From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Mon Sep 16 2002 - 14:12:00 MDT
Eliezer wrote:
>>> Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
>>>
>>>> ### I wonder if mentioning this book will earn you accusations of
>>>> being a barbarian, racist, or maybe even a Nazi. After all, Pinker
>>>> reiterates the notion universally accepted by psychologists, that
>>>> the variation in intelligence is predominantly determined by
>>>> genetics
>>> <Eliezer>
>>> Not that I noticed. Are you sure you're not confusing Pinker's
>>> evolutionary psychology with the quite separate discipline of
>>> behavioral genetics?
>>
>> ### The cryptic way is carrying over from SL4 - but bear with me,
>> your question needs to be couched in simpler and more explicit terms.
>
> ****
>
<Eliezer>
> http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html
>
> In fact, evolutionary psychology and behavior genetics are animated
> by two radically different questions:
>
> 1. What is the universal, evolved architecture that we all share
> by virtue of being humans? (evolutionary psychology)
> 2. Given a large population of people in a specific environment,
> to what extent can differences between these people be accounted for
> by differences in their genes? (behavior genetics)
>
> -- Tooby and Cosmides
>
> ****
### Pinker said in the Edge interview:
" <the idea of the blank slate> It's also been undermined by behavioral
genetics, which has found that at least half of the variation in personality
and intelligence in a society comes from differences in the genes."
I understand that he accepts both evolutionary psychology (where he
publishes primary research) and the behavioral genetics approach, as
evidenced by the above quote.
As Tooby & Cosmides mentioned in The Adapted Mind, many orthodox social
science researchers believe there is an inextricable link between these two
scientific programmes and the evil of the dark side. Whichever approach he
meant above, I am sure Pinker is now bracing himself for the hurricane of
invective going his way, unless things have changed since 1994.
Rafal
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