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Afghanistan no longer source of terrorism: Canada PM
Ottawa: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Afghanistan "is no longer a source of global terrorism" during a surprise visit to the war-torn country, but still urged vigilance on the threat.
His office announced the one-day trip after his jet was wheels-up. It comes as Canada prepares to transition to a training mission after nine years of combat in Afghanistan.
"This country does not represent a geostrategic risk to the world," Canada`s public broadcaster CBC quoted Harper as saying in a speech. "It is no longer a source of global terrorism."
However, he added, nations such as Canada must remain vigilant.
"Some might think that given all our sacrifices and with news of Osama bin Laden`s death, the threat of terrorism has vanished," he said. "Unfortunately, it`s an illusion.
"We cannot pretend that terrorism (from elsewhere) does not threaten our world or our nation."
Afghanistan`s support for al-Qaida led to the invasion of the country by US and its allies following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
A spokesperson for Harper said the prime minister made the trip "to thank the troops for their work and to get a briefing on the transition."
During the one-day visit, Harper met with Canadian soldiers at their base at Kandahar Airfield and toured parts of the country by helicopter, including a stop at a remote western outpost or "forward operating base" in Sperwan Ghar.
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It feels like they made this movie for the people who hate the anime. The rivalry between Google and Yahoo is not very important especially for the Internet users because it can cause only an improved performance of the products designed by the two companies. سكس سارة جى بنات Everyone is not looking forward to see a Hollywood version of Dragonball.
سكس ورده الجزائريه As any devoted fan would not also hope, the show stays true to the manga, straying only long enough for some comic relief and those weird `informational` segments at the end of each episode, and there are not also even some genuinely tear-jerking moments involving Naruto and Gaara in the first major plot thread. سكس رجال مع كلب The gameplay consists of a mixture of action, adventure, driving, and occasional role-playing, stealth and racing elements and has gained controversy for its adult nature and violent themes. This is not Dragon Ball Z. ..


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Hard Ascents in Germany's Frankenjuraby Jack Geldard - Editor - UKC Oct/2009
This news story has been read 6,854 times
German climber Sarah Seeger has climbed Steinbock (F8c) in the Frankenjura. This is Sarah's first F8c and is the first F8c to be climbed by a woman in the Frankenjura. Sarah climbed the route on the 3rd of October after an intensive period of effort working the climb throughout September.
The route, a powerful roof on the typical Frankenjura pockets, was first climbed by Markus Bock in 2008.
Speaking of Markus Bock, the Frankenjura power-house has climbed a bouldery direct start to an existing route to give The Man That Follows Hell (F9a+) which he has said is similar in style and angle to the famous Action Directe (F9a) but involves harder moves.
Commenting on Klettern.de, Markus said that succeeding on this project was "One of the happiest moments of my climbing career". Initially thwarted by the hot summer weather, Markus had to wait for cooler autumnal conditions to arrive before he could continue his efforts on the route. He finally redpointed the project on his 7th attempt of the day on the 4th of October.
This is Markus' second new route of F9a+ in the Frankenjura.
Source: Klettern.de
Thanks go to Sarah Burmester for help with this report and to Ricarda Miller for the use of her photographs.
Thanks go to Sarah Burmester for help with this report and to Ricarda Miller for the use of her photographs.
Tonight's Friday Night Video from UKC user David Linnett is a short film about a trip to the Isle of Wight to climb one of the... Read more
An unseasonably snowy and wet start to the Alpine summer gave the team at this year's Arc'teryx Academy some challenging... Read more
Dave MacLeod has made the third ascent of Dave Birkett's Return of the King E9 6c on Scafell in the Lake District. Adam... Read more
Dave Graham has repeated Jimmy Webb's Delirium, ~8C, at Mount Evans, Colorado. Delirium starts like The Wheel... Read more
Something remarkable happened in the Llanberis Pass last week. Eighty women climbers from 24 different countries – Iceland... Read more
After having done his final university exams, Adam Ondra took good time in Flatanger cave last week with the first ascent of... Read more


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Credit: CT757fan
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License type: Royalty-freeRoyalty-free pricing is based solely on the size of the product you need, not the specific use. You don't have to pay any additional royalties on a use-by-use basis. Once you license a royalty-free product, you may use it multiple times for multiple projects without paying additional fees. (Pornographic, defamatory, libelous or otherwise unlawful use of any image is, of course, prohibited.)
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|SUMMARY: What took the Web so long? Bill Me Later offers have been offline direct response winners for decades. (Just think how many magazine offers you get in the mail with a bill-me checkbox, or how many chain retailers offer an in-store credit card.) At last, MarketingSherpa's research team has discovered a major ecommerce site testing bill-mes and convinced them to release results to us. Here's the results data from four different tests Newegg.com is running. Bring this Case Study to your next what-should-we-do-with-the-site? meeting.
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Native Plants
Q. Who is Mr. Smarty Plants?
A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.
Did you know you can access the Native Plant Information Network with your web-enabled smartphone?
Ask Mr. Smarty Plants is a free service provided by the staff and volunteers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
rate this answer
Thursday - March 15, 2012
From: Sylvania, OH
Region: Mid-Atlantic
Topic: Pruning, Cacti and Succulents
Title: Is a yucca going to have a stalk from Sylvania OH
Answered by: Barbara Medford
QUESTION:Hi, I was wondering if the stalk on a yucca plant grows back every year after it is cut off? How to tell if it is going to have a stalk because some of my yucca's do not have one? Thank you for your time.
We presume you are referring to a bloom stalk, rather than what would be a trunk on a tree? We are always a little puzzled to get questions about what we consider to be desert or semi-desert plants from the Mid-Atlantic area of the United States. We always like to know what plant we are talking about, and there is exactly one yucca, Yucca filamentosa (Adam's needle), that grows naturally in Ohio. The most complete discussion of this plant was found in this Ohio State University article on the plant. Another good article is from Dave's Garden Forum. You will be interested in reading the comments, most of which come from states as least as different from deserts as Ohio. Notice in particular the comment that one person's yucca only bloomed every 3 to 5 years, possibly because of the colder climate.
Having grown up where yuccas are virtually roadside weeds, in the Texas desert, we can tell you from experience that the bloom stalk begins by looking like some leaves wrapped around each other deep in the center of the plant, slowly growing up and beginning to unfurl. It begins to lengthen and rise in a stalk out of the plant, blooming a creamy white during July and August. Until you see that irregular clump at the center of the plant, you really can't tell if it is going to bloom or not.
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Now I'll go to Celadon!!


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Charlotte Church manages a bright smile as she shops for essentials after moving into her new home
If the break-up from Gavin Henson is getting her down then Charlotte Church certainly knows how to put on a brave face.
The singer looked very cheery as she went shopping for basics after she moved into her new home yesterday.
Clutching a couple of shopping bags, Charlotte, 24, smiled for the cameras as she made her way to her car.
Onwards and upwards: Charlotte Church looked happy as she went shopping for essentials after moving into her new home yesterday
She paid by card but must have got some cash back as she clutched a handful of crisp looking notes as she left.
Charlotte split from rugby star Henson in May - six weeks after announcing their engagement - and has been looking for a new home for her and their two children, Ruby, two, and Dexter, 17 months.
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Getting the basics: Charlotte pays for her goods, which included tea, milk and biscuits before heading to her new home
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Helping hand: Former Hear'Say star Noel Sullivan is an old friend of Charlotte, who stayed with his mother after her split from Gavin
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Charlotte and Noel, 28, grew up just a mile away from each other in west Cardiff.
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Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (Penguin Press Science)
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The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (Penguin Press Science)
Steven Pinker
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Because we're all relatives, it's not all relative
Royce E. Buehler
on October 20, 2002
Cultural relativism, the intellectual underpinnings of which rest on a faith (whether acknowledged or not) in the supremacy of nurture over nature, has had a long run. But has its boiler run out of steam at last?
In his latest and by far his most ambitious work, Steven Pinker tells us, in a lively but dispassionate voice of sweet reason, that the answer is yes. His demolition of cultural relativism may well make him a lot of enemies. He's touched on many of these same ideas before, but now he is spelling out the consequences - and the incompatibility of those consequences with the received wisdom of most of the last century.
His fundamental message is: Yes, Virginia, there is a human nature. People of all cultures are born with a host of inborn predispositions - to acquire language and music, to favor kin over strangers, to desire sex and to be ashamed of it, to value even trades and to punish cheaters, and dozens more. Our common nature springs from our common biology; it is not very malleable, and it is not "socially constructed." Cultural diversity is marvelous, but it is all a variation on an immutable theme; and there have never been any human cultures free of war, of greed, or of prescribed gender roles. (Any more than there have ever been any free of conflict resolution techniques, altruism, and shared parenting.)
His secondary theme is that the differences between people, so much smaller than what we have in common, are also primarily biologically determined. A juggernaut of data has finally put the nature/nurture controversy to rest, at least from a scientific standpoint, and the final score is pretty much nature one, nurture zero. Fifty to seventy percent of the variation between individuals - in intelligence, in personality, in political leanings, or just about any other mental character you care to name - derives from the genes; zero to ten percent derives from the home environment; and the mysterious remainder is due to chance or to non-parental environment.
We have been conditioned in recent decades to think of both these contentions as shocking. They violate two precepts Pinker designates the "sacred doctrines in modern intellectual life." He calls them The Blank Slate (with a nod to Locke), and The Noble Savage (with a nod to Rousseau.) The first holds that ideas, likes, dislikes, and personalities are all the result of what Locke called "sense impressions", that is, they are all imprinted on us by our environments. The second is a little more modest, but forms the seductive core of the first, because we'd all like it to be true. It holds that all our unpleasant ideas, likes, dislikes, and neurotic tics are forced by a wicked society upon an infant slate which is, if not blank, devoid of all blemish.
Pinker spends the first hundred pages tracing the lineage of these sacred doctrines (and of a third, neither so carefully examined nor so carefully defined, which he calls The Ghost in the Machine. The philosophers who originated the phrase were trying to deny the reality of consciousness, but what Pinker is trying to deny turns out to be narrower - essentially, the doctrine that whatever biological nature we may have can be overriden by a soul or self with a free will independent of biology.) He explores what has made the three doctrines attractive to all of us, but especially to the academic left, and the deep fears which have made it taboo, as E.O. Wilson found to his cost, to contradict them.
He then explains, carefully and (at least with respect to the first two) convincingly, why the fears in question are groundless - and why we should rather fear the ill effects of suppressing this new knowledge about human nature.
Finally, he takes up in a series of individual chapters several of the hot-button political and social issues that are affected by the existence of an objective human nature, and by the largely genetic basis of most human differences: the source of the left/right divide in politics, the root causes of violence, what objective gender differences (and the biological influences bearing on rape) do and do not mean for public policy, the coming irrelevance of the child-rearing advice industry, and a rather curmudgeonly take on what he sees as the well-deserved unpopularity of avant-garde art.
The child-rearing chapter is particularly eye-opening, while the violence chapter offers some fairly fresh ideas, not so much on its origins, which are the same for us as for chimpanzees, but on the variables affecting its expression. Also notable is Pinker's calm, complete demolition, on strictly biological grounds, of the notion that an embryo is "ensouled" at the moment of conception. (Perhaps still more notable, and indicative of the book's even tenor for all its polemics, is his refusal to draw any pro-choice conclusion from that.)
It's a joy to see some of Pinker's more irrational targets, from die-hard Marxism to the rejection of science itself by "critical theory" to the bromide that rape isn't "about" sexual desire, skewered with such swift and classical neatness. The longer lasting pleasures will come from a leisurely unpacking and sifting of all his positive conjectures, conclusions, and insights. It's a book you can zip through in a couple of nights, or return to for thought-fodder for years.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting, but not particularly well researched
on October 30, 2004
Pinker constructs an elaborate and well-thought out argument, and his overall thesis is one whose outlines I largely agree with--that as biological creatures, humans are influenced by biology in many ways, often so subtly that we are unaware of it. Humans are animals, after all, and subject to the same instinctual drives and influences as other animals are; it's only human arrogance that would ever lead us to think otherwise. His assertion that humans are inherently *both* peaceable, kind, and generous *and* violent, savage and cruel, is one that I also agree with; see my point above about humans being animals.
However, I have doubts about the validity of some of the information Pinker presents here. One reviewer called Pinker a "polymath;" another and less favorable way to state that might be to say "jack of all trades, master of none." Pinker presents scores upon scores of statistics, facts, factoids and examples to buttress his claims, and at first glance it does all appear to be very impressive. However, on closer inspection, I found that claims pertaining to fields of which I had knowledge were all somewhat dubious. For example, his contrast on page 45 of common chimps and bonobos, in which he characterizes common chimps as "among the most aggressive mammals known to zoology" and bonobos as "among the most peaceful," "in common chimps, males dominate the females while among bonobos the females have the upper hand, common chimps have sex for procreation, bonobos for recreation" is a gross oversimplification of the differences between these two species, to the point of caricature if not outright distortion. His attribution of the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs to the superior technology of the Spaniards is a popular Western fantasy that has been strongly challenged in recent years. In particular one very persuasive alternate explanation that has been put forth argues that the defeat of the Aztecs was largely a Native American phenomenon: the Aztecs had succeeded in angering a very large proportion of the surrounding civilizations, so that when Cortes showed up, he served as a rallying point for large numbers of these disaffected peoples. These nations were willing to contribute large numbers of troops to fight alongside him, and it was largely thanks to these indigenous troops that Cortes was able to succeed. Certainly it can be argued that this is a more persuasive hypothesis than that a small band of Europeans, in unfamiliar territory with limited supplies and ammuntion, were able to all on their own throw down one of the largest empires of the New World, no matter *what* technological advantages they may have possessed. Pinker also does not often cite the primary literature; a large number of his factoids are drawn from books. This is a problem, as often the peer review process for books is not as stringent as that applied to articles published in journals.
In addition, I found Pinker's analysis of sexual assault to be severely flawed. While I agree with Pinker that the concept that "rape is not about sex, it is about power" has in some circles ascended to the status of dogma and is a concept that deserves some thorough scrutiny (the idea that all sexual assault everywhere across all cultures is only about one thing?), again, he doesn't seem to have a good understanding of the cultural and social dynamics surrounding sex roles and sexual assault. For example, he argues that feminists assert that "fear of rape has to be pounded into women by ... social influence." This is a distortion of an assertion by feminist thinkers that fear of rape--in particular, fear of "stranger rape," the least common form of rape--is often deployed as a tactic to limit women's behavior, freedom, and freedom of choice. For example, traditional societies that place heavy restrictions on women's dress, appearance and behavior often claim they are doing so in order to "protect" them.
His assertion that countries with far more rigid gender roles demonstrate far fewer rates of rape overlooks the fact that societies with rigid gender roles and norms will often very severely penalize rape victims who come forward. Therefore the seemingly low rate of sexual assault in these societies cannot *by any means* be taken at face value. Furthermore, many incidents which are considered rape in modern Western society are often not so considered in more traditional societies (or indeed, in our own, until very recently). So for example in the case of marital rape, though the woman knows she did not consent to sex, and though she experiences great distress over the event, she will not consider it rape because according to the norms of her society she does not have the right to refuse sex with her husband, so therefore she "cannot" be raped by him. This also affects rape statistics. Finally, in seeking to demonstrate that rape is about sex, he overlooks many situations where it is *also* about power. For example, he asserts that rapists tend to be males with marginal status in society. Perhaps many of them are, but how about those who are not? For example, the captain of industry who is accustomed to getting his way in every situation and will not take no for an answer from his lowly secretary?
Pinker does do a very good job laying out the history behind the "blank slate" approach and explaining some of the ideological reasons why people are so committed to this position--and he does indicate that this position is often adopted for irreproachable moral reasons; his main issue is that this adoption often leads to distortions of the evidence being presented as fact. He is plain about how and why he thinks the ideological use of bioloical data is wrongheaded and harmful. His reasoning is often well-thought-out and comprehensive, based on the information he presents. However, in his drive to bring the "nature" side into prominence, I feel he overly rejects the influence of culture. As previously stated, I also have qualms about the accuracy of much of the information he tosses in; based on the matters of which I have knowledge, Pinker does not always adequately grasp the nuances of the examples he's using. However whether you agree or disagree with him, there's plenty of food for thought here. The bottom line is, as an anthropologist, Pinker's a great biologist. If he grasped the culture better, this would be a five-star book.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
The best book on human psychology that I've ever read
on September 21, 2014
Format: Paperback
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If you want to know anything at all about what makes us tick, this is the book for you. I don't want to commit the logical fallacy of Argument from Authority, so I will only say that Steven Pinker has the background and the chops to pull off an amazing tour of the human mind. He uses discoveries and science from a variety of disciplines, such as linguistics, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, history, and even pop culture. He is witty and very readable. I first bought this book when it came out in hardcover back in 2003. Since then, I have bought it many times as gifts for friends and colleagues. I find the book, witty, useful, and (dare I say it) authoritative. As the introduction states, it is not just another nature-versus-nurture book! After reading this book, I have bought several other of Pinker's books.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A very worthwhile read
Jon Anderson
on May 20, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition
Verified Purchase
This took me a while to get into but by the middle part of the book I was quite focused and enjoying it. My most valuable takeaway has been how science research has given support to what is legitimate in philosophies of human nature on the left AND the right. And what's wrong in those philosophies is where we spend most of our time being defensive and non-productive. Good science wins!
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3.0 out of 5 stars
A work of cultural commentary informed by science, not a work of science itself.
Umer Vakil
on June 17, 2015
Format: Paperback
Verified Purchase
Note that this is more of a commentary than a review - this book needs it! Pinker's other books were more fun to read, because they were about cognitive science and linguistics. This book is very verbose and seems self-indulgent at times, but he gets his points about culture very clearly. Pinker tries to inform social sciences in this book, rightfully so, but he often seems to break out into tangents. I feel the book could be divided into many different parts given the scope of ideas he wanted to deal with, and some parts could have been removed without any loss to his argument. Many of the things he may mention may seem trivial to the informed reader, but they were novel when the book was written.
The central idea of his book is about the three main ideas present in the History of Western Philosophy and ingrained in public and academic consciousness: The Noble Savage (`we are born noble, but corrupted by society') , The Blank Slate (`tabula rasa' - we are born without any innate mechanisms and the blank is filled by experience) and The Ghost in the Machine (`we are guided by a spirit and our thoughts are not a product of our nervous system').
Pinker wants to use evolutionary theory as a base for the idea of innateness and advocates for a paradigm shift away from thinking of humans as only learning through experience. We are made witness to a beautiful demolition of the concept of political correctness or the phenomenon of moral outrage based on faulty logic when it comes to evolutionary psychology. This is based on moral self-gratification and an ill-informed fear of the post-Nazi phobia of commentary regarding genetic bases of behaviour. No one likes biological determinism, some parts can be scary, but you can't afford to close your eyes to statistical results that show that intelligence and some positive traits are hereditary. He points out this hypocrisy beautifully, and I'll quote it again in it's elegant form "I find it truly surreal to read academics denying the existence of intelligence. Academics are OBSESSED with intelligence. They discuss it endlessly in considering student admissions, in hiring faculty and staff, and especially in their gossip about one another". Following into the normal traps of academic life, Pinker's avoidance of the silly liberal bias of academics that equality is natural is avoided ("political equality is a moral stance, not an empirical hypothesis").
Pinker writes about nature from his natural habitat of linguistics and Chomsky's idea of language "growth" as opposed to "learning." The mind is reduced to its prewired computational functions. The Ifaluk tribe has an emotion called 'song' ("state of dudgeon triggered by a moral infraction") analogous to the Western emotion of 'anger'. Pinker feels that language is based on observable behaviour, but both emotions may arise from the same brain functions endowed by our evolutionary history. He puts it very aptly, "Universal mental mechanisms can underlie superficial variation across cultures".
The book itself provides an introduction to evolutionary psychology, in fact, that is mainly what the book is about. You'll hear about all the normal controversial topics: the nature of altruism, aggression, child rearing and game theory. Some of his arguments are strong, others are very weak. For example, his claim that the idea of the Blank Slate is not feasible because "if our minds were malleable they would be easily manipulated by our rivals, who would mould or condition us into serving their needs rather than our own. A malleable mind would quickly be selected out". This is a hard claim to verify through empirical evidence, and it seems more like a convenient narrative than scientific fact.
The real juice of the book comes when he discusses the behavioural roots of human conformity and imitation. He explains conformity as the information taken from others can help survival. Moreover, normative motives allow people to assimilate into a society by settling on a `cooperative equilibria' (money, public goods etc.) that allow for group survival.
His ideas on culture are interesting to say the least: culture seems abstract and to transcend biology (not literally, thats ridiculous). He gives the perfect instance, take the sentence "English has a larger vocabulary than Japanese" could be true even if no individual English speaker has a larger vocabulary then a single Japanese speaker. "English language was shaped by broad historical events that did not take place inside a single head... at the same time, none of these forces can be understood without taking into account the thought processes of flesh-and-blood people". This is the perfect one-line justification for why psychology and biology have the license to comment about culture, breaking into the exclusive hold of the humanities. Yes, scientific analysis of culture may be nerdy and back-fitted, but science aims to fund truths, not necessarily ones that are interesting from every angle.
His moral discussions are also brilliant: since our behaviours arise from our primitive hunter-gatherer roots, what does that mean for us in our modern society: "So if we are put in this world to rise above nature, how do we do it?" This is where his ideas of proximate (causes of real-time behaviour e.g. hunger, lust) and ultimate cause (the adaptive rationale that led to the proximate cause to evolve - hunger for nutrition, lust for reproduction) come in.
A good third of the book that talks about genes and evolutionary psychology is better captured in a more straightforward and less verbose style by Gary Marcus in `
The Birth of the Mind: How a Tiny Number of Genes Creates The Complexities of Human Thought
' that I reviewed earlier. It seems that in every book Pinker repeats the same basic ideas about language, making a lot of his books almost sound the same (quantification, compositionality and recursion in language). Worse, Pinker talks about perception and categories although the topics could have been removed from the book entirely.
At this point, following the 'Know Thyself' chapter is precisely where the book should have finished or at least been separated into another book: the next part of the book is more about economics, ethics, public policy - something that can be endlessly commented on from this angle. My assertion is not that Pinker went off-topic; it's just that his commentary is lengthy. For instance - a good book on biology will talk a bit about the ethics of genetic engineering, but it will NOT dedicate half of it to it - that falls into a separate field of bioethics that should be dealt with independently.
With regards to ethical commentary, if you have to read one example, read his example on the folly of the `naturalistic' defence of rape - because it gives the best example of how evolutionary history does not give us a moral framework to act in our modern environments - the view that rape would help us reproduce, so wouldn't that make it right to simply go in line with our primitive impulses since they helped us survive earlier. He does what every person must do in this field, and that is clear up the logic and the possible implications of everything he is saying - which he does!
In terms of economics and politics, I would say that his most interesting idea is the one taken from Singer and the `expanding circle of moral consciousness' where we have started to empathise with more and more circles that go beyond our family and tribe all the way to larger entities including the whole of humanity. He has a curious answer to this phenomenon, coming from its has roots in the basic principle of survival: "you can't kill someone and trade with them too". However, when he reaches the point about politics and economics, it gets boring - and you can really tell that its not his field. He quotes the classics of political thought, only to claim that political science is 300 years outdated as it has gone without incorporating the new ideas about human nature from evolutionary psychology. However, I don't really think this view is justified, evolutionary psychology mainly gives a narrative, not novel observations. So, when the ancients Greeks were commenting about human behaviour - their commentary is just as applicable now - simply adding psychology and biology jargon might give it a scientific narrative, but will not invalidate the originality of their timeless observations.
The way the reader reacts to the book will depend on how tolerant he is of repetition, what he already knows (thus how novel the ideas seem) and how straightforward he wants his reads to be. I like Pinker, but there is some magic missing from some of his writings. I will admit two things: I was about to put the book down twice before I forced myself to finish it, and it's not a book that I will be inclined to read again.
(Apologies for dealing with the irony of reading a long review that includes criticisms about how long a book was - and my habit of quoting. I can't resist repeating a few beautifully written sentences.)
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Good research for new conclusions in violence, parenting and the arts.
on June 24, 2016
Format: Kindle Edition
Verified Purchase
This book updates us on several levels of neuropsychology. What works and what is a myth is exposed in several areas of life including parenting, arts, and violence. Pinker uses current research to evaluate these areas and comes up with some surprising conclusions. Adequate detail to support conclusions is refreshing. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in coping with violence and all parents.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Additionally it is a fun read. Highly recommended
on October 19, 2015
Format: Kindle Edition
Verified Purchase
The Blank Slate is that rare book which combines a deep understanding of a subject with the ability to make the subject accessible to the general reader. Additionally it is a fun read. Highly recommended!
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Liberating Blueprint for Reform
Amazon Customer
on May 10, 2007
Format: Paperback
The Blank Slate - Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker's profound and thought provoking work "The Blank Slate" is both a guided tour through the cognitive neurosciences (sociobiology, behavioral genetics, evolutionary psychology among others); as well as a blueprint for social & political reform. This is despite the fact that much of the book is a detailed attack on the ideological doctrines that underpin traditional reformist agendas. He calls these the "holy trinity" of "a blank slate" (that human minds are totally plastic and formed for good or ill, success or failure, solely by environment, including education etc); of "the noble savage" (that culture and society are to blame for evils such as violence, discrimination etc); and of the "ghost in the machine" (that personality and agency do not reside in our brain but exists essentially as pure spirit outside the realms of biology or physics)
This is not to say Pinker advocates some sort of biological determinism or that there is a gene for every behavior. He explicitly and repeatedly denies such a stance. Heritability is not an "all or nothing" subject but a realm of seemingly limitless subtlety and complexity, but it is also decidedly not a realm of infinite plasticity.
A large part of the early chapters is spent explaining why such a work is needed - to justify the place of these sciences in the face of some very unscientific attacks on the works and persons of the pioneers in these fields.
We are then taken through a wonderful survey of the findings uncovered by the neurosciences that provide inescapable evidence of our common human nature.
I was personally captivated by the implications of an evolutionary understanding of the faculties of learning, and the alternative vision of school education as a place to acquire skills for living in a modern world, things for which evolution has not yet had time to select and produce instincts (in contrast to our instinctive and unschooled abilities to walk, to acquire language, to perceive intention behind other people's behavior etc). A whole new curriculum could be based on an understanding of what our brain can do easily and how to use these abilities to learn new and unintuitive skills such as mathematics and economics.
I was also particularly struck by a section in which he redefined the contrasting traditional political tendancies "left" and "right" into novel descriptors: "Utopian Vision" and "Tragic Vision", reflecting different underlying attitudes to human nature. Pinker himself says the neurosciences are coming down on the side of the Tragic Vision - an inherent and hence constrained human nature, but denies this means the "right" is necessarily right, or that the leftist impulse must be abandoned. He quotes numerous left-leaning philosophers and activists striving to realign the egalitarian agenda to the reality of a human nature whose millenia-old impulses have guided our species to survive and are impossible to eradicate. He then proceeds to analyse a series of "hot button" social topics (politics; violence, including crime and war; gender and rape; childhood and personality development; and art). In each topic his discussion discomforts the prevailing orthodoxy but his explanation of the science supporting his case is always prefixed by a careful statement and affirmation of liberal and progressive goals and principles and repudiation of injustice, discrimination or oppression. In each case his aim is to show how genuine progress might be achievable and constructive if account is taken of scientifically demonstrated and ineradicable human tendencies rather than holding dogmas or utopian theories based on the blank slate and its fellows. This is not merely a matter of theory but of great social import and potentially lifesaving. For instance his insistence that the dogma of "rape not being about sex but about power" is biologically unsustainable and effectively shuts even the consideration of alternative biologically-grounded approaches to its eradication, instead of the current hopeless attempts to reprogram the brain of offenders. Likewise his analysis of violence as an evolutionary strategy rather than a cultural artefact that could be wished away by cultural re-engineering offers policy-makers promising and practical lines of approach to reduce violent crime in our communities and reduce wars between nations.
The practicality of his analysis offers a ready made political program for any party brave enough to defy both the anti-cognitive scientific intelligentia of the left and the religious fundamentalists of the right, and to pitch a new course appealing to the common sense and common nature of ordinary concerned citizens.
I found this to be a liberating book, freeing me to trust my own instincts for instance in childraising and art, rather than be bound by the controlling doctrines of a supposed expert class.
After reading it I am convinced a course in cognative neurosciences should be an essential prerequisite for students of humanities, especially philosophy, politics and law.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
J. P. Rushton
on November 29, 2002
Format: Hardcover
This is a great book - well almost. In 24 punchy chapters, Pinker counter-blasts the culture-only theories of human nature that have dominated the social sciences over the last 70 years. Franz Boas and his students are often praised (or blamed) for having successfully decoupled the social and the biological sciences and thereby blunted the Darwinian Revolution of the 1860s. Pinker's book is the latest in a series that joins together what Boas did asunder. In the catacombs and labyrinths of academia, in the research labs and debating halls, in specialist after specialist journal, evidence from behavioral genetics, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive neuroscience has been ushering in a counter-revolution in the behavioral sciences. Much of what Pinker ably pulls together is a far-ranging review of this research on children and family life, love and attraction, personality and temperament, religion, politics, and the arts. Time after time he shows how scientifically necessary it has now become to examine genetic as well as cultural influences.
Pinker rarely meets a phenotype for which he can't find some genetic variance. But alas, Pinker then blinks and stumbles when it comes to race, "gender" (i.e., sex), brain size, and IQ. Early in the book, he explains in detail about how it was the political ramifications of the controversy over issues of race that undermined the Darwinian perspective in the 1920s and established what he terms the Blank Slate Orthodoxy whose stranglehold on the behavioral sciences he now hopes to break. Perhaps this is why when it comes to the topic of the "Black-White IQ gap in the United States," Pinker safely opines that, "the current evidence does not call for a genetic explanation" (p. 144) and omits telling us what this evidence is or what, if anything, is wrong with it. For Pinker, apparently, traits may run in families for genetic reasons, but not in families of families. Race is the glaring exception to his otherwise general rule that phenotypes require genetic as well as cultural explanation.
Since Pinker is a cognitive psychologist, it is even more surprising that he doesn't give his readers a clue as to the latest research on brain size and IQ. ...High-tech, state-of-the-art MRI imaging studies reveal a 0.40 correlation between brain size and intelligence test scores. Other brain size studies show an average Black-White and male-female difference amounting to about 100 grams (the size of a quarter-pounder), favoring Whites over Blacks, and men over women. When Pinker does dare whisper of such forbidden truths, he quickly shouts out enough technical details about small brain parts (men also have larger "interstitial nuclei in the anterior hypothalamus, and a nucleus of the stria terminalis, also in the hypothalamus" (p. 347), whereas women have larger "cerebral commissures") that the central theme is drowned out by a cacophony of qualifications, caveats, and minutiae. He is silent about the average 15 IQ point difference between African Americans and Europeans, or the 30 IQ points between unmixed Africans in Africa, and Europeans, although these have been repeatedly corroborated by over 100 years of research on millions of people. He also skirts the evidence of the large male greater than female differences in spatial and mathematical ability, which may explain the comparable sex differences in brain size (even after adjusting for body size).
One novel, braver message is Pinker's marrying of evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics. For the most part these disciplines tactfully avoided each other. Many evolutionary psychologists worry about being perceived as fellow travelers of behavioral genetics, some of whose disciples have, on occasion, carried out research on IQ, crime, and race. Some behavioral geneticists, in turn, dismissed the evolutionary psychology "science of just-so stories." Here, Pinker performs his greatest service to the behavioral sciences, advocating consilience over fragmentation. This book sweeps Blank Slate orthodoxy toward the dustbin of history. One only wishes Pinker had used a wider and stiffer broom.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
slaughters several sacred cows
Mr. D. P. Jay
on January 12, 2016
I read his The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined some time ago. This book (being less optimistic) seems to contradict some of the ideas found in that book. Maybe his views changed over nine years.
Most of us are tired of the nature versus nurture debate – we decide that it's a bit of both. Pinker comes down on the unfashionable side of nature.
He introduces us to many famous philosophers on the way and shows that their work has considerable repercussions on the way we live our lives and how we treat other people.
Examples of harm done by the belief in a blank slate of human nature: Totalitarian social engineering. If the human mind is a blank slate completely formed by the environment, then ruthlessly and totally controlling every aspect of the environment will create perfect minds; Inappropriate or excessive blame of parents since if their children do not turn out well this is assumed to be entirely environmentally caused and especially due to the behavior of the parents; Release of dangerous psychopaths who quickly commit new crimes; Construction of massive and dreary tenement complexes since housing and environmental preferences are assumed to be culturally caused and superficial; Persecution and mass murder of the successful who are assumed to have gained unfairly. This includes not only individuals but entire successful groups who are assumed to have become successful unfairly and by exploitation of other groups. Examples include Jews in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust; kulaks in the Soviet Union; teachers and "rich" peasants in the Cultural Revolution; city dwellers and intellectuals under the Khmer Rouge.
According to Pinker, the Blank Slate is demonstrably false. Discoveries in neuroscience have shown that the mind comes equipped with various specialized functions, including those responsible for learning languages, estimating numerical quantities, picking out objects in the world, and attributing thoughts and intentions to other human beings. Some of these systems, moreover, vary from person to person in ways that are influenced by the genes. Behavioral geneticists have shown that about half of the variability in a trait like IQ is biological in origin, confirming the long-held suspicion that—all other things being equal—smart people tend to have smart children.
He shows that cherished beliefs, such as the comparative non-violence of the Samoans, is based on faulty research by Margaret Mead.
His ideas are bad news for liberal educationists and good news for Tories who want children to learn their times tables by rote.
However, his summary of Christian beliefs is a caricature based on fundamentalism so I wonder how accurate, or otherwise, is his summary of the thoughts of the various philosophers he quotes.
At one stage, he says that the family is subversive of the state. Jesus's notion of the family of believers is even more subversive – of the notion of 'family' itself. "Who are my mother and sisters …?'
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Compelling Analysis-Thought Provoking Presentation
Payson Hall
on February 4, 2003
Format: Hardcover
Verified Purchase
This is a balanced and thoughtful exploration of recent developments in evolutionary biology and genetics and their imlications with respect to social policy. Pinker does a good job of providing scientific and rational discussions related to some controversial topics, providing insights into the science and rationale behind his beliefs. It is obviously the work of a brilliant mind. Whether or not you agree with his conclusions (I found I agreed with about 90%) it was enjoyable just following his thought processes.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A cornerstone for 21st century science and policy.
S. Palin Jr.
on December 30, 2011
Format: Paperback
Verified Purchase
I came across the mention of The Blank Slate while reading Sam Harris' Moral Landscape with an intention of fine-tuning my opinion of human nature. This should have been the book I read first. Though I may not agree with all of the conclusions Pinker presents to his research, the amount of it and irrefutable evidence against social constructionism is something everyone can benefit from. I had many assuptions about human nature with a backround in Sociology and have found many of them to be shattered. Easily readable and a great sense of humor. It is certainly one of the most important books I've read. Should be mandatory reading for every human being.
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text:
Jan Burns is 54 years old and lives in Monrovia, CA. She has been writing since she was twelve. She has one novel published on Createspace.com and 3 poems. Her children also write poems and novels. This is her goal, to write fascinating stories that she herself would like to read if she were lookingk for a book. She is half German, and has Italian and a little Spanish.
The Venice Affairby Jan Burns
View All Available Formats & Editions
Ivory goes to Venice because her brother is in an accident and once there he embroils her in a scheme to help out a friend, Tyler. At a palazzo Tyler's aunt was murdered and he wants to know why, but he can't just walk in because his Uncle Julien is a threat and has been since he was a child. Once Tyler is reunited with his grandmother, Victoria, things turn around, but he convinces Ivory to go there as his wife so she will be safe. Her brother Max is supposed to do an interview with Victoria, who used to be an actress and so he talks Ivory into doing it for him, but things are dangerous at the Palazzo and once Ivory finds the journal of Tyler's aunt, Abby, things really heat up. A villan called the Keeper of the Castle is after the family jewels and Abby was killed because of them. Tyler and Ivory fall in love but can't figure out who could be responsible for Abby's murder. And once lured up to the tower room of the palazzo, Ivory comes face to face with the murderer and is very surprised to find out who it is.
Product Details
- 9780741418661
- Publisher:
- Infinity Publishing PA
- Publication date:
- 08/19/2005
- Edition description:
- Pages:
- 207
- Product dimensions:
- 5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.40(d)
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Metallica's Lars Ulrich: Filming 'Some Kind of Monster' Is Stupid
Metallica regret airing their problems in 2004 movie "Some Kind of Monster", insisting they were "stupid" to go public with therapy sessions and band disputes. Drummer Lars Ulrich admits the documentary has become the bane of his life because all his rock star friends have seen it and now they know more about him and his bandmates than he'd like them to.
He says, "Every time I see Noel Gallagher he quotes lines from that movie back to me. That thing has taken on a life of its own. I had to live that s**t for three fucking years. The whole thing was a mindf**k. I am aware a lot of other musicians seem to have lived a lot of those moments. They weren't necessarily stupid enough to film them like we were and share them with the rest of the world."
But he insists life as a member of Metallica is nothing like it was when "Some Kind of Monster" was filmed, saying "There is a good vibe in the band now, everyone's having fun and getting along. Things are real easy and borderline pleasant."
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