Create an Account
username: password:
 
  MemeStreams Logo

MemeStreams Discussion

search


This page contains all of the posts and discussion on MemeStreams referencing the following web page: A Biological Understanding of Human Nature: A Talk With Steven Pinker | Edge. You can find discussions on MemeStreams as you surf the web, even if you aren't a MemeStreams member, using the Threads Bookmarklet.

A Biological Understanding of Human Nature: A Talk With Steven Pinker | Edge
by Jeremy at 9:19 pm EDT, Sep 9, 2002

The main question is:

"Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with political and moral and emotional baggage? Why do people believe that there are dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a product of the brain, that the brain is organized in part by the genome, and that the genome was shaped by natural selection?"

This idea has been met with demonstrations, denunciations, picketings, and comparisons to Nazism, both from the right and from the left. And these reactions affect both the day-to-day conduct of science and the public appreciation of the science.

By exploring the political and moral colorings of discoveries about what makes us tick, we can have a more honest science and a less fearful intellectual milieu.


 
 
Powered By Industrial Memetics