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Author
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Topic: Pinker on Human Nature and Social Constructivism
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Mandos
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 888
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posted 10 September 2002 12:48 PM
I wasn't sure whether I should really have put this in the Feminism forum, since we've discussed it on and off there. However, here is an interview with Pinker, the most popular proponent of evolutionary psychology, on the foibles of social constructivist critics, how he perceived their motives, their mistakes, etc, etc. The article is here.
I don't agree with everything that he says, but I'm very sympathetic to the overall gist of the article.
From: There, there. | Registered: Jun 2001
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jeff house
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 518
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posted 10 September 2002 02:05 PM
The Pinker interview is quite thought-provoking! The ramifications of what he says are endless if they are true; I am far from able to determine whether they are or not.Take, for example, this claim, which is not by any sense the most radical one in the interview: quote:
As for Judy Harris, I am completely persuaded by her argument that socialization takes place in the peer group rather than in the family. This is not a banal claim—most child psychologists won't go near it. But it survives one empirical test after another.
Get that? It doesn't matter to your development what your parents and syblings do to you. It can be sexual abuse, physical abuse, whatever. The one-half of your socialization which is not genetically-determined is also not determined in the family. And b) If you obtain entry to a decent peer group,
you will develop well. If not, not. This seems pretty counter-intuitive to me. But intuitions are often wrong, I admit.
From: toronto | Registered: May 2001
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Sisyphus
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1425
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posted 10 September 2002 04:27 PM
What a fascinating interview! Generally, I agree with Dr. Pinker. I find the evolutionary/genetic hypothesis to be a compelling one in explaining most human behaviour, and I would say that the brain=mind=soul axiom is at least a necessary, if not sufficient one in all philosophical discussions of the subject. Behaviourist and Cognitivist formulations offer a useful vocabulary in my opinion, but until they are explained in terms of synaptic plasticity and facilitation, they might be hiding identical effects under artificially disparate causal categories. The problem I have with the heavily "Nature-oriented" folk in the nature-nurture debate is that defining "environmental conditions" in separately-reared twin studies for example would be impossible, it seems to me. What one researcher my see as identical conditons, may not be identical with respect to certain variables that we don't know enough about to even consider. Conversely, identified differences may not be "different" enough to produce changes in synaptic organization (you'll have noticed by now that this is my criterion or code-word for "psychological change" and my measure of psychological difference). Add to this, that the psychological environment that one finds oneself in is related to one's innate psychological nature. If you're an asshole because of a homozygous AH AH genotype your social environment will be different than if you're naturally a generous, caring individual.
What I really liked in the interview, however, was the rejection of determinism (be it nature or nurture) as an excuse for individual behaviour. I don't see that a mechanistic explanation of how the brain works relieves us of personal responsibility for our actions (major psychoses excepted). Many of us have done things that contradict our immediate psychological impulses (e.g. forgiven a hurt, confronted a threatening stranger, committed an immoral act to fit in with the group). My experience is that all such behaviours become "more natural" with repetition and I attribute this (perhaps simplistically) to synaptic modification of a Hebbian sort. I think most people can be and are modified by peers, the media (  ???) during their lives. I think the really interesting question is: Where, in the mechanistic little brain-machine I believe in, is the act of will that starts the ball rolling for thoughts and actions?
From: Never Never Land | Registered: Sep 2001
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Sisyphus
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1425
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posted 10 September 2002 05:10 PM
quote:
quote:
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Having said that, I don't think that he was including traumatic experiences (ie, abuse) in his discussion--the studies he's discussing would likely have controlled for that variable.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------If he is excluding "traumatic experiences", then I am less impressed, because, as far as I am aware, traumatic experiences are defined by their effect. So, he would be saying: "Parents have no effect on socialization except in those instances where they have an effect." All pretence to science would be lost.
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From
I don't agree at all. On the assumption that "traumatic events" refers to incidents of sexual or physical abuse, surely these do not constitute elements of standard parental repetoire. Also, rape and assault have serious effects in their own right, regardless of whether they are perpetrated by parents or not and constitute a complicating factor (to put it mildly) in populations chosen to study parental vs other influences on child development. To make it scientific, your control group would have to consist only of children who had been sexually abused or consistently beaten by total strangers.
From: Never Never Land | Registered: Sep 2001
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flotsom
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2832
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posted 10 September 2002 05:14 PM
Hmm.It's Religion versus Science again. Death to the vanquished, right? It would actually be interesting to have a discussion in good faith about these compelling and very timely questions but unfortunately I fear that there is too much chauvinism on the part of the 'Scientists' and therefore very little possibility of this dialogue ever happening here. I could be wrong of course. Ken Wilber draws his circumference around the debate entirely so I have taken the liberty to plop a good chunk of his text right into the middle of our thread. This way the greatest number of babblers will have an opportunity to participate - I for one admit that I am far from familiar with many of the texts and their authors that are inevitably cited in this ongoing dialogue. My apologies in advance - for the lengthy copy and paste. Wilber: quote:
The Relation of Science and Religion Numerous theorists have classified the typical stances that have been taken as to the relation of science and religion. All of these schemes are basically quite similar, moving from warfare, to peaceful coexistence, to mutual influence and exchange, to attempted integration. Ian Barbour, for example, gives: (1) Conflict: science and religion are at war with each other; one is right and the other wrong, and that is that. (2) Independence: both can be "true," but their truths refer to basically separate realms, between which there is little contact. (3) Dialogue: science and religion can both benefit from a mutual dialogue, where the separate truths of each can mutually enrich the other. (4) Integration: science and religion are both part of a "big picture" that fully integrates their respective contributions. [1] Eugenie Scott gives: (1) Warfare: science trumps religion, or religion trumps science; death to the loser. (2) Separate realms: science deals with natural facts, religion deals with spiritual issues; they neither conflict nor accord. (3) Accommodation: religion accommodates to the facts of science, using science to reinterpret, but not abandon, its core theological beliefs; a one-way street. (4) Engagement: both science and religion accommodate to each other, interacting as equal partners; a two-way street. [2] In Sense and Soul , I give my own classification of the most common stances; here is a brief summary:
Still with me? quote:
(1) Science denies religion . This is still one of the most common stances among today's scientists, aggressively represented by such thinkers as Richard Dawkins, Francis Crick, and Steven Pinker. Religion is, pure and simple, either a superstitious relic from the past, or, at best, a survival gimmick that nature uses to reproduce the species. (2) Religion denies science . The typical fundamentalist retort is that science is part of the fallen world and thus has no access to real truth. God created the world--and the entire fossil record--in six days, and that is that. The Bible is the literal truth, and so much the worse for science if it disagrees. (3) Science and religion deal with different realms of being, and thus can peacefully coexist . This is one of the most sophisticated stances, and it has two versions, strong and weak: Strong version: epistemological pluralism --which maintains that reality consists of various dimensions or realms (such as matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit), and that science is dealing mostly with the lower realms of matter and body, and religion is dealing mostly with the higher realms of soul and spirit. In any event, both science and religion are equally part of a "big picture" that makes ample room for both, and their respective contributions can be integrated into this big picture. The traditional Great Chain of Being falls into this category (see fig. 1). Representatives of something like this general view include Plotinus, Kant, Schelling, Coomaraswamy, Whitehead, Fritjof Schuon, Huston Smith, and Ian Barbour. Weak version: NOMA ("nonoverlapping magisteria")--Stephen Jay Gould's term for the idea that science and religion are dealing with different realms, but these realms cannot be integrated into any sort of big picture since they are fundamentally incommensurate. They are both to be fully honored, but they cannot be fully integrated. By default, this is a very common stance among many scientists, who profess belief in some sort of Spirit, but cannot imagine how that would actually fit with science, so they render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and render unto God what is left over. (4) Science itself offers arguments for Spirit's existence. This stance claims that many scientific facts and discoveries point directly to spiritual realities, and thus science can help us directly reveal God/dess. For example, the Big Bang seems to require some sort of Creator principle; evolution appears to be following an intelligent design; the anthropic principle implies that some sort of creative intelligence is behind cosmic evolution, and so on. This is similar to Scott's one-way street accommodation, where science is used to enrich religion, but usually not vice versa. It is also similar to what Barbour calls "natural theology" as opposed to "a theology of nature" (in the former, Spirit is found directly from a reading of nature, as with many ecophilosophers; in the latter, a revealed Spirit is used to interpret nature in spiritual terms. Barbour favors the latter, which is part of category 3). This is a very common approach to this topic, and probably the most common among popular writers on the "new scientific paradigm which proves or supports mysticism." (5) Science itself is not knowledge of the world but merely one interpretation of the world, and thus it has the same validity--no more, no less--as art and poetry . This is, of course, the typical "postmodern" stance. Whereas the previous approach is the most common among popular writers on the topic of science-and-religion, this approach is the most common among the academic and cultural elite, who are not dedicated to constructing any sort of integration, but in deconstructing anything of worth that anybody else has to say on the issue. There are some truly important issues raised by postmodernists, and I have attempted to strongly include those points in a more integral view (see The Marriage of Sense and Soul , chap. 9). But left to its own devices, postmodernism is something of a dead-end (see One Taste , Nov. 23 entry).
[ September 10, 2002: Message edited by: flotsom ]
From: the flop | Registered: Jul 2002
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Sisyphus
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1425
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posted 10 September 2002 06:13 PM
quote:
Hmm.
It's Religion versus Science again.Death to the vanquished, right? It would actually be interesting to have a discussion in good faith about these compelling and very timely questions but unfortunately I fear that there is too much chauvinism on the part of the 'Scientists' and therefore very little possibility of this dialogue ever happening here.
Was it the quote:
I would say that the brain=mind=soul axiom is at least a necessary, if not sufficient one in all philosophical discussions of the subject.
that broadened the thread? I'll admit, I didn't have to put in the "soul" part, but I couldn't resist  . I suppose I've aligned myself with the scientists camp... However, it's a big universe. Flotsom, there are quite a few options to choose from in the admirable lists of science/religion co-existence schemes you posted...hmmm, let's see... I like: quote:
. (3) Dialogue: science and religion can both benefit from a mutual dialogue, where the separate truths of each can mutually enrich the other. (4) Integration: science and religion are both part of a "big picture" that fully integrates their respective contributions. [1]
I'll also have a little of quote:
(3) Accommodation: religion accommodates to the facts of science, using science to reinterpret, but not abandon, its core theological beliefs; a one-way street.
I can't quite go the two-way street route (i.e (4))for reasons that I'll put in a separate post, if anyone cares to read them. I'll take a helping of quote:
3) Science and religion deal with different realms of being, and thus can peacefully coexist . This is one of the most sophisticated stances, and it has two versions, strong and weak:Weak version: NOMA ("nonoverlapping magisteria")--Stephen Jay Gould's term for the idea that science and religion are dealing with different realms, but these realms cannot be integrated into any sort of big picture since they are fundamentally incommensurate. They are both to be fully honored, but they cannot be fully integrated. By default, this is a very common stance among many scientists, who profess belief in some sort of Spirit, but cannot imagine how that would actually fit with science, so they render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and render unto God what is left over.
I believe that the postmodernist take on science is at best a putrid con-job to secure academic prestige at the cost of no serious intellectual work. At worst it's an ignominious, elitist, pretentious collection of asinine gibberish whose mediocrities tarnish the causes of feminism, environmentalism and serious epistomology of science, providing proof to the sneering anti-intellectualsim personified by George W. Bush, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, that it is Right. (Whew! It was good to get that out! I sure do hate them pomos  ) Also, I would guess they don't have anything useful to say about religion, either. What I haven't done, flotsom, is to address why one might reject some of the more accomodating relationships between science and religion. This will take a little more thought. Before I close, let me reject some of the other views that I believe have substance, but that I do not share: quote:
(1) Science denies religion . This is still one of the most common stances among today's scientists, aggressively represented by such thinkers as Richard Dawkins, Francis Crick, and Steven Pinker. Religion is, pure and simple, either a superstitious relic from the past, or, at best, a survival gimmick that nature uses to reproduce the species.
Also quote:
(4) Science itself offers arguments for Spirit's existence. This stance claims that many scientific facts and discoveries point directly to spiritual realities, and thus science can help us directly reveal God/dess. For example, the Big Bang seems to require some sort of Creator principle; evolution appears to be following an intelligent design; the anthropic principle implies that some sort of creative intelligence is behind cosmic evolution, and so on. This is similar to Scott's one-way street accommodation, where science is used to enrich religion, but usually not vice versa. It is also similar to what Barbour calls "natural theology" as opposed to "a theology of nature" (in the former, Spirit is found directly from a reading of nature, as with many ecophilosophers; in the latter, a revealed Spirit is used to interpret nature in spiritual terms. Barbour favors the latter, which is part of category 3). This is a very common approach to this topic, and probably the most common among popular writers on the "new scientific paradigm which proves or supports mysticism."
I have a lot of sympathy for this last one, but I can't quite buy it. I guess these'll have to be considered one-at-a time, cause they're Big Questions. I think this debate is important, not only because of Bigness, but also because I believe that the scientific mode of thought is the only one that can help us achieve the progressive political, social and environmental goals that occupy so many of the threads on Babble, and that obviously concern so many in this crazy world.
From: Never Never Land | Registered: Sep 2001
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Tommy_Paine
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 214
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posted 10 September 2002 06:28 PM
quote:
Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with political and moral and emotional baggage?
I don't think empirical questions are wieghed down with emotinal baggage, it's the lack of empirical data that leads to speculation that engenders, and should engender moral and emotional reaction. The late Stephen J. Gould called the suppositions of evolutionary psychologists "just so stories" because while we might be able to observe certain behaviors, we will never be able to reconstruct the environment that gave rise to them; so we are stuck with a kind of reverse engineering attempt, only without the model to work from in some cases. I do, however, think there are some general observations we can make. I think the rule of parsimony, for the moment, indicates that we are born with behavioral "presets" that can be modified to greater or lesser extents from individual to individual, by our environment. I liken it to a 747 we can fully automate. We could preprogram take off and landing, and navagation through GPS. Would we though? Of course not. We can't possibly pre-program into an aircraft's computer all the possible contingencies, both known and unknown to us. That's why we put a pilot on board, to do the stuff we can't predict. I think "nature", the force of natural selection, has done this with our (and to varying degrees, other species) brains. Sure, we have an auto pilot behavioral routine, but we also have a "pilot"-- call it reason or sentience if you like, that enables us to do a "manual overide" of our behaviors. If not all the time, at least all the time in people we judge to be "healthy". Criminologists seem to think that sociopaths are born, but it is a particular and peculiar environment or life experience that turns them into serial killers. I respect both Gould and Dawkins very much. Both were/are very considered thinkers. However, I have to agree with Dawkins that a Universe with a supreme being is fundamentally different that one without, and as such comes under the perview of science to investigate. Poor Gould was too concilliatory, what with his NOMA idea. I think it was Gould's attempt to call a truce between science and religion. Dawkins knows there will be no truce.
From: The Alley, Behind Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: Apr 2001
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flotsom
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2832
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posted 10 September 2002 07:01 PM
To his credit Pinker keeps most of the doors and windows open.Pinker on the mystery of consciousness: quote:
... it is possible that the existence of subjective first-person experience is not explainable by science.
[ September 10, 2002: Message edited by: flotsom ]
From: the flop | Registered: Jul 2002
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Sisyphus
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1425
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posted 10 September 2002 09:09 PM
quote:
I respect both Gould and Dawkins very much. Both were/are very considered thinkers. However, I have to agree with Dawkins that a Universe with a supreme being is fundamentally different that one without, and as such comes under the perview of science to investigate
I also respect the above-mentioned thinkers, but I find Dawkins a little smug in his dismissal of religion as a "virus of the mind". Personally, I'm really quite reluctant to pontificate on what effect a Supreme Being might have on the state of the Universe, and am not at all convinced that it is within the purview of science to investigate the matter, any more than science can comment on whether Bach is superior to Mozart. IMHO science is of no use in studying any phenomenon that cannot yield reproducible observations that are independent of the identity of the observer. Therefore, unless Richard Dawkins has measured one or more characteristics of God, he is hardly on solid scientific ground with respect to ANY pronouncements on the subject save those of personal belief. In response to SJG's description of evolutionary psychology as "just-so stories", I agree , but I think he's being a little hard on the field considering the inferential nature of both paleontology and evolutionary biology. I don't think it would be too hard to come up with some studies that would suggest plausible scenarios for the evolution of certain human psychological traits.
I'd like to get back to flotsom, because I think the quote (s)he selected was a good one and bears repeating: quote:
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... it is possible that the existence of subjective first-person experience is not explainable by science.
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Now, I'm not sure the existence of subjective is beyond the power of neurophysiology to explain, but it's interpretation is. No, that's not right. It's not the verbal, rationalized, abstracted, reconstructed, symbolized representation that's elusive. It's the experience itself. I believe it is this moment of pre- or non- verbal being that honest science turns away from, perhaps wistfully, but knowing where its power lies. And where it ends. It is at this point that I believe religion begins. Religion is the exploration of those moments where we are really aware of being alive.Often they come unbidden. They can be displaced so easily by flat tires and taxes, FOX TV and blind dates... They are present as part of many peoples' subjective experience and any description of them seems to cheapen them and rob them of their magic. Perhaps these are just aberrations of neuronal physiology. You could rip off the top of my skull, patch-clamp my neurons and characterise the ion channels opening and closing in the neurolemma. Do that and tell me what Love is. Tell me why I feel the way I do when I see the Northern Lights, even though I know it's just electromagnetic radiation given off by atmospheric atoms excited by solar wind? I can go on...but the most important realities of my being alive right now, tapping on this keyboard,are bound up in the experience, not a description of it. Even the awareness of the experience is a layer of artificiality that science can work on. But the subjective immediacy of the experience,.my experience is forever beyond the reach of science. How could it be otherwise, science has no use for anecdotal evidence anyway.
Science can not inform ethics. Contrary to what devotees of Ayn Rand may try to argue, their "morality" is a matter of aesthetics (puerile and twisted in my opinion), not reason. It's this respect that I believe we must all have for the subjective, if we are to empathise and care about each other, that I believe can be apprehended by the religious mind.
From: Never Never Land | Registered: Sep 2001
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flotsom
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2832
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posted 10 September 2002 09:40 PM
I too have problems with Gould's Non-overlapping Magisteria approach to the question at hand, Sisyphus.Here is Wilber again who with which I admittedly must agree. quote:
What the standard NOMA argument (category three, in both its strong and weak form) tends to completely overlook is that, even if values and facts are in some sense separate realms, when a person experiences subjective values, those values have objective factual correlates in the brain itself. This is absolutely not to say that values can be reduced to brain states, or that spiritual experiences can be reduced to natural occasions. It is to say that spiritual realities (the magisteria of religion) and empirical realities (the magisteria of science) are not as compartmentalized as the typical solutions to this debate imagine. The integral model that I am proposing--namely, "all-level, all-quadrant"--attempts to provide a framework in which all of those "facts," if you will, can be accommodated. The facts, that is, of both interior realities and exterior realities, "spiritual" experiences and "scientific" experiences, subjective realities and objective realities. It finds ample room for the traditional Great Chain of Being and Knowing--from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit--but it plugs those realities into empirical facts in a definite and specifiable fashion, as you will see in the books in this volume
From the link below... Worth the time. http://makeashorterlink.com/?C1D3310C1
From: the flop | Registered: Jul 2002
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Q
recent-rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3105
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posted 21 September 2002 02:53 PM
Late last night while waiting in the emergency room at our hospital I was really discouraged to see who came for help.Most of the people there were young males who had been involved in anti social behaviours mostly drunken brawls. I saw too many police and other emergency service personnel occupied with sorting out these pack animals. There is no other way to describe them. What was espeicially disturbing is that their parents seemed decent enough people who were each begging the police for answers. None of the hoodlum boys was willing to admit to their parents or the police what was going on in their group encounters that led to the violence. I felt angry that so much of our health care and other service funds are spent dealing with these man boys. I wonder what if any positive contribution they will make to society. My first thought is that all males should be sterilized at puberty the second is that there should be mandatory curfews on them to keep them off the streets after 6:00 p.m. This may or may not be off topic yet I felt compelled to express my frustration with the group of trouble makers. BTW - I loved Pinker's the Language Instinct his insight is refreshing.
From: Wild in the City | Registered: Sep 2002
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Email this thread to someone!
)
. In my younger days I dated a wonderful woman who was very deeply into certain areas of New Ageism. She was constantly trying to get me to read "scientific" apologetics of spiritual phenomena. They all either descended into gibberish after about two paragraphs (which is two paragraphs more than Bruno Latour was ever able to go) or displayed such serious niavete about science that they lost me sooner or later (Fritjof(sp.?) Capra). I've managed ten paragraphs of Ken Wilber and he hasn't made any scientific howlers and he still makes sense. So, I'll get back to the thread when I find out where he's going 
