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\u2019s born with it; maybe it\u2019s Maybelline. The commercial implied by using Maybelline mascara, no one would be able to tell if you were born with thick, long eyelashes or if you used an enhancer, like Maybelline\u2019s mascara.<\/p>\n
Behavioral geneticists have long struggled to determine what humankind is born with, in terms of intelligence and the tendency toward certain behaviors. One popular view of how intelligence and behavior are derived is called the \u201cBlank Slate\u201d proposed by Hume and Locke.<\/p>\n
Hume and Locke proceeded from the same premise which the phenomenologists advanced, and which remains unrefuted philosophically or psychologically, that all knowledge of external reality is acquired through the senses, and that, insofar as these senses are unreliable, each human being is “impressionable” — like a blank slate. Neither Hume nor Locke, however, ever denies that human beings have innate propensities, or, to pursue the metaphor, they acknowledge that the slate has inherent properties of its own.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n Steven Pinker in his book, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature<\/em>, believes \u201cbehavior may vary across cultures, but the design of the mental programs that generate it need not vary. Intelligent behavior is learned successfully because we have innate systems that do the learning.\u201d[2]<\/a> Ultimately, Pinker believes that human nature is predetermined in individuals and \u201cparenting skills have negligible effects on the upbringing of children\u201d.[3]<\/a> This argument between being born with innate abilities or abilities to learn versus the influence of environmental factors on behavior and abilities to learn is deemed the nature versus nurture argument. Although there are some who believe in a dualism of both nature and nurture, Pinker relates this to the theory called, \u201cThe Ghost in the Machine\u201d.<\/p>\n The Ghost in the Machine is a special case. It corresponds roughly to the idea that our behavior is controlled by something other than the activity of our brains. Philosophical dualists believe that we are made of two kinds of stuff: physical stuff–the body\u2014and thinking stuff, identified variously as the mind, conscious will, or the soul.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n Pinker dismisses the Ghost in the Machine theory as well as the idea of \u201cthe Noble Savage\u201d.<\/p>\n Interestingly, the Ghost in the Machine may correspond more closely to a Biblical understanding of how we were born with an innately sinful human nature but also have the ability, through Jesus Christ, to be free from the law of sin and death as described in the book of Romans, chapter 8.<\/p>\n In reality, we may never be able to know how much intelligence we were born with, but I know that God allows me to grow in understanding and knowledge of Him well beyond what I think I am capable of. If anyone asks, I can honestly say that I was not born with it, but I continue to enhance what God has given me through the power of the (Holy) Ghost in me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a>.Eoyang, Eugene. “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.” Comparative Literature Studies<\/em> 44, no. 3 (2007): 397.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a>. Pinker, Steven. \u201cThe Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.\u201d<\/em> New York: Penguin Books, 2003: 45.<\/p>\n