), the comment doesn't reveal anything. Statistics, by definition, are summary numbers that are not meant to stand in for individual values in a distribution. And if this was a criticism of Pinker, Pinker acknowledges this clearly in the book.

SJS1971 23:45, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The book is politically conservative, at least in some ways. It's ostensibly scientific (only), but makes assertions about human nature and behavior that lend much weight to conservative political theory and policy. It's impossible to divorce the content of the book from at least some of its political implications. For example: if decision-making in humans is a computational process of evaluating data, assessing what society will think and other consequences, then taking action, swift and sure punishment for wrong-doing is a necessary tool of society's to influence peoples' decisions. There are many claims that pull leftward instead of right, but much of the book is filled with descriptions of the human mind interacting with society, and with policy implications.

Book reviews

The book reviews used in writing the "Reception" section with a few exceptions are taken from the selection of quotes on Stephen Pinker's web page. That is inappropriate. Many reviews of this book have appeared in the academic literature; there are also reviews by academics in the popular press. Here is a preliminary partial list of book reviews that I found, which indicates a mixed reception, from positive to scathing.

• [1] Schlinger (Behavior and Social Issues)
• [2] Ludvig (Behavior)
• [3] Schlinger (Skeptic)
• [4] Richards (NYT)
• [5] John Dupré (American Scientist)
• [6] Hocutt (Consciousness and Emotion)
• [7] Stenmark (Zygon)
• [8] Fernyhough (Scotsman on Sunday)
• [9] Weidman (Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences) [10]
• [11] Rauschecker (Nature Medicine)
• [12] Pikotti (Metapsychology)

Mathsci (talk) 04:28, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for those, although I don't see two out of six as being "many" or "with few exceptions". More baffled by your templating that the quotes were "previously collated by an advocacy or lobbying group" - any evidence for that? A.B.C.Hawkes (talk) 06:40, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree. Also added some critical views. A very large number of views could be added from both sides regarding a notable book but a sampling is enough.Miradre (talk) 12:45, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

• Miradre copy-pasted more than two quotes form Pinker's page bt, where she could locate the original review, she substituted that. The advocacy or lobbying group refers to the web page of Stephen Pinker containing a list of accolades from which Miradre has copy-pasted the comments. Pinker's page was written to advertise and sell the book, with selective quotes. When a book review is five or more pages in length, it is inappropriate to summarise it be pickng out one sentence. Miradre's copy-pasted material did precisely that. Sourcing "reception" to a web page of Pinker was unhelpful and silly. Mathsci (talk) 05:13, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Miradre's attempts to summarise long review articles has been hopelessly inadequate as was the categorisation of critics. Mathsci (talk) 05:23, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I understand the reasoning but doubt that it makes sense to call Pinker's personal web page "an advocacy or lobbying group". By the way, probably best to comment on content, not on the contributor here. A.B.C.Hawkes (talk) 06:23, 29 July 2011 (UTC)