Pinker Hello, everyone.
Monty_Vonn Cool! He's here!
System: You may wish to go thru the actual chat page on BookTalk. You can float and dock this room too.
Jeremy1952 Hi! Welcome
Nostradafemme hi Stephen
Melon it's Steven, not Stephen.
Peterdf hi mermaid
Chris_OConnor Hello Professor Pinker
Kostya Hi Stephen
Pinker Logout:
Chris_OConnor Oh lovely
Chris_OConnor We scared him off that fast
Kostya
Jeremy1952 Ok, what did he say that you booted him Chris?
Pctacitus that's not good
Pinker Login:
Smiling cloud Was it something we said?
Tarav hello, prof. pinker!
Melon well, you spelled his name wrong!
Chris_OConnor Well, that's all folks. Goodnight.
Michaelangelo that was brief
Michaelangelo he seemed nice
Pctacitus welcome professor
Chris_OConnor lol
Pinker Hi, people -- sorry for the delay -- I was following the suggestion to use an alternative page
Chris_OConnor Michael
Pinker I'm here....
Peterdf Hi prof Pinker
Nostradafemme do we need to call him prof. since we aren't certain how his first name in spelled?
Chris_OConnor Professor Pinker - it is helpful. You can scroll down the page to get additional info if you like
Chris_OConnor Lets ask him...
Tarav Steven
Pinker Steve is fine...
Michaelangelo should I make up a "we survived a chat with Stephen Pinker" t-shirt?
Chris_OConnor lol
Smiling cloud He Steve
Jeremy1952 I finished "Blank Slate" right before I joined book talk, so I've just read it for the second time, Steve
Monty_Vonn Mr. Pinker, are you presently working on another book?
Chris_OConnor Blank Slate was excellent
Nostradafemme it certainly was.
Monty_Vonn Same, here, read it for a second time.
Chris_OConnor I believe he is in transition from MIT to Harvard
Jeremy1952 I'd actually been planning to study parts of it... very unusual for me, I generally move on to the next book
Nostradafemme from one end of town to the other.
Pinker Thank you. My next book project is editing "Best Science & Nature Writing 2004", part of a series. Then I will work on a book on language and thought, to be completed in about three years from now.
Zach Hello
Peterdf Prof pinker thanks for writing the Blank slate it is one of the best books of its kind I've read
Chris_OConnor Steve - I have that book right here! the 2001 edition
Pinker Thanks, everyone; it's great to hear that you enjoyed it.
Chris_OConnor Steve - one of my favorite essays was the one entitled "Abortion and Brain Waves"
Jeremy1952 I have "words and rules" on my shelf, but I sadly admit that I didn't finish it
Michaelangelo I liked how the mind works
Nostradafemme some of us might have a few questions. Are we able to ask them?
Pctacitus I'm sure we could find someone to blast it if you'd prefer
Smiling cloud Steve, you describe the current climate as being highly centralist. Is that true of the cognitive and neural sciences as well?
Pinker Of course; that's why I'm here.
Chris_OConnor Gerry - go for it
Nostradafemme In Language, Learn ability and Language Development
Nostradafemme you state that language begins with the infant
William_of_Duluth Good Evening Steven. Daniel Dennett admired you with a qualification. In his book, Freedom Evolves, he writes on page 20, "A Less radical, but more frustrating, defection is Steven Pinker (1997), whose dalliance with mysterian doctrines of consciousness
Nostradafemme and proceeds step by step
pinker well, the cognitive and neural sciences are mixed. There is still a nature-nurture debate. Neural network modelers tend to believe that everything is a result of training a generic network-- a modern equivalent of the blank slate. (This is not true of all of them, just some.) Many developmental psychologists believe in the effects of parenting and ignore heritability entirely. But there are behavioral geneticists, cognitive development researchers, evolutionary psychologists, and many neurobiologists who are prepared to give nature its due. OK, let me try to get to the other questions if I can.
Chris_OConnor We will have to space the question and comments out so Steve doesn't get buried
Michaelangelo you'd think that any "software" pattern that is constant will become drilled into "hardware" to save energy
Peterdf I saw you lecture in Oxford thoroughly enjoyed it. You kindly signed my copy - I don't suppose you'll remember - but I was the balding bloke with the funny accent that asked you whether man might be evolving to be less warlike
Monty_Vonn That may be true of Neanderthals, but not Cro-Magnon.
System: You all can "Float" this window and then maximize it to make the screen not scroll so fast
Jeremy1952 What constant pattern did you have in mind, Michaelangelo?
Michaelangelo genes load the gun; heavy metal satanic music pulls the trigger
Pinker On software turning into hardware: there is an effect in evolutionary biology known as the Baldwin effect by which that can happen. It looks Lamarckian superficially, but is really 100% Darwinian. If there is an advantage to learning something, there will be an even greater advantage to having some (but not all) of the skill built-in, and evolution can push the organism in that direction. I discuss this both in "The language Instinct" and in "How the Mind Works". Geoff Hinton & Stephen Nowlan did a computer simulation of evolution in neural networks, showing that the Baldwin effect is really feasible.
Michaelangelo constant patterns like "reward those who reward you"
Jeremy1952 Is Baldwin contemporary?
Pinker No, Baldwin was a late 19th-century psychologist. Let me try to scroll up to the earlier questions....
Peterdf I think Dawkins talked about the Baldwin effect in one of his books
Chris_OConnor Yes, he did.
Monty_Vonn Despite other scientist's disagreement with you and Dawkins, all effects must go through the bottleneck of sex, and it is the genes unchanged since the last combination that get through. No history of the individual gets encoded into those genes.
Smiling cloud Steve, what is your opinion on 'plasticity'? What about studies that show that long-term cortical changes occur after brief interactions with the environment, e.g. viewing and naming an object.
Pinker Yes, Monty's point is valid. The Baldwin effect is driven by mutations that build in some of the neural connections that otherwise would have to be learned.
Nostradafemme smiling, I hear what you're saying. Yet I don't think Steve considers environment that important. Or does he?
Pinker "Plasticity" is just another word from "learning," but seen from the vantage point of neural tissue. If you believe, as I do, that all mental life depends on the physiology of the brain, then the mere fact that we learn implies that there must be plasticity in the brain.
Monty_Vonn Environment has the dominant role AFTER conception, but none of the lessons of the environment are encoded back into the genes.
Jeremy1952 And apologies unnecessary: you were good enough to come to our venue
Pinker No, it's not true that I consider the environment unimportant -- that is a misconception arising from the tendency to treat innate structure and learning as opposites. The environment obviously has an effect -- only a madman could deny it. The question is, what are the innate structures that allow certain aspects of an environment to affect organisms in certain ways, but not others? e.g., human infants exposed to speech learn language; kittens do not, with the same environment.
William_of_Duluth What is Dennett referring to in his reference to your defection to mysterian doctrines of consciousness?
Nostradafemme we await your word....
Chris_OConnor This chat is moving at a very comfortable pace in my opinion. Things seemed chaotic with Dawkins.
Nostradafemme that's because kittens aren't "human".
Pinker Dennett is referring to the ending of How the Mind Works in which I divide the problem of consciousness into two problems (using terminology from David Chalmers). The "easy" problem of consciousness is what processes in the brain give rise to conscious (as opposed to unconscious) processing. "Easy" is a joke, because it's anything but easy, but it's a tractable scientific problem, which I suspect will be solved in this century. The "Hard" problem refers to brainteasers such as whether my red is the same as real conceptual problems, but not ones that our brains are capable of understanding the solutions to. An analogy would be the paradoxes of quantum and relativistic physics, in which our best science presents us with explanations that intuitively are maddening, and the fact that we don't understand them, deep down, is a consequence of a human brain that did not evolve to grasp such abstruse principles.
Jeremy1952 I think a bit that people miss, is that the genes "expect" a certain environment. What was damaging once becomes necessary
Chris_OConnor or is it because it is not a kittens nature
Nostradafemme kittens weren't raised by educated "parents".
Tarav I was an education and psych. major. All emphasis was on environment.
Chris_OConnor Nostradafemme - but what if they were?
Michaelangelo behaviorists gone wild
Epicac Login:
Monty_Vonn that would be wise for education to focus on environment. There's nothing that school can do for genes.
Jeremy1952 It's been tried, nostradafemme; not kittens, but various primates have been raised by human parents many times.
Nostradafemme kitten parents need to have been kittens, correct?
Smiling cloud sorry about the???? My Chinese translator turned on
Tarav Steve- Your book made me modify my thinking on environmental influences.
Rhino Login:
Chris_OConnor Welcome Rhino, Epicac, and WW
WW Steve, do you think Lamarckian objections to acquired characteristics apply to those characteristics acquired over many, many generations?
Michaelangelo is this the most people ever in a booktalk chat?
Chris_OConnor Michael - Howard Bloom had 19
Jeremy1952 Hmm... And there is no survival value, or not sufficient survival value in grasping them, so
Michaelangelo just added a "caffeine is my anti-drug" mug to my product list
Jeremy1952 there is no selective pressure ever to understand them.
Smiling cloud Maybe not understanding itself is an adaptive mechanism. If things were too clear... what would we strive for?
Jeremy1952 Brian Greene approaches quantum "paradoxes" the same way; if we lived in a world where those effects were part of our milieu, then they would "feel' normal and right to us
Pinker re Jeremy: yes, quite right. Re WWW: yes, I think that the objections to Lamarck apply to changes over many generations. That is, Lamarck's mysterious process of characteristics being passed on through the germ line is false; the phenomenon, in which useful traits become innate, has a sound basis in the Baldwin effect, which is conventionally Darwinian.
Monty_Vonn Question. What will be the long term of the human selection process going on in some cultures and intelligent people practicing birth control, and the less enlightened and religiously programmed individual who have lots of children?
Michaelangelo humans evolved to memorize phone numbers, thus proving God exists
Jeremy1952 but how would that benefit the individual, smiling cloud? Remember, selection always comes back to the individual
Tarav good question, Monty
Chris_OConnor Excellent question Monty
Peterdf In the book I am writing I argue that there is a human universal for what I call the "need for speed response" - the fact that humans respond positively to the experience of speed - but it is not included in Browns list...
Lucifer Login:
Pinker Well, Greene's conjecture could be tested (in principle, not in fact) by bringing up babies in a Matrix-like virtual environment in which 4-D effects, time dilation, etc. were simulated. The question is whether they would be intuitive or the baby would be.
Peterdf do you think this is an oversight
Pinker always is conceptually confused.
Chris_OConnor Lucifer = Howard Bloom?
Mermaid Monty, that's why the Brights have to procreate...
Monty_Vonn
Jeremy1952 I don't think, Steven, he means on an individual basis; he is talking about evolved propensities, much as you do.
Michaelangelo we will need women. Let us raid the fundamentalist camp and take their women.
Smiling cloud Steve, do you have any comment on the recent (or seeming) proliferation of psychological and neurological disorders?
Jeremy1952 I think there is a fallacy in your concern, Monty;
Mermaid hello Lucifer, Rhino, WW
Chris_OConnor Question - Are you aware and in support of the recent move to use the word "Bright" to describe freethinkers, or people who subscribe to a naturalistic worldview?
Jeremy1952 and I think it is the assumption that the deluded are less intelligent
Pctacitus How did the concepts you talk about in your book become so entrenched? Perhaps it was in your book and I've just forgotten.
Jeremy1952 Among a mass of uneducated hillbillies, there is still selective pressure for the most intelligent to prosper
Michaelangelo And so they slew the Pentacostalites and returned with wives, and the Brights became as numerous as the stars in the sky. Humanists 11:38
Pinker Let's see -- on smarter people having fewer babies ... this has been discussed for much of this century and was a prime motive for the eugenics movement until it became tainted by Nazi genocides and involuntary sterilization laws. Putting that aside, the evolutionary question depends on how long this pattern will last (it has only been true for less than a century) and how widespread it is. There are still billions of people (in Africa, India, China, etc.) in which the negative correlation between fecundity and intelligence does not hold. Until the rest of the world makes the "demographic transition" characteristic of Europe and the Americas, it is not something that will play a significant role in human biological evolution.
Chris_OConnor lol Michael
Smiling cloud Chris, What do you mean by naturalistic worldview?
Tarav Steve- you discuss euphemisms in your book. Would you call Brights a euphemism?
Monty_Vonn A rapid selection process is going on with Elephants. If you have nice tusks, you will be dead before procreation. If you don't you will survive. In 50 years, this has transformed the elephant population.
Michaelangelo I don't know if Brights will work as a marketing angle
William_of_Duluth Steven, what do you think about the new meme/appellation, "Brights"?
Michaelangelo Brights Do It With The Lights On
Eg0m0rph Login:
Michaelangelo I think humanists is fine
Chris_OConnor Smiling - naturalistic, as opposed to supernatural. "Brights" are atheists, or people that don't have the belief in a deity or intelligent designer.
Michaelangelo blessed are the humanists
Jeremy1952 I don't know if you saw Michael Shermers comment, but his mail is running 25 to 1 against the term. I vote for "Newtonian"
Michaelangelo it seems like the wrong word to me
Chris_OConnor Jeremy - Good! I don't like the word "Brights"
Michaelangelo in fact, I don't think atheists should separate themselves
Mermaid Mr. Pinker: will you support positive eugenics?
Michaelangelo from moderate religious people
Zach Newton was a devout theist, Jeremy
Michaelangelo how about the Meekers
Michaelangelo or the Heretics
Chris_OConnor Steve - "demographic transition?"
Jeremy1952 Yup, I know that, Zach; but I refer to his scientific contribution, not his personal goofy self
WW there is a selection pressure present nowadays for the gene that causes ADD/ADHD. Any idea what exaptatious dice-roll that clings to?
Monty_Vonn In Israel, the two family modernists who were dominant in the past are loosing out to the fundamentalist Jews who have 6 to 7 children per family and they have gained enormous political power.
Pinker OK, one at a time. "Demographic transition" is the decline in birthrate among affluent populations. I don't support positive eugenics; if that is to mean government incentives for certain people to reproduce, since I don't think that's a legitimate function of government. Regarding "Brights" -- I think it is wonderful. A euphemism, yes, and one that will never catch on as "gay" did (I suspect), but the fact that it has been consciously been proposed (partly tongue-in-cheek) as a euphemism will call attention to the phenomenon that "atheist" has a negative connotation among many. And of course the connection with intelligence is a sly way of saying that it tends to be educated people who decide to be atheists.
Monty_Vonn It appears in less than 12 years, the Fundamentalist will control the Democracy in Israel.
System: Lets try to space the questions out...
Nostradafemme Steve seems pretty sold on the POXP2 gene. Could he offer more explanation?
Michaelangelo it is an issue, even if nurture is dominant, the people producing the most kids are more likely to abuse them and instill bad programming
Jeremy1952 But Monty, those fundamentalists are no stupider than anyone else. Their culture is different, not their biology. So hopefully some of them will wake up....
nostradafemme whoops, it should read FOXP2.
Michaelangelo the only real solution is to find some way to teach ways for "non-Brights" to raise their children more humanely
System: ** Lets try to space the questions out ***
Mermaid definition: positive eugenics is a method of increasing the frequency of desirable traits by encouraging reproduction in individuals with these traits.
Jeremy1952 Unnecessary Mermaid, and the law of unintended consequences will bite us verily in the ass if we try
Chris_OConnor Steve - I agree that it will probably not catch on, but anything that draws attention to the fact that there are indeed people that don't adhere to religious dogma is a good thing
Peterdf I have to say "humanist" fits in better with the way I see things
Michaelangelo I like humanists, heretics or freethinkers
Tarav Steve, what do you think about the Deists?
Pinker Regarding selection for ADHD, fundamentalist beliefs, etc..... biologically speaking, these are such local phenomena (in time and space) that they won't change the composition of the species in the way Darwinian evolution does, most likely they could have an effect on democratic election patterns, alas, as the Israel example makes clear.
Jeremy1952 When I say I'm a Stochastic Newtonian Godless Jew, I'm perfectly serious; but it's a little long to be really catchy.
Ozod Disagree with Steve & Chris: the term "Brights" will only serve to alienate possible allies (like Dawkins' sarcasm).
Mermaid Jeremy: elaborate?
Chris_OConnor Steve - I think there is a direct correlation between ones "science" education and their lack of belief in a deity
Pctacitus heretic, originally an ancient Greek word for a member of a faction
Mermaid heh
Monty_Vonn Steve, someone has your picture on a "Deist" web site with your endorsement of that movement. Is it true? Are you Deist or Atheist?
Jeremy1952 Sorry Mermaid, on which?
Chris_OConnor Monty - good question.
Smiling cloud Evidence shows that religion is a cross-cultural phenomenon dating far back. Is there a gene for believing in the gods?
Mermaid Jeremy: never mind...sorry
Michaelangelo the only solution for Israel is to install a dictator. Someone fatherly, who knows best. He can't be an ordinary man, so he'll have to come from some other dimension.
Chris_OConnor A study showing that 93% of NAS scientists polled claim to not believe in a personal deity, or label themselves as agnostics. www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/sci_relig.htm
Tarav yeah, Monty good question even if I asked it first!
NaddiaAoC Login:
Tarav haha
Jeremy1952 Naddia!
Chris_OConnor Hello Cheryl
Michaelangelo agnosticism is the logical position; I wouldn't equate it with "mushy-headedness"
NaddiaAoC Hi folks! Sorry I'm late.
Michaelangelo hi naddia
Pinker hmmm, I vaguely remember saying something encouraging to someone who called himself a deist -- the referent of "deism" (i.e., something that isn't "theism") that it would be hard to object to explicitly. But I certainly don't believe there is some mysterious godlike presence everywhere, if that is what "deism" is taken to be.
Monty_Vonn So Steve, what do you think is the demise of Democracy, Theocracy, and the Human Race passing through the environmental and energy shortage crisis in this century?
Tarav Steve - you need to check out their site. Your picture is there.
Chris_OConnor Steve - people are quick to claim you endorse their ideas. Throughout history great minds are misquoted and their words taken out of context.
Jeremy1952 Lol, good point Chris...
Smiling cloud Nothing can be perfectly replicated.
Chris_OConnor Tara - can you provide the link?
Jeremy1952 How many years did Einstein spend trying to convince people that his purported "belief in god" was misquoted and misinterpreted?
Tarav is it udcdeists? Or something like that.
Pinker Will do. Regarding the NAS statistic, I believe it applies to biologists. Physicists on average tend to be softer on this, and engineers are even more likely to be believers. After all, they are the most susceptible to the Argument from Design -- a watch implies a watchmaker (as engineers know all too well), so an eye implies an eye maker. The biologists, conversely, are the ones most likely to see through this illusion, because they know that Darwinian natural selection can mimic design without a designer.
Tarav maybe Monty knows
Chris_OConnor I can email it to Professor Pinker later so that he can decide if he is comfortable with being called an endorser
William_of_Duluth Steven, How are you and your views accepted on your campus?
Michaelangelo birth defects are too finely sculpted and designed to be accidental
Chris_OConnor I have found it and will post a link
Ozod Stephen Jay Gould is VERY often quoted in support of anti-Evolution arguments.
Jeremy1952 The watchmaker is also a marvelous argument against theism: where did the god thingy come from?
Michaelangelo from his parents, duh
Peterdf good point Steve - I think Dawkins has made an excellent contribution to popularizing that message
Chris_OConnor Steve - here it is www.deism.org/news.htm
Pinker re W of Duluth: Well, I've just switched campuses, from MIT to Harvard. Certainly I did not get any flack at MIT -- the administration, and my department, was highly supportive of my writing and speaking. This is not to say that everyone agreed with everything, just that I cannot complain of any kind of hassles, and indeed got a lot of support. So far Harvard has been just as receptive.
Jeremy1952 Poor Paley. He must be squirming in heaven over it all....
Chris_OConnor "I endorse Deus Project ideals fully, I encourage you in the Project and I wish it great success."
NaddiaAoC LOL Jeremy
Smiling cloud Steve, religion is one of the core cross-cultural themes as identified by archaeologist Bruce Trigger in his cross-cultural study of early civilizations? This trend continues today. Is there a gene for believing in the gods?
Michaelangelo maybe there's a gene for projecting human images onto anything unknown
Jeremy1952 Interestingly, smiling cloud, I learned that fact from Steve's book...
Michaelangelo or uncontrollable
Chris_OConnor Smiling - ahhh...good question.
Monty_Vonn Question: What are your thoughts on the bottleneck of environmental degradation, energy shortage, and other disasters of "Tragedy of the Commons" and the demise of Democracy exposed to Theocracies and cultures that practice large families?
Michaelangelo after all, using your body/mind as a blueprint for anything unknown might offer a good variety of adaptations
Pinker I don't believe that there is a gene for religion -- not just because there isn't a single gene for complex faculties (i.e., there's no single gene for language, or depth perception, or thirst), but also because religion might well be a by-product of a number of other faculties. It's only recently that "religion" was even a separate category, thanks to rivals such as science and the state. In traditional societies, you can't peel off religion from the rest of life. So it's possible that what we call
WW birth defects are the "happiest" accidents of all. Problem is they don't drive evolution in Homo sapiens any longer as surgeons hack 'em off or isolate them and their consequences are never known
Chris_OConnor Maybe there is a gene that opens up our minds to the possibility of the supernatural
Michaelangelo birth defects, their delicate beauty, surely have a designer
Nostradafemme Or a gene that makes us not so receptive.
William_of_Duluth Many view religion as a now toxic feature of culture. Is religion a meme gone amok or a spandrel or something else?
Michaelangelo without religion you'd still have pseudo-religions
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward,
for there you have been, and there you will always want to be."-- Leonardo da Vinci
Monty_Vonn Cool! He's here!
System: You may wish to go thru the actual chat page on BookTalk. You can float and dock this room too.
Jeremy1952 Hi! Welcome
Nostradafemme hi Stephen
Melon it's Steven, not Stephen.
Peterdf hi mermaid
Chris_OConnor Hello Professor Pinker
Kostya Hi Stephen
Pinker Logout:
Chris_OConnor Oh lovely
Chris_OConnor We scared him off that fast
Kostya
Jeremy1952 Ok, what did he say that you booted him Chris?
Pctacitus that's not good
Pinker Login:
Smiling cloud Was it something we said?
Tarav hello, prof. pinker!
Melon well, you spelled his name wrong!
Chris_OConnor Well, that's all folks. Goodnight.
Michaelangelo that was brief
Michaelangelo he seemed nice
Pctacitus welcome professor
Chris_OConnor lol
Pinker Hi, people -- sorry for the delay -- I was following the suggestion to use an alternative page
Chris_OConnor Michael
Pinker I'm here....
Peterdf Hi prof Pinker
Nostradafemme do we need to call him prof. since we aren't certain how his first name in spelled?
Chris_OConnor Professor Pinker - it is helpful. You can scroll down the page to get additional info if you like
Chris_OConnor Lets ask him...
Tarav Steven
Pinker Steve is fine...
Michaelangelo should I make up a "we survived a chat with Stephen Pinker" t-shirt?
Chris_OConnor lol
Smiling cloud He Steve
Jeremy1952 I finished "Blank Slate" right before I joined book talk, so I've just read it for the second time, Steve
Monty_Vonn Mr. Pinker, are you presently working on another book?
Chris_OConnor Blank Slate was excellent
Nostradafemme it certainly was.
Monty_Vonn Same, here, read it for a second time.
Chris_OConnor I believe he is in transition from MIT to Harvard
Jeremy1952 I'd actually been planning to study parts of it... very unusual for me, I generally move on to the next book
Nostradafemme from one end of town to the other.
Pinker Thank you. My next book project is editing "Best Science & Nature Writing 2004", part of a series. Then I will work on a book on language and thought, to be completed in about three years from now.
Zach Hello
Peterdf Prof pinker thanks for writing the Blank slate it is one of the best books of its kind I've read
Chris_OConnor Steve - I have that book right here! the 2001 edition
Pinker Thanks, everyone; it's great to hear that you enjoyed it.
Chris_OConnor Steve - one of my favorite essays was the one entitled "Abortion and Brain Waves"
Jeremy1952 I have "words and rules" on my shelf, but I sadly admit that I didn't finish it
Michaelangelo I liked how the mind works
Nostradafemme some of us might have a few questions. Are we able to ask them?
Pctacitus I'm sure we could find someone to blast it if you'd prefer
Smiling cloud Steve, you describe the current climate as being highly centralist. Is that true of the cognitive and neural sciences as well?
Pinker Of course; that's why I'm here.
Chris_OConnor Gerry - go for it
Nostradafemme In Language, Learn ability and Language Development
Nostradafemme you state that language begins with the infant
William_of_Duluth Good Evening Steven. Daniel Dennett admired you with a qualification. In his book, Freedom Evolves, he writes on page 20, "A Less radical, but more frustrating, defection is Steven Pinker (1997), whose dalliance with mysterian doctrines of consciousness
Nostradafemme and proceeds step by step
pinker well, the cognitive and neural sciences are mixed. There is still a nature-nurture debate. Neural network modelers tend to believe that everything is a result of training a generic network-- a modern equivalent of the blank slate. (This is not true of all of them, just some.) Many developmental psychologists believe in the effects of parenting and ignore heritability entirely. But there are behavioral geneticists, cognitive development researchers, evolutionary psychologists, and many neurobiologists who are prepared to give nature its due. OK, let me try to get to the other questions if I can.
Chris_OConnor We will have to space the question and comments out so Steve doesn't get buried
Michaelangelo you'd think that any "software" pattern that is constant will become drilled into "hardware" to save energy
Peterdf I saw you lecture in Oxford thoroughly enjoyed it. You kindly signed my copy - I don't suppose you'll remember - but I was the balding bloke with the funny accent that asked you whether man might be evolving to be less warlike
Monty_Vonn That may be true of Neanderthals, but not Cro-Magnon.
System: You all can "Float" this window and then maximize it to make the screen not scroll so fast
Jeremy1952 What constant pattern did you have in mind, Michaelangelo?
Michaelangelo genes load the gun; heavy metal satanic music pulls the trigger
Pinker On software turning into hardware: there is an effect in evolutionary biology known as the Baldwin effect by which that can happen. It looks Lamarckian superficially, but is really 100% Darwinian. If there is an advantage to learning something, there will be an even greater advantage to having some (but not all) of the skill built-in, and evolution can push the organism in that direction. I discuss this both in "The language Instinct" and in "How the Mind Works". Geoff Hinton & Stephen Nowlan did a computer simulation of evolution in neural networks, showing that the Baldwin effect is really feasible.
Michaelangelo constant patterns like "reward those who reward you"
Jeremy1952 Is Baldwin contemporary?
Pinker No, Baldwin was a late 19th-century psychologist. Let me try to scroll up to the earlier questions....
Peterdf I think Dawkins talked about the Baldwin effect in one of his books
Chris_OConnor Yes, he did.
Monty_Vonn Despite other scientist's disagreement with you and Dawkins, all effects must go through the bottleneck of sex, and it is the genes unchanged since the last combination that get through. No history of the individual gets encoded into those genes.
Smiling cloud Steve, what is your opinion on 'plasticity'? What about studies that show that long-term cortical changes occur after brief interactions with the environment, e.g. viewing and naming an object.
Pinker Yes, Monty's point is valid. The Baldwin effect is driven by mutations that build in some of the neural connections that otherwise would have to be learned.
Nostradafemme smiling, I hear what you're saying. Yet I don't think Steve considers environment that important. Or does he?
Pinker "Plasticity" is just another word from "learning," but seen from the vantage point of neural tissue. If you believe, as I do, that all mental life depends on the physiology of the brain, then the mere fact that we learn implies that there must be plasticity in the brain.
Monty_Vonn Environment has the dominant role AFTER conception, but none of the lessons of the environment are encoded back into the genes.
Jeremy1952 And apologies unnecessary: you were good enough to come to our venue
Pinker No, it's not true that I consider the environment unimportant -- that is a misconception arising from the tendency to treat innate structure and learning as opposites. The environment obviously has an effect -- only a madman could deny it. The question is, what are the innate structures that allow certain aspects of an environment to affect organisms in certain ways, but not others? e.g., human infants exposed to speech learn language; kittens do not, with the same environment.
William_of_Duluth What is Dennett referring to in his reference to your defection to mysterian doctrines of consciousness?
Nostradafemme we await your word....
Chris_OConnor This chat is moving at a very comfortable pace in my opinion. Things seemed chaotic with Dawkins.
Nostradafemme that's because kittens aren't "human".
Pinker Dennett is referring to the ending of How the Mind Works in which I divide the problem of consciousness into two problems (using terminology from David Chalmers). The "easy" problem of consciousness is what processes in the brain give rise to conscious (as opposed to unconscious) processing. "Easy" is a joke, because it's anything but easy, but it's a tractable scientific problem, which I suspect will be solved in this century. The "Hard" problem refers to brainteasers such as whether my red is the same as real conceptual problems, but not ones that our brains are capable of understanding the solutions to. An analogy would be the paradoxes of quantum and relativistic physics, in which our best science presents us with explanations that intuitively are maddening, and the fact that we don't understand them, deep down, is a consequence of a human brain that did not evolve to grasp such abstruse principles.
Jeremy1952 I think a bit that people miss, is that the genes "expect" a certain environment. What was damaging once becomes necessary
Chris_OConnor or is it because it is not a kittens nature
Nostradafemme kittens weren't raised by educated "parents".
Tarav I was an education and psych. major. All emphasis was on environment.
Chris_OConnor Nostradafemme - but what if they were?
Michaelangelo behaviorists gone wild
Epicac Login:
Monty_Vonn that would be wise for education to focus on environment. There's nothing that school can do for genes.
Jeremy1952 It's been tried, nostradafemme; not kittens, but various primates have been raised by human parents many times.
Nostradafemme kitten parents need to have been kittens, correct?
Smiling cloud sorry about the???? My Chinese translator turned on
Tarav Steve- Your book made me modify my thinking on environmental influences.
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Chris_OConnor Welcome Rhino, Epicac, and WW
WW Steve, do you think Lamarckian objections to acquired characteristics apply to those characteristics acquired over many, many generations?
Michaelangelo is this the most people ever in a booktalk chat?
Chris_OConnor Michael - Howard Bloom had 19
Jeremy1952 Hmm... And there is no survival value, or not sufficient survival value in grasping them, so
Michaelangelo just added a "caffeine is my anti-drug" mug to my product list
Jeremy1952 there is no selective pressure ever to understand them.
Smiling cloud Maybe not understanding itself is an adaptive mechanism. If things were too clear... what would we strive for?
Jeremy1952 Brian Greene approaches quantum "paradoxes" the same way; if we lived in a world where those effects were part of our milieu, then they would "feel' normal and right to us
Pinker re Jeremy: yes, quite right. Re WWW: yes, I think that the objections to Lamarck apply to changes over many generations. That is, Lamarck's mysterious process of characteristics being passed on through the germ line is false; the phenomenon, in which useful traits become innate, has a sound basis in the Baldwin effect, which is conventionally Darwinian.
Monty_Vonn Question. What will be the long term of the human selection process going on in some cultures and intelligent people practicing birth control, and the less enlightened and religiously programmed individual who have lots of children?
Michaelangelo humans evolved to memorize phone numbers, thus proving God exists
Jeremy1952 but how would that benefit the individual, smiling cloud? Remember, selection always comes back to the individual
Tarav good question, Monty
Chris_OConnor Excellent question Monty
Peterdf In the book I am writing I argue that there is a human universal for what I call the "need for speed response" - the fact that humans respond positively to the experience of speed - but it is not included in Browns list...
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Pinker Well, Greene's conjecture could be tested (in principle, not in fact) by bringing up babies in a Matrix-like virtual environment in which 4-D effects, time dilation, etc. were simulated. The question is whether they would be intuitive or the baby would be.
Peterdf do you think this is an oversight
Pinker always is conceptually confused.
Chris_OConnor Lucifer = Howard Bloom?
Mermaid Monty, that's why the Brights have to procreate...
Monty_Vonn
Jeremy1952 I don't think, Steven, he means on an individual basis; he is talking about evolved propensities, much as you do.
Michaelangelo we will need women. Let us raid the fundamentalist camp and take their women.
Smiling cloud Steve, do you have any comment on the recent (or seeming) proliferation of psychological and neurological disorders?
Jeremy1952 I think there is a fallacy in your concern, Monty;
Mermaid hello Lucifer, Rhino, WW
Chris_OConnor Question - Are you aware and in support of the recent move to use the word "Bright" to describe freethinkers, or people who subscribe to a naturalistic worldview?
Jeremy1952 and I think it is the assumption that the deluded are less intelligent
Pctacitus How did the concepts you talk about in your book become so entrenched? Perhaps it was in your book and I've just forgotten.
Jeremy1952 Among a mass of uneducated hillbillies, there is still selective pressure for the most intelligent to prosper
Michaelangelo And so they slew the Pentacostalites and returned with wives, and the Brights became as numerous as the stars in the sky. Humanists 11:38
Pinker Let's see -- on smarter people having fewer babies ... this has been discussed for much of this century and was a prime motive for the eugenics movement until it became tainted by Nazi genocides and involuntary sterilization laws. Putting that aside, the evolutionary question depends on how long this pattern will last (it has only been true for less than a century) and how widespread it is. There are still billions of people (in Africa, India, China, etc.) in which the negative correlation between fecundity and intelligence does not hold. Until the rest of the world makes the "demographic transition" characteristic of Europe and the Americas, it is not something that will play a significant role in human biological evolution.
Chris_OConnor lol Michael
Smiling cloud Chris, What do you mean by naturalistic worldview?
Tarav Steve- you discuss euphemisms in your book. Would you call Brights a euphemism?
Monty_Vonn A rapid selection process is going on with Elephants. If you have nice tusks, you will be dead before procreation. If you don't you will survive. In 50 years, this has transformed the elephant population.
Michaelangelo I don't know if Brights will work as a marketing angle
William_of_Duluth Steven, what do you think about the new meme/appellation, "Brights"?
Michaelangelo Brights Do It With The Lights On
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Michaelangelo I think humanists is fine
Chris_OConnor Smiling - naturalistic, as opposed to supernatural. "Brights" are atheists, or people that don't have the belief in a deity or intelligent designer.
Michaelangelo blessed are the humanists
Jeremy1952 I don't know if you saw Michael Shermers comment, but his mail is running 25 to 1 against the term. I vote for "Newtonian"
Michaelangelo it seems like the wrong word to me
Chris_OConnor Jeremy - Good! I don't like the word "Brights"
Michaelangelo in fact, I don't think atheists should separate themselves
Mermaid Mr. Pinker: will you support positive eugenics?
Michaelangelo from moderate religious people
Zach Newton was a devout theist, Jeremy
Michaelangelo how about the Meekers
Michaelangelo or the Heretics
Chris_OConnor Steve - "demographic transition?"
Jeremy1952 Yup, I know that, Zach; but I refer to his scientific contribution, not his personal goofy self
WW there is a selection pressure present nowadays for the gene that causes ADD/ADHD. Any idea what exaptatious dice-roll that clings to?
Monty_Vonn In Israel, the two family modernists who were dominant in the past are loosing out to the fundamentalist Jews who have 6 to 7 children per family and they have gained enormous political power.
Pinker OK, one at a time. "Demographic transition" is the decline in birthrate among affluent populations. I don't support positive eugenics; if that is to mean government incentives for certain people to reproduce, since I don't think that's a legitimate function of government. Regarding "Brights" -- I think it is wonderful. A euphemism, yes, and one that will never catch on as "gay" did (I suspect), but the fact that it has been consciously been proposed (partly tongue-in-cheek) as a euphemism will call attention to the phenomenon that "atheist" has a negative connotation among many. And of course the connection with intelligence is a sly way of saying that it tends to be educated people who decide to be atheists.
Monty_Vonn It appears in less than 12 years, the Fundamentalist will control the Democracy in Israel.
System: Lets try to space the questions out...
Nostradafemme Steve seems pretty sold on the POXP2 gene. Could he offer more explanation?
Michaelangelo it is an issue, even if nurture is dominant, the people producing the most kids are more likely to abuse them and instill bad programming
Jeremy1952 But Monty, those fundamentalists are no stupider than anyone else. Their culture is different, not their biology. So hopefully some of them will wake up....
nostradafemme whoops, it should read FOXP2.
Michaelangelo the only real solution is to find some way to teach ways for "non-Brights" to raise their children more humanely
System: ** Lets try to space the questions out ***
Mermaid definition: positive eugenics is a method of increasing the frequency of desirable traits by encouraging reproduction in individuals with these traits.
Jeremy1952 Unnecessary Mermaid, and the law of unintended consequences will bite us verily in the ass if we try
Chris_OConnor Steve - I agree that it will probably not catch on, but anything that draws attention to the fact that there are indeed people that don't adhere to religious dogma is a good thing
Peterdf I have to say "humanist" fits in better with the way I see things
Michaelangelo I like humanists, heretics or freethinkers
Tarav Steve, what do you think about the Deists?
Pinker Regarding selection for ADHD, fundamentalist beliefs, etc..... biologically speaking, these are such local phenomena (in time and space) that they won't change the composition of the species in the way Darwinian evolution does, most likely they could have an effect on democratic election patterns, alas, as the Israel example makes clear.
Jeremy1952 When I say I'm a Stochastic Newtonian Godless Jew, I'm perfectly serious; but it's a little long to be really catchy.
Ozod Disagree with Steve & Chris: the term "Brights" will only serve to alienate possible allies (like Dawkins' sarcasm).
Mermaid Jeremy: elaborate?
Chris_OConnor Steve - I think there is a direct correlation between ones "science" education and their lack of belief in a deity
Pctacitus heretic, originally an ancient Greek word for a member of a faction
Mermaid heh
Monty_Vonn Steve, someone has your picture on a "Deist" web site with your endorsement of that movement. Is it true? Are you Deist or Atheist?
Jeremy1952 Sorry Mermaid, on which?
Chris_OConnor Monty - good question.
Smiling cloud Evidence shows that religion is a cross-cultural phenomenon dating far back. Is there a gene for believing in the gods?
Mermaid Jeremy: never mind...sorry
Michaelangelo the only solution for Israel is to install a dictator. Someone fatherly, who knows best. He can't be an ordinary man, so he'll have to come from some other dimension.
Chris_OConnor A study showing that 93% of NAS scientists polled claim to not believe in a personal deity, or label themselves as agnostics. www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/sci_relig.htm
Tarav yeah, Monty good question even if I asked it first!
NaddiaAoC Login:
Tarav haha
Jeremy1952 Naddia!
Chris_OConnor Hello Cheryl
Michaelangelo agnosticism is the logical position; I wouldn't equate it with "mushy-headedness"
NaddiaAoC Hi folks! Sorry I'm late.
Michaelangelo hi naddia
Pinker hmmm, I vaguely remember saying something encouraging to someone who called himself a deist -- the referent of "deism" (i.e., something that isn't "theism") that it would be hard to object to explicitly. But I certainly don't believe there is some mysterious godlike presence everywhere, if that is what "deism" is taken to be.
Monty_Vonn So Steve, what do you think is the demise of Democracy, Theocracy, and the Human Race passing through the environmental and energy shortage crisis in this century?
Tarav Steve - you need to check out their site. Your picture is there.
Chris_OConnor Steve - people are quick to claim you endorse their ideas. Throughout history great minds are misquoted and their words taken out of context.
Jeremy1952 Lol, good point Chris...
Smiling cloud Nothing can be perfectly replicated.
Chris_OConnor Tara - can you provide the link?
Jeremy1952 How many years did Einstein spend trying to convince people that his purported "belief in god" was misquoted and misinterpreted?
Tarav is it udcdeists? Or something like that.
Pinker Will do. Regarding the NAS statistic, I believe it applies to biologists. Physicists on average tend to be softer on this, and engineers are even more likely to be believers. After all, they are the most susceptible to the Argument from Design -- a watch implies a watchmaker (as engineers know all too well), so an eye implies an eye maker. The biologists, conversely, are the ones most likely to see through this illusion, because they know that Darwinian natural selection can mimic design without a designer.
Tarav maybe Monty knows
Chris_OConnor I can email it to Professor Pinker later so that he can decide if he is comfortable with being called an endorser
William_of_Duluth Steven, How are you and your views accepted on your campus?
Michaelangelo birth defects are too finely sculpted and designed to be accidental
Chris_OConnor I have found it and will post a link
Ozod Stephen Jay Gould is VERY often quoted in support of anti-Evolution arguments.
Jeremy1952 The watchmaker is also a marvelous argument against theism: where did the god thingy come from?
Michaelangelo from his parents, duh
Peterdf good point Steve - I think Dawkins has made an excellent contribution to popularizing that message
Chris_OConnor Steve - here it is www.deism.org/news.htm
Pinker re W of Duluth: Well, I've just switched campuses, from MIT to Harvard. Certainly I did not get any flack at MIT -- the administration, and my department, was highly supportive of my writing and speaking. This is not to say that everyone agreed with everything, just that I cannot complain of any kind of hassles, and indeed got a lot of support. So far Harvard has been just as receptive.
Jeremy1952 Poor Paley. He must be squirming in heaven over it all....
Chris_OConnor "I endorse Deus Project ideals fully, I encourage you in the Project and I wish it great success."
NaddiaAoC LOL Jeremy
Smiling cloud Steve, religion is one of the core cross-cultural themes as identified by archaeologist Bruce Trigger in his cross-cultural study of early civilizations? This trend continues today. Is there a gene for believing in the gods?
Michaelangelo maybe there's a gene for projecting human images onto anything unknown
Jeremy1952 Interestingly, smiling cloud, I learned that fact from Steve's book...
Michaelangelo or uncontrollable
Chris_OConnor Smiling - ahhh...good question.
Monty_Vonn Question: What are your thoughts on the bottleneck of environmental degradation, energy shortage, and other disasters of "Tragedy of the Commons" and the demise of Democracy exposed to Theocracies and cultures that practice large families?
Michaelangelo after all, using your body/mind as a blueprint for anything unknown might offer a good variety of adaptations
Pinker I don't believe that there is a gene for religion -- not just because there isn't a single gene for complex faculties (i.e., there's no single gene for language, or depth perception, or thirst), but also because religion might well be a by-product of a number of other faculties. It's only recently that "religion" was even a separate category, thanks to rivals such as science and the state. In traditional societies, you can't peel off religion from the rest of life. So it's possible that what we call
WW birth defects are the "happiest" accidents of all. Problem is they don't drive evolution in Homo sapiens any longer as surgeons hack 'em off or isolate them and their consequences are never known
Chris_OConnor Maybe there is a gene that opens up our minds to the possibility of the supernatural
Michaelangelo birth defects, their delicate beauty, surely have a designer
Nostradafemme Or a gene that makes us not so receptive.
William_of_Duluth Many view religion as a now toxic feature of culture. Is religion a meme gone amok or a spandrel or something else?
Michaelangelo without religion you'd still have pseudo-religions
