Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Post 1500 - The Blank Slate

Dr. Joy Bliss over at Maggie's Farm has some discussion about the perniciousness of the blank slate theory of human development. Included is a marvelous video by Steven Pinker on the heritability of human nature.

Bonuses:
1. The Arts & Humanities Tribe is kicked - by name - by Pinker.
2. Virginia Woolf gets an extra kick
3. Cool stories about identical twins reared apart

Downside: learning that all the time and energy I put into my kids was pretty much wasted, at least in terms of how they turned out. Had I known that, well...I don't know what I would have done instead. I probably would have done pretty much the same, just not been nervous about it.

1 comment:

Donna B. said...

The upside for me is that all the mistakes I made in raising my children might not have done them as much harm as I feared.

On top of having three children, the middle one had a serious head injury at a young age and it's been quite interesting (when I can set emotions aside) to see how his personality has developed.