THE Blank Slate Theory: Nature versus Nurture

Abstract

The discussion surrounding Stephen Pinkers' book The Blank Slate: the Modern Denial of Human Nature has sparks some rather interesting arguments as to whether our being is a result of nature, genetics or is it learned through nurturing. The discussion revolved around Pinkers idea that there is no such thing as the Blank Slate theory, when it comes to human nature. He believes "that the human mind, like the human body, has been designed by natural selection through the process of biological evolution" (Bailey & Gillespie, 2002, p.2).The Blank Slate theory derived from John Locke, a great philosopher who lived in the 16th century. In John Locke's philosophy, tabula rasa was the theory that the (human) mind is at birth a "blank slate" void of all characters, without any ideas or rules for processing data, and that data is added and rules for processing it formed solely by our sensory experiences. As understood by Locke,......

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Title: Nature Vs Nurture
Approximate Word Count: 1041
Approximate Pages: 5 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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