''If I am an advocate, it is for discoveries about human nature that have been ignored or suppressed in modern discussions of human affairs,'' he writes.Ī principal theme of Dr. In a book being published by Viking at the end of this month, ''The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature,'' he seeks to create greater political elbow room for those engaged in the study of the ways genes shape human behavior. Steven Pinker, a psychologist of language at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The role of genes in shaping differences between individuals or sexes or races has become a matter of touchiness, even taboo.Ī determined effort to break this silence and make it safer for biologists to discuss what they know about the genetics of human nature has now been begun by Dr. So biologists, despite their increasing knowledge from the decoding of the human genome and other advances, are still distinctly reluctant to challenge the notion that human behavior is largely shaped by environment and culture. Since then, a storm has threatened anyone who prominently asserts that politically sensitive aspects of human nature might be molded by the genes. Wilson set out to do so in his 1975 book ''Sociobiology,'' he was assailed by left-wing colleagues who portrayed his description of genetically shaped human behaviors as a threat to the political principles of equal rights and a just society. Who should define human nature? When the biologist Edward O.
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