I was in a dilemma this morning. I was just coming up to the last chapter of Mr Steven Pinker’s seminal work, Blank Slate, and reckoned I needed another 20 minutes to finish it. Unfortunately, my usual Tube journey takes me about 15 minutes. So what to do? Ha ha, I thought, I’ll take the Circle Line instead. This is always full of delays.
But then a Circle Line train pulled up almost immediately, full of empty seats, and raring to go. Foiled! I thought, once again, by a socialised transport system which even fails to be late when that’s what you require. So, resigned to getting to my client’s office on time, I set about the last chapter. However, I was not to be disappointed.
For there was a delay getting into Edgeware Road station! Oh, yes. And then another 5-minute catharsis before leaving Kings Cross. Excellent. Just to add some large fat cherries to the pie, the driver came on:
“Sorry about this, but this train has now failed. We will only be calling at Farringdon Road station, the Barbican, and Moorgate, where this train will terminate. Any passengers wishing to travel further around the Circle Line must change at Moorgate.”
Fantastic.
There were a few feeble masochistic groans, even though we stiff-upper-lip Tube rats are used to this sort of thing as a daily occurrence, but what was really good was that I managed to finish the Blank Slate and still whip out the next Pinker book in the sequence, How the Mind Works, before the train came to a rattling crunching halt at salubrious Farringdon. Tremendous.
So what about the book then, the Blank Slate? I won’t describe it too much, though you may want to read Mr Micklethwait’s thoughts on the matter, particularly his critique on the Arts chapter. I will say, though, that I think it is essential reading for any individual who professes to be an intellectual of any persuasion, whether of the pink, the blue, or the free thinking variety. You must especially read the chapters on Politics, the Arts, and Pinker’s summation at the end where he compares the central tenets of collectivism with the blank slate ideas of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.
I still, however, don’t know exactly where Mr Pinker stands, in a political sense, from this work. He seems to know his Hayeks from his Adam Smiths though, even including one or two Randian asides in the text, but inside the Politics chapter he seems to stick to the typical two dimensional Left-Right axis, which he describes as the Utopian-Tragic axis (in the sense that Utopians would like the human mind to be infinitely malleable, whereas Tragicians accept that there is such a thing as human nature, for good or ill). This political fence-sitting may be something to do with his reliance on state funding, and his situation within the Big Education system, with its natural bias towards support for the state. A man’s gotta eat, and perhaps he shouldn’t bite too hard on the hand which feeds him. I only hope he grows wealthy enough from splendid publications like this to say what he really thinks, if he is restraining himself, consciously or otherwise.
There is this one tiny clue though, visible only under microscopic examination by a million-dollar scanning electron device, or the intense biased eye of a semi-rabid libertarian. It’s this single line at the bottom of page 293:
My own view is that the new sciences of human nature really do vindicate some version of the Tragic Vision and undermine the Utopian outlook that until recently dominated large sections of intellectual life.
And that’s it. That’s the only point where he nails his colours to the mast. Everything else is hedged and couched in a near-invincible attempt to remain flame-proof. But the book is all the better for it. However, don’t read any more of this blurb. Just go out and buy the book. Today. Right now. Immediately. It’s the best £7-99 you’ll spend this year.
Pinker is a liberal who would like to break ranks. He knows Boasian thought has been shot to pieces by Arthur Jensen, Murray & Hernnstein, Rushton, Lynne & Vanhanen t alia. But, golly, it’s tough to get it out of him in plain language. Andy, my advice is not to get carried away with Pinker. In the scientific community he is regarded as a non-scientist. Take the next tube for sociobiology, maybe evopsyche, too. That’s where the action is (that and over at Gene Expression).
Good luck on your journey.
The realignment of political parties is precisely what we need. The democrats are a dying party and like the Federalists and Whigs before them, they need to die so that a new paradigm can be implemented. Personally I would support the Libertarians on the right and the Greens on the Left. The emphasis being shifted then, from smaller or larger government (which would remain in tact) to personal and fiscal liberty vs. environmental responsibility and special interest watchdogs. The balance between the two (IMO) would be preferable to the corporate liberals vs. the working class liberals or the Social Democracy vs. the Pyramid Schemers.
re Pinker:
Guessedworker, once again, is spot on.
Here is an extract from a contribution on ‘The Blank Slate’ which I posted to the European Commission’s ‘Intranet’ forum in a debate on ‘race and IQ’ – initially triggered by a posting I wrote promoting Lynn and Vanhanen’s ‘IQ and the Wealth of Nations’ as must-read for my colleagues. Unfortunately, I can’t simply refer readers to the website, because it’s internal and supposed to be ‘confidential’. (I work at the European Commission, BTW):
“Pinker plays quite the cute hoor on the thorny racial issue – admitting, on page 143, that ‘genetic differences between races and ethnic groups … are not nonexistent’ but then going on to state (on page 144) that, as regards the black-white IQ gap in the United States, ‘the current evidence does not call for a genetic explanation’. Strictly speaking that is beside the point, because the black-white IQ gap is just one of many gaps. Even if it is eventually proven to be totally environmental in origin that doesn’t disprove that there may be a heredity factor in other racial IQ gaps. The Jewish-Gentile IQ gap in the US is just as large as the black-white gap (one standard deviation). What kind of explanation does that call for, if not a genetic one? After all, the Jews didn’t enslave the Gentiles, so there’s no ‘legacy of slavery’ to account for that particular distinction. But Pinker diplomatically keeps his mouth shut – clearly wanting to have it both ways: to admit sotto voce that genetically driven racial differences in IQ exist while at the same time remaining Mr Nice Guy from the liberal perspective by saying that, even if they exist, they are ‘not very important’. Not very important? Jews and Asians make up approximately 5% of the US population. Yet they account for something like 40% of Ivy League graduates. Does anybody seriously believe that their ‘overrepresentation’ by a factor of 8 in the country’s leading universities is mainly due to environmental causes? If it isn’t due to environmental causes, it’s due to genetic ones. And a genetically-driven intellectual ‘overrepresentation’ of this magnitude is very important by any standards. But these are the kind of questions the nice Dr Pinker doesn’t ask and doesn’t answer.
If you want to eat your cake and have it too, Pinker’s the man to read. ‘The Blank Slate’ is a nice book for nice people, written in the engaging style of ‘Reader’s Digest’ literature and targeted at educated gentlefolk. But it is hardly a contribution to knowledge. I think you can now buy it at airport lounges.”
Instead of reading Pinkeriana, why not try spicier stuff, such as J. Philippe Rushton’s ‘Race, Evolution and Behaviour’ (http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/reb.html) or Richard Lynn’s ‘IQ and the Wealth of Nations (http://rlynn.co.uk/) or Michael Levin’s ‘Why Race Matters’ or Charles Murray’s ‘The Bell Curve’ or Stephen Goldberg’s ‘Why Men Rule’ (http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/People/Goldberg/SELIG.html)?
Have a nice trip anyway!
Charles
“I still, however, don’t know exactly where Mr Pinker stands, in a political sense, from this work.”
Andy, Pinker is a liberal in the same sense that Bjorn Lomborg is an environmentalist: both first and foremost are scientists and, as painful it may be for them to adjust their ideology to the truth, they do accept empirical evidence of the real world. And if the evidence contradicts a hypothesis, than hypothesis must be revised. This kind of thinking (known as a scientific method) is very unpopular today in scientific community when dealing with issues touching on social and political. (People studying microbes can afford to be real scientist; people studying environment or human behavior have bigger fish to fry than the mere Truth.)
Sure, Pinker has lots and lots of enemies in the scientific world who would love to label him “non-scientist”, but as far as I can judge his work is sound.
If you want to read a broad review of current concept of evolution and its treatment within the scientific world read Daniel Dennett’s “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”. It’s well written and well worth the time. Dennett has a chapter there about Pinker and his ideas on language.
Pinker’s book contradicts many of the sociological fallacies of the past 50 years. In fact, it may be one of the few places where most educated people are apt to receive a small bit of sociological enlightenment these days.
For that reason alone, The Blank Slate is a book well worth promoting.
Hi Charles,
I’m partially Jewish, partially Irish, partially Scottish, partially Geordie (North East Englander), partially Norwegian, and partially Russian (though the Russian bit may be a bit Ukrainian). I’m sure the Jewish angle has also given me some German and Polish genes, somewhere along the line, but it’s hard to tell as most of that part of my family were wiped out by various flavours of socialist.
My passport says I’m British, I support England at soccer, Scotland at rugby (though I’ll support England if Scotland aren’t playing, which yes, is very weird), always England at cricket, and I feel certain that one day I will be American, and follow the San Francisco 49ers (though British Columbia is nice, so maybe Canadian – if the buggers will let me in.) For some perverse reason I haven’t worked out yet, I’d also like to spend some time in the German part of Switzerland, given half a chance, to brush up on my German. But then Zurich is a lovely place.
So seeing as I’m such a mongrel, where do I fit into your racial scheme? I’d be particularly interested to hear what my IQ should be.
Rgds,
AndyD
One despairs.
Yet again we are discussing Pinker as though he were a scientist and IQ as though it were a measure of intelligence.
Eamon
Hi Andy!
As regards the term ‘racial scheme’: it’s not I who have such a scheme – it’s one that exists in the real world, though of course some extremists have socially constructed such non-existent beings as ‘pure Aryans’ or whatever.
I admit that nowadays nice people don’t talk about ‘race’ at all — they refer instead to ‘human breeding populations’, which smells much sweeter, though it amounts to much the same.
As you say, you’re a mongrel — like most Europeans. I’m a mongrel Irishman plus Englishman; my kids are mongrel Irish, English, Greek, Albanian. The fact that mongrels exist does not, of course, mean that non-mongrels do not exist. Geddit?
As to your IQ, whatever about your mongrelhood, it must be pretty high – judging by that brilliant article on the Inland Revenue robbers you wrote in The Spectator two years ago.
I’m somewhat surprised that libertarians seem to be almost as environmentalist as the Left when it comes to discussing racial IQ differentials. But at least you’ve read ‘The Blank Slate’, which — for all its squeaky-cleanliness — is a step in the right direction.
Now expand your horizons by trying this politically incorrect site:
http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream
And if you want something completely outrageous, try sui generis Chris Brand’s site:
http://www.crispian.demon.co.uk/
Bonne lecture! Have a good read! Viel Spass beim Lesen!
Charles
P.S. Some months ago you wrote an article in ‘Free Life’ on the books socialists should read to cure them of their mental illness. I’m thinking about what one might recommend libertarians to read to cure them of the remaining remnants of egalitiarianism in their own mindset . …
Thanks for the plug by GuessedWorker.
For a long, interesting (IMHO) review of the Blank Slate by one of our bloggers (Razib), see here. Sample:
For the WSJ statement by 52 research psychometricians (from Berkeley, GA Tech, UNC, etc.) on IQ, see here.
For more on sociobiology/evolutionary psychology (with a heavy dollop of neolibertarian sympathetic political philosophy), go here.
Ah yes, and far be it for me to correct Mr. Copeland…but I do believe that this article on the upcoming haplotype map cuts straight to the heart of the question of whether race has scientific meaning or not.
Forget the PBS specials…hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on this:
So yes, races are fuzzy sets defined at the genetic level by allele & haplotype frequencies. But one can *definitely* characterize these sets mathematically using tools developed for statistical pattern classification.
Hi Godless,
I read all through the Hapmap article. I am not sure what to make of it yet – need to think more and perhaps read it again. I am, though, struck by the political correctness that invades even the worthy scientists commenting therein. What is this racial sterotype we must all so earnestly avoid. I’m white northern European. That is my type, not my stereotype. It isn’t going to make me gas jews As soon as someone flicks on the liberal sensibility switch the truth flies out the window. Science should forget political sensibilities and just do its job – whatever the consequences for lovers of sterotype.
In his comment under the article the esteemed Razib says, basically, that people take from scientific study what will support them in their prejudices. This is the inter-face between politics and science and the point at which the active role of the scientist becomes passive. We plebian hordes, imperfect and prejudiced as we are, must take what we can or will. The scientist, meanwhile, can NOT venture into our world without selectivity and partiality infecting his judgement. Steve Jones tries, for example, but he is a paid-up member of the Labour Party and his work on Bosnian snails seems always to transmogrify into support for environmentalism. It’s in the nature of political life, I guess.
So, I do not expect the Hapmap to be decisive. We will have more information than we did. But we will still, as Razib say, take what we need. The battle, which is between a liberal-marxist philosophy based on Boasian environmentalism and the rest of us who vaguely sense we are under attack but don’t quite know how or why, is central to the freedom of western man. I hope and pray that the Hapmap will not be susceptible to use by the left to enslave him.