The Blank Slate Analysis

1. What is the idea of the “blank slate”?
The Blank Slate is based on the idea that the human mind is a blank slate, and that all of it’s structure, everything in the brain comes from socialization, culture, parenting, and experience. Pinker argues that the mind is not a blank slate. That we are born with innate traits.

2. What are some of the reasons to doubt that our minds are “blank slates”?
In the TED talk Pinker presented three reasons: 1) Common sense, 2) Human universals, and 3) Genetics and Neuroscience. Pinker argues that it’s partly just a matter of common sense, stating that anyone who has kids knows that each of them comes into the world with distinctly different traits, they are not the same, and they do not end up the same. Which would support the argument that we are not blank slates. His second argument

I’ve been convinced through the last couple of units that we are the products of both nature and nurture. And when Pinker used twins to illustrate his points I was sold once and for all. If we think about the identical twins raised apart, who showed up in the same outfit, with the same mannerisms, it’s hard to argue that nature isn’t a part of who we are. How else would it be possible for two people, raised so completely differently, in entirely different parts of the world, in vastly different cultures, to end up similar in so many fundamental ways? And the example about the adopted siblings. If it were all about nurture it should prove out that adopted siblings who were raised in the same household, with the same parents, same values and traditions and mores, would turn out identically. But that’s not the case. In fact the opposite was true, adopted siblings raised exactly the same in the same house by the same parents turned out not to be similar in any way. There really can be no other explanation; we have to be the product of both nature and nurture. Both influence who we are, our sense of self, our