[KL]
What's wrong with Dennett's writing (style). I really like it!
[BK]
More seriously I ought to thank you for arguing that Dennett and Dawkins
were onto something important. In particular I was influenced by Gould's
criticisms of Dawkins and hadn't bothered to read him. 'Darwins Dangerous
Idea' is good because the polemic is upfront but sometimes Dennett gets so
involved in the details that I get bored with it. With Pinker its much more
like a good novel that I just can't put down.
[KL]
Can you tell me (us) a bit more about him taking on "feminists" and
"post-modernists"?
[BK]
btw the page references were just pages to start reading those sections
One issue would be gender construction. Pinker argues that to a significant
extent what some (feminists) argue as gender construction is not social
construction at all but it is genetic. eg. he argues it adaptive for men to
have insatiable sexual desire for mutliple partners but that its also
adaptive for women to be much more selective. I just love the "men are
slime" study he cites on pp. 467-9.
His critique of post modernism is that gender, for instance, is
deconstructed so that gender stereotyping is deflated. But in the process
scientific reality is denied (57).
eg. beauty is adaptive for women (483-87) not just a conspiracy against
women.
He critiques the "blank slate" idea that the division between biology and
culture is fundamental and takes on some of the wishful thinking of the left
that has been dressed up as scientific ('Not in Our Genes' by Lewontin et
al, Margaret Mead etc.) (45). Takes some swipes at Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao
in the process (47). Still thinking about some of this.
The way in which he tries to distinguish himself from the right wing is by
arguing for a clear separation between science and ethics, eg. see page 55.
[KL]
I started reading "the Language Instinct" last year
but didn't get finished. I am still inclined to take issue with the
notion of language as an :"instinct" or an "organ" (Chomsky's word). I
think that while we have an innate ability to learn language, we still
do LEARN it.
[BK]
p. 18 The Language Instinct
"Language ... develops in the child spontaneously, without conscious effort
or formal instruction, is deployed without awareness of its underlying logic
... is distinct from more general abilities to process information or behave
intelligently. For these reasons some cognitive scientists have described
language as ... a mental organ ... But I prefer "instinct". It conveys the
idea that people know how to talk in more or less the sense that spiders
know how to spin webs."
Whilst acknowledging Chomsky's pivotal role in our modern view of language,
Pinker takes pot shots at Chomsky in "Language Instinct" :
333,355,357,359: Chomsky skeptical that natural selection can explain human
language (linked to Gould & Lewontins influence)
52: Chomsky is a paper and pencil theoretician who wouldn't know Jabba the
Hutt from the Cookie Monster.
We don't learn to speak in the same sense that we learn to write. Minsky
argues that learn is too vague a word for scientific use (from memory) and
suggests a whole string of new words to describe different ways of learning.
-- Bill
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