A child doesn't need to be born "a blank slate" in order for
environment/"experience/society/culture to be of pivotal importance in
his/her development. You have failed to grasp the dynamic *relation"
between genome and its environment (which ofcourse starts in utero).
Skinner saw environmental forces shaping an esentially passive organism
- he was wrong. Extreme cognitivists (Chomsky, Fodor et at) see the
organism as unfolding from inside with the external world providing
little more than support for this process...they are also wrong.
Dennett madxe the comment about our genes keeping us on what is
effectively (but not literally) an infinite leash at his public lecture
in Melbourne last year. I don't think this amounts to having his cake
and eating it....this is understandable once you grasp the incredible
complexity and dynamism of the relation between humans and the world.
A quote from Dawkins along similar lines : "We, alone on earth, can
rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators" (p331 in The
Selfish Gene")
A little more from Dawkins now that I have got going:
"I *think" that Rose and his colleagues (Kamin, Lewontin and other
"high priests of the left") are accusing us of eating our cake and
having it. either we must be "genetic determinists" or we believe in
"free will;" we cannot have it both ways......what they don't undertsnad
is that it is perfectly possible for genes to exert a statistical
influence on human behaviour while at the same time believing that this
influence can be modified, overidden or reversed by other influences"
(p331 "The Selfish Gene")
I'm still not sure that the Neither! list is the right place for us to
discuss this.
Kerry
Bill Kerr wrote:
>
> [Kerry Langer]
> My first impression from reading the rest of your note however is that
> you are now slipping in the direction of being *too* impressed by the
> role of biology in human society/culture. I liked Dennett's remark that
> although our genes keep us on a leash, the leash is, for all intents and
> purposes, infinitely long. I'll try to respond in more depth over the
> next few days.
>
> [Bill Kerr]
> Yes, I think Pinker is challenging the notion that "being determines
> consciousness" and is trying to establish the notion that "genes determine
> consciousness" (not his words).
>
> I wouldn't discount the former but Pinker does marshall some most impressive
> evidence for the latter, which has compelled me to rethink.
>
> Pinkers notion of evolutionary psychology is new to me, its the linchpin of
> a lot of the things he says, but he argues it really well IMO. The
> traditional Marxist / feminist / humanist view is that we start with a blank
> slate and then "being determines consciousness" or "gender is constructed"
> or "give me a child and I will turn him into whatever I want" etc. etc.
>
> Pinker refutes this IMO. I don't know the context of the Dennett quote but
> he seems to be wanting to have his cake and eat it (genes determine what we
> are but it doesn't really matter anyway). The whole point of Lewontin et al
> writing 'Not in Our Genes' is that it does matter, surely.
>
> -- Bill Kerr
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