In "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature," Steven Pinker -- a psychologist at MIT and author of several popular books on cognition and linguistics -- attempts to shatter contemporary versions of the blank slate. To this polemical task he brings an arsenal of scientific research, acute analysis and pugnacious attitude. Bubbling beneath an affable charm, strong passions, apparently simmering since graduate school, give some of his arguments a bitter aftertaste.

A University of Chicago professor reviews Steven Pinker's latest book for The New York Times.