Sloan: Book includes many eye-openers

My book-of-the-month-summary for July is “The Blank Slate” (Viking, 2002) by Steven Pinker.

It is impossible to summarize 509 pages in 300 words, but Pinker says being born a blank slate is a myth. Discoveries in the sciences of mind, brain, genes and evolution debunk “fantastical beliefs flaunted as proof of one’s piety” that moral behavior is equally easy for everyone.

A few tidbits:

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• Educated people try to be conscious of hidden prejudices, respecting cultures different or poorer.

• Ethnic groups being persecuted because of their biology should elicit revulsion. Lynchings, wars, forced sterilizations, the Holocaust showcase the grave implications of denigrating ethnic groups.

• The stuff of life is ordinary compounds following the laws of chemistry.

• Identical twins separated at birth remain eerily alike. They have similar attitudes about controversial issues, and share dozens of idiosyncrasies (such as dipping buttered toast in coffee).

• Decent people commit atrocities by dehumanizing others. True believers are the most dangerous.

• Stories about remote tribes being non-violent are urban legends. While conflict is universal, all peoples also display morality, justice and community.

• Demands of reciprocal altruism explain why social and moralistic emotions evolved. Sympathy and trust prompt people to extend the first favor. Guilt and shame deter them from hurting or failing to repay others.

• Every relationship carries seeds of conflict because of our own needs.

• Would parents run through the left door of a burning building to save their own child or the right to save 100?

• People consistently overrate their skill, honesty, generosity and autonomy. All parties in disputes assess themselves as wiser, nobler and abler than the reality.

• It is wrong for government to interfere with personal decisions about our bodies, marriages and deaths.

• Rape is about sex — not power — resulting in 32,000 annual pregnancies in the U.S. Women should not have to worry about being attacked, but the reality is they have to protect themselves.

• No one chooses to become homosexual, musically gifted, or black, white or brown.

• Nothing prevents natural selection from evolving a species with morals.

Contact Wendel Sloan at:

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