By: Mario Hood on March 5, 2020
This week’s reading of Transgender Children and Young People falls in line with the last few weeks, as it is just as thick and thought-provoking as Pinker’s work. While Pinker does with stats and philosophical stances, Brunskell-Evans and Moore seek to provide another viewpoint to the conversation/debate about Transgenderism. Dr. Bird, in his review of…
By: Greg Reich on March 4, 2020
Have you ever thought it would be nice to travel back in time when life was less complex and a lot simpler? Then again simpler times for one may not be simpler times for another. For me it would be the days when I was a young child on a small ranch in Montana. Not…
By: Rev Jacob Bolton on March 4, 2020
October 11 is National Coming Out Day. I had no idea this observance even existed as a freshman in college but was introduced to it early in the morning on my way to English class. It was a bright crisp morning and one of the Pride groups (not their name back then, but I don’t…
By: Shawn Cramer on March 3, 2020
Curiosity is the fountainhead of all learning, deep relational connection, and innovation. An increasing polarization and the resulting combative culture threaten curiosity on university campuses in the US. Brain researchers have noted the difference in how our brains work during conflict. Curiosity is impossible when one is feeling threatened. Instead, “we feel an involuntary need…
By: Dylan Branson on March 2, 2020
The Coddling of the American Mind is one of those unique books that isn’t afraid to take a look a trends in culture and call them out their inconsistencies. Haidt and Lukianoff expound upon three untruths that have infiltrated the American mind: The Untruth of Fragility: “What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker.” The Untruth…
By: Chris Pollock on March 2, 2020
The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. G.K. Chesterton Is it possible to be all empiricist, rationalist and nativist at the same time? I wonder if we can combine or wrap up our personal and relative moral leanings as we find our way through our lives by a soulful,…
By: Joe Castillo on March 2, 2020
The Atlantic “Whatever your identity, background, or political ideology,” the authors advise young people, “you will be happier, healthier, stronger, and more likely to succeed in pursuing your own goals” if you do three things: Seek out challenges “rather than eliminating or avoiding everything that ‘feels unsafe.’” Free yourself from cognitive distortions “rather than always…
By: Steve Wingate on March 2, 2020
This book lends itself to be a self-help book. In The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff argue that well-intentioned adults are unwittingly harming young people by raising them in ways that implicitly convey three untruths and that the explicit threats are commonly from the right side of the political spectrum: The Untruth…
By: Shermika Harvey on March 2, 2020
Here’s to another week with Steven Pinker. Nonetheless, this is an election to a more academic approach to desperately search the pages of The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature in hopes to discover common ground. With pure amazement on this rare occasion, commonality was found. Let us dive deeper into this concept,…
By: Harry Fritzenschaft on March 1, 2020
Maher Mali’s review of Pinker’s The Blank Slate takes place 15 years after its publication in 2002. Mali contends that Pinker indicates inborn traits are highly probable rather than pre-determined. Pinker attempts to lay waste to the popular ideas of The Blank Slate (The mind has no instinctive traits), The Noble Savage (it is surrounding…
By: John Muhanji on March 1, 2020
When we are growing up, we heard many stories from our parents, teachers, grandparents, and many other storytellers. But the most story ever spoken as a true one was the one that a child of five months old, abducted by a baboon, and ran with her to the deep forest. The parents searched the child,…
By: Mary Mims on February 29, 2020
From the beginning of time, people have been obsessed with having a variety of traits like other people. We want to be as intelligent, as beautiful, or sophisticated as our neighbors. One of the eye makeup commercials featured a woman with a full, luscious set of black eyelashes, using the tagline: Maybe she’s born with…
By: Nancy VanderRoest on February 29, 2020
Having gone to Western Michigan University during my bachelor’s program and graduating with a minor in Psychology, I thought I owned the world. Our Psych program was based on BF Skinner, who was a behavioral psychologist and I became the best student in my class at teaching rats to drink from a straw utilizing the…
By: Wallace Kamau on February 28, 2020
When I think of human bahaviour, there are many questions that come to mind but one stands out that Pinker’s book, The Blank Slate[1] made me to explore more. Why is it that, for the most part, People use an excuse for not performing as expected or blame a scapegoat when things go wrong? Human…
By: Sean Dean on February 28, 2020
Watching a person that has perfect or absolute pitch (AP) is like watching a magician making things seemingly appear out of thin air. There’s a bit of beauty to it and a bit of bravado as they pick notes off as if they are old friends. It is typically thought that the ability to remember…
By: Digby Wilkinson on February 28, 2020
Another fun book by Steven Pinker this week. The Blank Slate is another volume that attacks certain modern assumptions about the nature of individual human beings.[1] In education and social anthropology, modern prevailing views are based on the expanded work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Dryden[2] and more recently by Margaret Mead.[3] Rousseau was responsible for the…
By: Jenn Burnett on February 28, 2020
The nature versus nurture debate has taken many forms and been informed by many disciplines over the years. The political implications of this discussion have both increased the importance and the risks associated with it. Race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, intelligence have all been among key contentious topics. Interestingly, the most controversial topics of Pinker’s…
By: Karen Rouggly on February 27, 2020
Steven Pinker, author of The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature and many other works, is a Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University.[1] Pinker is fascinated with the mind and visual cognition and language play a significant role in our human development. In The Blank Slate, Pinker…
By: Andrea Lathrop on February 27, 2020
My sense of Pinker, now having spent part of two weeks of my life with him, is that he is quite interesting and maddening. I imagine most do not view him neutrally and either love or hate him. As soon I am apt to describe him as cold, he offers something that smacks of warmth.…
By: Harry Edwards on February 27, 2020
Steven Pinker in The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature argues that the popular idea that human beings are born sans innate properties is fallacious. Related concepts such as the Noble Savage and Ghost in the Machine fall under the same misunderstood categories that must be corrected. Pinker offers at least three reasons…
