Pinker's "The Blank Slate"

I have just read a book by Steve Pinker call "The Blank Slate". It was written in 2002, so it won't be news to people who follow such things. But I find Pinker's observations on our social condition to be some of the most incisive that I have read.

He treats a series of issues that he identifies as "hot buttons" (politics, violence, gender, children, and the arts). There is a great deal more to the book, but I find those parts the most interesting. I am inspired by Pinker's beliefs here, but it is possible that I am not reflecting his opinions in all respects.

He argues that greater consideration should be put on innate differences than is typical in modern culture when addressing social issues. I will take as an example the idea of innate differences in intelligence among people, though the form of the argument is similar for the other hot button issues:

In the conventional liberal view, all children start with equal intelligence, and given the proper environment we could all emerge as highly intelligent. The liberal view is also that people who disagree with that view should be condemned as racists. Their main reason is that in the past, those with morally repugnant views (such as Nazis) alleged innate differences in defense of racist policies. That is (rightly) an emotionally charged issue, which (understandably) can make it hard to move towards looking dispassionately at what the alternative suggestion actually is.

The alternative view starts with science. Nazis made allegations of innate differences without any evidence, and Cyril Burt faked data to defend his belief in the innate superiority of upper class British children. Real science has shown that those were false. But science has also given overwhelming evidence for the heritability of intelligence (more precisely, for a large chunk of the differences in intelligence between individuals within a group).

But Pinker has no patience for morally repugnant policies. He argues that our moral stance should rest on firmer ground: people all have equal value and must have equal rights and opportunities because they are people, not because they have equal (or even "as good") genetic backgrounds.

While I am impressed by Pinker's analyses, I have also learned over the years to be cautious about accepting any view until I have heard and considered the best arguments that people on the other side of the issue have to offer. My initial efforts to find opposing views on the web did not turn up anything I found very impressive, but I am interested in what others may know.