Once new scientific discoveries about human nature are available, it is easy to provoke a strong political reaction. Since then, the taboo on human nature made it particularly courageous to study the science of human nature. John Watson, the founder of behaviorism, once made a famous argument about the Blank Slate, saying: “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in, and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select - doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes, even a beggar or thief, regardless of his talents.” Franz Boas, the father of modern anthropology, also argued that: “unless the contrary can be proved, we must assume that all complex activities are socially determined, not hereditary.” His student Kroeber further asserted that “Heredity cannot be allowed to have acted any part in history.” He denied not only that innate properties of minds could explain social behavior, but also the existence of a human nature. It has even become the secular belief of contemporary intellectuals. This theory on human nature, shared with the title of this book, holds that there is almost no innately human characteristics. After the war, with the decline of Social Darwinism, the doctrine of the Blank Slate was established in the intellectual community in the form of standard social science and social constructivism. Later, under the banner and rationale of Social Darwinism and eugenics, the Nazis masked their atrocities as social manifestations of natural law, and committed crimes too numerous to record.Ĭontaminated by the Nazis, the topic of “innate differences among people” has obvious political implications, which has gradually become sensitive topic over the years.

Herbert Spencer, a self-styled follower of Darwin, mistakenly transferred the theory of evolution into the field of sociology. There was a time when racial prejudice roamed the world in the guise of science.

Today we’ll unlock the book “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature” by Steven Pinker.

Steven pinker's book the blank slate