The Blank Blank Slate
Ashley Montague an anthropologist from 1940’s-50’s, was another contributor to the nurture side of the debate, his view is a lot more mitigated and reasonable. As a socialist, he was an avid believer in the freedom of human rights, believing that the myth of races being unequal was completely untrue and wrong. He didn’t focus as much on the idea of personality but more behaviours such as aggression and anger, which links to psychopathy as they are key traits correlating to being a psychopath, and it’s interesting to understand the way in which a person may become aggressive. He was interested in the way in which the environment affects people and suggested that aggression is caused by the environment and described our world as a ‘highly
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Pinker published a book titled The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature in 2002 disputing about the debate believing that human nature is molded by ‘evolutionary psychology adaptations’. Pinker's views tend to be science- oriented, the predominance of the book entails him arguing that modern science has challenged the so-called ‘three dogmas’ of the creation of human nature. The beliefs that he professes are being questioned include; the blank slate view, as discussed before, a view created by purist John Locke in the 18th century, one of which is outdated compared to the advancements within society and science. Another ideology being challenged is named ‘noble savage’ and it constitutes of the ideology that society corrupts people who are born perfectly good and innocent. This particular dogma can be supported up by previously mentioned contributor Ashley Montague as he stated aggression is caused by people growing up in a ‘highly competitive, threatening world’ similar to the ‘noble savage’ idea that it is indeed society that changes an individual. The final teaching he believes is currently being dispelled by modern science ‘the ghost in the machine’ in which biology has no impact on the choices we make, and instead it is undoubtedly the soul that controls our choices made in life. Criticisms of Pinker's book however described the scientific language he was using as ‘soft science’ and many behaviourists believed that he didn’t express the true definition of behaviorism within his
Pinker published a book titled The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature in 2002 disputing about the debate believing that human nature is molded by ‘evolutionary psychology adaptations’. Pinker's views tend to be science- oriented, the predominance of the book entails him arguing that modern science has challenged the so-called ‘three dogmas’ of the creation of human nature. The beliefs that he professes are being questioned include; the blank slate view, as discussed before, a view created by purist John Locke in the 18th century, one of which is outdated compared to the advancements within society and science. Another ideology being challenged is named ‘noble savage’ and it constitutes of the ideology that society corrupts people who are born perfectly good and innocent. This particular dogma can be supported up by previously mentioned contributor Ashley Montague as he stated aggression is caused by people growing up in a ‘highly competitive, threatening world’ similar to the ‘noble savage’ idea that it is indeed society that changes an individual. The final teaching he believes is currently being dispelled by modern science ‘the ghost in the machine’ in which biology has no impact on the choices we make, and instead it is undoubtedly the soul that controls our choices made in life. Criticisms of Pinker's book however described the scientific language he was using as ‘soft science’ and many behaviourists believed that he didn’t express the true definition of behaviorism within his