Those are arts and parenting.Īrt as mentioned before is one of human universals. The book includes analysis of many hot buttons related to the topic of the blank slate, however, two of them appeared to arise the strongest response.

However, in the book it is argued that “fairness” is not “sameness” and that certain motives do not automatically lead to certain behavior as human brain consists of many parts, and each of them may inhibit others. On the other hand, we could perfect mankind if we were blank slates, but if we are already born with some traits they may become the reason of some negative aspects of our human nature. The first one is based on the idea that if all of us are blank slates at birth that means we are equal and if something is written on the slate the person can have more opportunities and that is how the discrimination and inequality are justified. There are two political reasons why the blank slate idea decline is considered to be congenial.

Many studies of identical twins show that they have astonishing similarities even if they were separated at birth and tested being adult. Others are proved by scientific studies, such as human universals study in anthropology, that defines set of emotions, behaviors, and worldviews similar to all 6000 cultures in the world, or the study of Paul Thompson and his colleagues in genetics and neuroscience who measured using MRI that the more DNA two people share, the more correlations in different parts of their brains exist. Many of them are based on common sense, as for example, it is obvious that children are born with some certain temperament and talents. There are reasons to doubt that human mind is a blank slate. The TED speech “Human nature and the blank slate” by Steven Pinker is based on the ideas developed in his book “The Blank Slate” where he declines the popular idea of human mind being a blank slate at birth.