Doggone Dogmas

At lunch I am popping over to Barnes and Noble to see if they have a copy of Steven Pinker's, "the blank slate" (small caps are author's choice for title).

I never really gave it much thought, but perhaps each of us is born with certain innate human traits that arrived via years of genetic development. Of course, environment as a personality shaper is important, but according to Pinker, the doctrine of the "blank slate" may have done more harm than good as it denies our common humanity. Pinker takes on more than this with his book, he also addresses "the noble savage" doctrine (people are born good but corrupted by society), as well as "the ghost in the machine" theory that each of us has a soul that makes choices free from biology.


Not sure I accept that free will is a myth, and that human behavior is always "caused", but can't hurt to expand my own gray matter a little. Personally, I think that human actions are a stew of environmental/genetic/causal/chaotic ingredients. How can one separate any of the ingredients as being the more important of the recipe? Certainly something new to chew on. Cornbread, anyone?