The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

  49. Catalano & Shatz, 1998; Crair, Gillespie, & Stryker, 1998; Katz & Shatz, 1996; Stryker, 1994.

  50. Catalano & Shatz, 1998; Stryker, 1994.

  51. Wang et al., 1998.

  52. Brown, 1985; Hamer & Copeland, 1994.

  53. J. R. Skoyles, June 7, 1999, on an email discussion list for evolutionary psychology.

  54. Recanzone, 2000, p.245.

  55. Van Essen & Deyoe, 1995.

  56. Kosslyn, 1994.

  57. Kennedy, 1993; Kosslyn, 1994, pp. 334–335; Zimler & Keenan, 1983; though see also Arditi, Holtzman, & Kosslyn, 1988.

  58. Petitto et al., 2000.

  59. Klima & Bellugi, 1979; Padden & Perl-mutter, 1987; Siple & Fischer, 1990.

  60. Cramer & Sur, 1995; Sharma, Angelucci, & Sur, 2000; Sur, 1988; Sur, Angelucci, & Sharma, 1999.

  61. Sur, 1988, pp. 44, 45.

  62. Bregman, 1990; Bregman & Pinker, 1978; Kubovy, 1981.

  63. Hubel, 1988.

  64. Bishop, Coudreau, & O’Leary, 2000; Bourgeois, Goldman-Rakic, & Rakic, 2000; Chalupa, 2000; Geary & Huffman, 2002; Katz, Weliky, & Crowley, 2000; Krubitzer & Huffman, 2000; Levitt, 2000; Miyashita-Lin et al., 1999; Preuss, 2000; Preuss, 2001; Rakic, 2000; Rakic, 2001; Tessier-Lavigne & Goodman, 1996; Verhage et al., 2000; Zhou & Black, 2000.

  65. Katz, Weliky, & Crowley, 2000, p.209.

  66. Crowley & Katz, 2000.

  67. Verhage et al., 2000.

  68. Miyashita-Lin et al., 1999.

  69. Bishop, Coudreau, & O’Leary, 2000. See also Rakic, 2001.

  70. Thompson et al., 2001.

  71. Brugger et al., 2000; Melzack, 1990; Melzack et al., 1997; Ramachandran, 1993.

  72. Curtiss, de Bode, & Shields, 2000; Stromswold, 2000.

  73. Described in Stromswold, 2000.

  74. Farah et al., 2000.

  75. Anderson et al., 1999.

  76. Anderson, 1976; Pinker, 1979; Pinker, 1984a; Quine, 1969.

  77. Adams et al., 2000.

  78. Tooby & Cosmides, 1992; Williams, 1966.

  79. Gallistel, 2000; Hauser, 2000.

  80. Barkow, Cosmides, & Tooby, 1992; Burnham & Phelan, 2000; Wright, 1994.

  81. Brown, 1991.

  82. Hirschfeld & Gelman, 1994; Pinker, 1997, chap. 5.

  83. Baron-Cohen, 1995; Gopnik, Meltzoff, & Kuhl, 1999; Hirschfeld & Gelman, 1994; Leslie, 1994; Spelke, 1995; Spelke et al., 1992.

  84. Baron-Cohen, 1995; Fisher et al., 1998; Frangiskakis et al., 1996; Hamer & Copeland, 1998; Lai et al., 2001; Rossen et al., 1996.

  85. Bouchard, 1994; Plomin et al., 2001.

  86. Caspi, 2000; McCrae et al., 2000.

  87. Bouchard, 1994; Harris, 1998a; Plomin et al., 2001; Turkheimer, 2000.

  88. See the references cited in this chapter.

  PART II: FEAR AND LOATHING

  Chapter 6: Political Scientists

  1. Weizenbaum, 1976.

  2. Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984, p.x.

  3. Herrnstein, 1971.

  4. Jensen, 1969; Jensen, 1972.

  5. Herrnstein, 1973.

  6. Darwin, 1872/1998; Pinker, 1998.

  7. Ekman, 1987; Ekman, 1998.

  8. Wilson, 1975/2000.

  9. Sahlins, 1976, p.3.

  10. Sahlins, 1976, p.x.

  11. Allen et al., 1975, p.43.

  12. Chorover, 1979, pp. 108–109.

  13. Wilson, 1975/2000, p.548.

  14. Wilson, 1975/2000, p.555.

  15. Wilson, 1975/2000, p.550.

  16. Wilson, 1975/2000, p.554.

  17. Wilson, 1975/2000, p.569.

  18. Segerstråle, 2000; Wilson, 1994.

  19. Wright, 1994.

  20. Trivers & Newton, 1982.

  21. Trivers, 1981.

  22. Trivers, 1981, p.37.

  23. Gould, 1976a; Gould, 1981; Gould, 1998a; Lewontin, 1992; Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984; Rose & Rose, 2000; Rose, 1997.

  24. In titles alone, we find “determinism” in Gould, 1976a; Rose, 1997; Rose & the Dialectics of Biology Group, 1982; and four of the nine chapters in Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984.

  25. Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984, p.236.

  26. Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984, p.5.

  27. Dawkins, 1976/1989, p.164.

  28. Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984, p.11.

  29. Dawkins, 1985.

  30. Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984, p.287.

  31. Dawkins, 1976/1989, p.20, emphasis added.

  32. Levins & Lewontin, 1985, pp. 88, 128; Lewontin, 1983, p.68; Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984, p.287. In Lewontin, 1982, p.18, the quotation is paraphrased as “ruled by our genes.”

  33. Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984, p.149.

  34. Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984, p.260.

  35. Rose, 1997, p.211.

  36. Freeman, 1999.

  37. Turner and Sponsel’s letter may be found at chief.anth.uconn.edu/gradstudents/dhume/darkness_in_el_dorado.

  38. Chagnon, 1988; Chagnon, 1992.

  39. Tierney, 2000.

  40. University of Michigan Report on the Ongoing Investigation of the Neel-Chagnon Allegations (www.umich.edu/~urel/darkness.html); John J. Miller, “The Fierce People: The wages of anthropological incorrectness,” National Review, November 20, 2000.

  41. John Tooby, “Jungle fever: Did two U.S. scientists start a genocidal epidemic in the Amazon, or was The New Yorker duped?” Slate, October 24, 2000; University of Michigan Report on the Ongoing Investigation of the Neel-Chagnon Allegations (www.umich.edu/~urel/darkness.html); John J. Miller, “The Fierce People: The wages of anthropological incorrectness,” National Review, November 20, 2000; “A statement from Bruce Alberts,” National Academy of Sciences, November 9, 2000, www.nas.org; John Tooby, “Preliminary Report,” Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, December 10, 2000 (www.anth.ucsb.edu/ucsbprelimnaryreport.pdf; see also www.anth.ucsb.edu/chagnon.html); Lou Marano, “Darkness in anthropology,” UPI, October 20, 2000; Michael Shermer, “Spin-doctoring the Yanomamö,” Skeptic, 2001; Virgilio Bosh & eight other signatories, “Venezuelan response to Yanomamö book,” Science, 291, 2001, pp. 985–986; “The Yanomamö and the 1960s measles epidemic”: letters from J. V. Neel, Jr., K. Hill, and S. L. Katz, Science, 292, June 8, 2001, pp. 1836–1837; “Yanomamö wars continue,” Science, 295, January 4, 2002, p.41; yahoo, com/group/evolutionary-psychology/files/aaa.html. November 2001. An extensive collection of documents related to the Tierney affair may be found on the web site www.anth.uconn.edu/gradstudents/dhume/index4.htm.

  42. Edward Hagen, “Chagnon and Neel saved hundreds of lives,” The Fray, Slate, December 8, 2000 (www.anth.uconn.edu/gradstudents/dhume/dark/darkness.0250.html); S. L. Katz, “The Yanomamö and the 1960s measles epidemic” (letter), Science, 292, June 8, 2001, p.1837.

  43. In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, quoted in John J. Miller, “The Fierce People: The wages of anthropological incorrectness,” National Review, November 20, 2000.

  44. Chagnon, 1992, chaps. 5–6.

  45. Valero & Biocca, 1965/1996.

  46. Ember, 1978; Keeley, 1996; Knauft, 1987.

  47. Tierney, 2000, p.178.

  48. Redmond, 1994, p.125; quoted in John Tooby, Slate, October 24, 2000.

  49. Sponsel, 1996, p.115.

  50. Sponsel, 1996, pp. 99, 103.

  51. Sponsel, 1998, p.114.

  52. Tierney, 2000, p.38.

  53. Neel, 1994.

  54. John J. Miller, “The Fierce People: The wages of anthropological incorrectness,” National Review, November 20, 2000.

  55. Tierney, 2000, p.xxiv.

  Chapter 7: The Holy Trinity

  1. Hunt, 1999.

  2. Halpern, Gilbert, & Coren, 1996.

  3. Allen et al., 1975.

  4. Gould, 1976a.

  5. Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984, p.267.

  6. Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984, p.267.

  7. Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984, p.14.

  8. Lewontin, 1992, p.123.

  9. Précis of Lewontin, 1982,
on the book jacket.

  10. Lewontin, 1992, p.123.

  11. Montagu, 1973a.

  12. S. Gould, “A time of gifts,” New York Times, September 26, 2001.

  13. Gould, 1998b.

  14. Mealey, 1995.

  15. Gould, 1998a, p.262.

  16. Bamforth, 1994; Chagnon, 1996; Daly & Wilson, 1988; Divale, 1972; Edgerton, 1992; Ember, 1978; Ghiglieri, 1999; Gibbons, 1997; Keeley, 1996; Kingdon, 1993; Knauft, 1987; Krech, 1994; Krech, 1999; Wrangham & Peterson, 1996.

  17. Gould, 1998a, p.262.

  18. Gould, 1998a, p.265.

  19. Levins & Lewontin, 1985, p.165.

  20. Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984, p.ix.

  21. Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984, p.76.

  22. Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984, p.270.

  23. Rose, 1997, pp. 7, 309.

  24. Gould, 1992.

  25. Hunt, 1999.

  26. Quoted in J. Salamon, “A stark explanation for mankind from an unlikely rebel” (Review of the PBS series “Evolution”), New York Times, September 24, 2001.

  27. D. Wald, “Intelligent design meets congressional designers,” Skeptic, 8, 2000, p.13. Lyrics from “Bad Touch” by the Bloodhound Gang.

  28. Quoted in D. Falk, “Design or chance?” Boston Globe Magazine, October 21, 2001, pp. 14–23, quotation on p.21.

  29. National Center for Science Education, www.ncseweb.org/pressroom.asp?branch=statement. See also Berra, 1990; Kitcher, 1982; Miller, 1999; Pennock, 2000; Pennock, 2001.

  30. Quoted in L. Arnhart, M. J. Behe, & W.A. Dembski, “Conservatives, Darwin, and design: An exchange,” First Things, 107, November 2000, pp. 23–31.

  31. Behe, 1996.

  32. Behe, 1996; Crews, 2001; Dorit, 1997; Miller, 1999; Pennock, 2000; Pennock, 2001; Ruse, 1998.

  33. R. Bailey, “Origin of the specious,” Reason, July 1997.

  34. D. Berlinski, “The deniable Darwin,” Commentary, June 1996. See R. Bailey, “Origin of the specious,” Reason, July 1997. The Pope’s views on evolution are discussed in Chapter 11.

  35. A 1991 essay, quoted in R. Bailey, “Origin of the specious,” Reason, July 1997.

  36. Quoted in R. Bailey, “Origin of the specious,” Reason, July 1997.

  37. R. Bailey, “Origin of the specious,” Reason, July 1997.

  38. L. Kass, “The end of courtship,” Public Interest, 126, Winter 1997.

  39. A. Ferguson, “The end of nature and the next man” (Review of F. Fukuyama’s The great disruption), Weekly Standard, June 28, 1999.

  40. A. Ferguson, “How Steven Pinker’s mind works” (Review of S. Pinker’s How the mind works), Weekly Standard, January 12, 1998.

  41. T. Wolfe, “Sorry, but your soul just died,” Forbes ASAP, December 2, 1996; reprinted in slightly different form in Wolfe, 2000. Ellipses in original.

  42. T. Wolfe, “Sorry, but your soul just died,” Forbes ASAP, December 2, 1996; reprinted in slightly different form in Wolfe, 2000.

  43. C. Holden, “Darwin’s brush with racism,” Science, 292, 2001, p.1295. Resolution HLS 01–2652, Regular Session, 2001, House Concurrent Resolution No. 74 by Representative Broome.

  44. R. Wright, “The accidental creationist,” New Yorker, December 13, 1999. Similarly, the creationist Discovery Institute used Lewontin’s attacks on evolutionary psychology to help criticize the 2001 PBS television documentary series “Evolution,” www.reviewevolution.com.

  45. Rose, 1978.

  46. T. Wolfe, “Sorry, but your soul just died,” Forbes ASAP, December 2, 1996; reprinted in slightly different form in Wolfe, 2000.

  47. Gould, 1976b.

  48. A. Ferguson, “The end of nature and the next man” (Review of F. Fukuyama’s The great disruption), Weekly Standard, 1999.

  49. See Dennett, 1995, p.263, for a similar report.

  50. E. Smith, “Look who’s stalking,” New York, February 14, 2000.

  51. Alcock, 1998.

  52. For example, the articles entitled “Eugenics revisited” (Horgan, 1993), “The new Social Darwinists” (Horgan, 1995), and “Is a new eugenics afoot?” (Allen, 2001).

  53. New Republic, April 27, 1998, p.33.

  54. New York Times, February 18, 2001, Week in Review, p.3.

  55. Tooby & Cosmides, 1992, p.49.

  56. Chimps: Montagu, 1973b, p.4. Heritability of IQ: Kamin, 1974; Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984, p.116. IQ as reification: Gould, 1981. Personality and social behavior: Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984, chap. 9. Sex differences: Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984, p.156. Pacific clans: Gould, 1998a, p.262.

  57. Daly, 1991.

  58. Alcock, 2001.

  59. Buss, 1995; Daly & Wilson, 1988; Daly & Wilson, 1999; Etcoff, 1999; Harris, 1998a; Hrdy, 1999; Ridley, 1993; Ridley, 1997; Symons, 1979; Wright, 1994.

  60. Plomin et al., 2001.

  PART III: HUMAN NATURE WITH A HUMAN FACE

  1. Drake, 1970; Koestler, 1959.

  2. Galileo, 1632/1967, pp. 58–59.

  Chapter 8: The Fear of Inequality

  1. From The Rambler, no. 60.

  2. From the Analects.

  3. Charlesworth, 1987; Lewontin, 1982; Miller, 2000b; Mousseau & Roff, 1987; Tooby & Cosmides, 1990.

  4. Tooby & Cosmides, 1990.

  5. Lander et al, 2001.

  6. Bodmer & Cavalli-Sforza, 1970.

  7. Tooby & Cosmides, 1990.

  8. Patai & Patai, 1989.

  9. Sowell, 1994; Sowell, 1995a.

  10. Patterson, 1995; Patterson, 2000.

  11. Cappon, 1959, pp. 387–392.

  12. Seventh Lincoln-Douglas debate, October 15, 1858.

  13. Mayr, 1963, p.649. For a more recent statement of this argument from an evolutionary geneticist, see Crow, 2002.

  14. Chomsky, 1973, pp. 362–363. See also Segerstråle, 2000.

  15. For further discussion, see Tribe, 1971.

  16. Los Angeles Times poll, December 21, 2001.

  17. Nozick, 1974.

  18. Gould, 1981, pp. 24–25. For reviews, see Blinkhorn, 1982; Davis, 1983; Jensen, 1982; Rushton, 1996; Samelson, 1982.

  19. Putnam, 1973, p.142.

  20. See the consensus statements by Neisser et al., 1996; Snyderman & Rothman, 1988; and Gottfredson, 1997; and also Andreasen et al., 1993; Caryl, 1994; Deary, 2000; Haier et al., 1992; Reed & Jensen, 1992; Thompson et al., 2001; Van Valen, 1974; Willerman et al., 1991.

  21. Moore & Baldwin, 1903/1996; Rachels, 1990.

  22. Rawls, 1976.

  23. Hayek, 1960/1978.

  24. Chirot, 1994; Courtois et al., 1999; Glover, 1999.

  25. Horowitz, 2001; Sowell, 1994; Sowell, 1996.

  26. Lykken et al., 1992.

  27. Interview in Boston Phoenix in the late 1970s, quotation reproduced from memory. Ironically, Wald’s son Elijah became a radical science writer, like his father and his mother, the biologist Ruth Hubbard.

  28. Degler, 1991; Kevles, 1985; Ridley, 2000.

  29. Bullock, 1991; Chirot, 1994; Glover, 1999; Gould, 1981.

  30. Richards, 1987, p.533.

  31. Glover, 1999; Murphy, 1999.

  32. Proctor, 1999.

  33. Laubichler, 1999.

  34. For discussions of the Marxist genocides of the twentieth century and comparisons to the Nazi Holocaust, see Besançon, 1998; Bullock, 1991; Chandler, 1999; Chirot, 1994; Conquest, 2000; Courtois et al., 1999; Getty, 2000; Minogue, 1999; Shatz, 1999; Short, 1999.

  35. For discussions of the intellectual roots of Marxism and comparisons with the intellectual roots of Nazism, see Berlin, 1996; Besançon, 1981; Besançon, 1998; Bullock, 1991; Chirot, 1994; Glover, 1999; Minogue, 1985; Minogue, 1999; Scott, 1998; Sowell, 1985. For discussions of the Marxist theory of human nature, see Archibald, 1989; Bauer, 1952; Plamenatz, 1963; Plamenatz, 1975; Singer, 1999; Stevenson & Haberman, 1998; Venable, 1945.

  36. See, e.g., Venable, 1945, p.3.

  37. Marx, 1847/1995, chap. 2.

  38. Marx & Engels, 1846/1963, part I.

  39. Marx, 1859/1979, preface.


  40. Marx, 1845/1989; Marx & Engels, 1846/1963.

  41. Marx, 1867/1993, vol. 1, p.10.

  42. Marx & Engels, 1844/1988.

  43. Glover, 1999, p.254.

  44. Minogue, 1999.

  45. Glover, 1999, p.275.

  46. Glover, 1999, pp. 297–298.

  47. Courtois et al., 1999, p.620.

  48. See the references cited in notes 34 and 35.

  49. Marx quotation from Stevenson & Haberman, 1998, p.146; Hitler quotation from Glover, 1999, p.315.

  50. Besançon, 1998.

  51. Watson, 1985.

  52. Tajfel, 1981.

  53. Originally in Red Flag (Beijing), June 1, 1958; quoted in Courtois et al., 1999.

  Chapter 9: The Fear of Imperfectibility

  1. The Prelude, Book Sixth, “Cambridge and the Alps,” I. Published 1799–1805.

  2. Passmore, 1970, epigraph.

  3. For example, the Seville Statement on Violence, 1990.

  4. “Study says rape has its roots in evolution,” Boston Herald, January 11, 2000, p.3.

  5. Thornhill & Palmer, 2001.

  6. Brownmiller & Merhof, 1992.

  7. Gould, 1995, p.433.

  8. Well, almost. The cartoonist, Jim Johnson, told me that he may have slandered walruses: he subsequently learned that it is leopard seals that kill penguins for fun.

  9. Williams, 1988.

  10. Jones, 1999; Williams, 1988.

  11. Williams, 1966, p.255.

  12. On the relevance of human nature to morality, see McGinn, 1997; Petrinovich, 1995; Rachels, 1990; Richards, 1987; Singer, 1981; Wilson, 1993.

  13. Masters, 1989, p.240.

  14. Daly & Wilson, 1988; Daly & Wilson, 1999.

  15. Jones, 1997.

  16. Daly & Wilson, 1999, pp. 58–66.

  17. Science Friday, National Public Radio, May 7, 1999.

  18. Singer, 1981.

  19. Maynard Smith & Szathmáry, 1997; Wright, 2000.

  20. De Waal, 1998; Fry, 2000.

  21. Axelrod, 1984; Brown, 1991; Fry, 2000; Ridley, 1997; Wright, 2000.

  22. Singer, 1981.

  23. Skinner, 1948/1976; Skinner, 1971; Skinner, 1974.

  24. Chomsky, 1973.

  25. Berlin, 1996; Chirot, 1994; Conquest, 2000; Glover, 1999; Minogue, 1985; Minogue, 1999; Scott, 1998.

  26. Scott, 1998.

  27. Quoted in Scott, 1998, pp. 114–115.