BritainRitten

(Allow me to make this easier to read.)

Q1:

The popular explanation for the cause of rape is that rape is about power; rather than sex or attraction or anything else. In The Blank Slate you wrote:

I believe that the rape-is-not-about-sex doctrine will go down in history as an example of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds. It is preposterous on the face of it, does not deserve its sanctity, is contradicted by a mass of evidence, and is getting in the way of the only morally relevant goal surrounding rape, the effort to stamp it out.

From what I've read of behaviour studies - the causes of behaviour are very complex and there are zero behaviours except for rape that are explained by one single cause. Why is rape pretty much the only behaviour out there for which academics will accept only one single explanation? How does a delusion spread among people who should be immune to them?

SA: It's the "moralistic fallacy," the idea that we should shape the facts in such a way as to point to the most morally desirable consequences.

In the case of rape, the fear was that if rape has a sexual motive, then it would be natural, hence good; and instinctive, hence unavoidable. Since rape is bad and ought to be stamped out, it cannot come from "natural" sexual motives. My own view is that these are non-sequiturs -- rape is horrific no matter what its motives are, and we know that rates of rape can be reduced (in Better Angels I assemble statistics that US rates of rape are down by almost 80% since their peak).

One surprise that I experienced upon re-reading Susan Brownmiller's 1975 book "Against Our Will," which originated the rape-is-about-power-not-sex doctrine, is that idea was a very tiny part of the book, thrown in almost as an afterthought (Brownmiller said she got the idea from one of her Marxist professors). Most of the book is a brilliant account of the history of rape, its treatment by the legal system, its depiction in literature and film, the experience of being raped and reporting it, and other topics. It's also written with great style, clarity, and erudition. Though I disagree with that one idea, I would recommend it as one of the best and most important books on violence I have read.

Q2:

Some differences in IQ scores between males and females have been shown to exist; including in spatial ability and math ability. The differences appear 1) in the mean and 2) in the variance of the scores. Do you think this explains part of the difference between the proportions of men and women in STEM degrees and related occupations? If so, how much do you think it explains?

SA: There do appear to be some small sex differences in the tails of the distributions of spatial and abstract mathematical ability, though I think they play a far smaller role in observed sex imbalances in STEM occupations than differences in interests and life priorities (among male-female differences). There are also female-unfriendly STEM subcultures that have made talented women uncomfortable, compared to the alternatives available to them. I don't think we have any way to weight the relative influences of all these factors.

Q3:

What do you think is the likelihood of in the future discovering intelligence differences between population groups using neurological comparisons and genetic comparisons rather than by just comparing IQ scores? Academics today seem to dismiss the idea as impossible. But is the idea that groups can evolve in very different environments and not end up with different intelligence levels realistic? I've read that more than half of genes are expressed in the brain.

SA: It's possible, but I don't think that evolutionary theory predicts that they should occur. It's hard to think of an environment in which the human hallmarks of intelligence, sociality, and language would NOT be adaptive, which is why, as Ambrose Bierce put it, our species has infested the whole habitable earth and Canada. Intelligence just isn't particularly dependent on geography. Combine that with gene flow and you can't predict a priori that there ought to be race differences.

Professor Pinker, by far the most vehement and hateful criticism I have heard of your masterpiece work The Better Angels of Our Nature has to do with your claims that hunter-gatherer societies were far more violent than most state societies. (Dr. Jared Diamond has also received strong criticism for a similar stance.)

Is this view very controversial among anthropologists generally? Do they largely disagree with you or agree with you? If they disagree, why do you think that is?

I suspect it has to do with the Blank Slate ideology you write about in your book of the same name. Namely, that leftists often argue that we are products of our culture, and hence without the corrupting influence of capitalist society, life in a state of nature should therefore be quite peaceful.

Stop showing off that you get to be one of his students!

Subtitle: I Finish Nearly As Fast As A Supercomputer

(Just making this easier to read.)

Q1) A lot of new information about the brain's inner workings has come out since you wrote How the Mind Works. It does seem that the book was written cautiously enough that it is still very relevant and accurate to date. Hypothetically, if you were to write a similarly-themed book today, what new information would you seek to impart?

SA: I wrote a new foreword to the 2009 edition of HTMW that addressed that question. Pretty much everything that I wrote about could be fleshed out in greater neurobiological detail today, but I continue to believe that the computational and functional (evolutionary) levels of analysis provide the greatest amount of insight (I am, after all, a psychologist, rather than a neurophysiologist) so the emphasis of the explanations of the book would not change today. As far as subject matter is concerned, the biggest addition I would make today is our new understanding of moral psychology, as elucidated by Rick Shweder, his former postdocs Alan Fiske and Jonathan Haidt (who ran with his ideas in slightly different directions), Philip Tetlock, and Joshua Greene.

Q2) Although you are an atheist and a prominent intellectual, you haven't been associated with the so-called "atheist movement" identified with some other prominent atheists. Would you say this is because you do not have an agenda regarding the beliefs of others? Is there another distinction you might attribute it to? Thanks so much for doing this. I've been a huge fan of your work for a long time. I've been saving these questions since before I ever heard of Reddit.

SA: Atheism is simply the denial of one set of beliefs, and it has never been a priority to stipulate one among the many things I don't believe in. The atheist/humanist/freethinker/secularist/bright movement found me (and I'm happy to support it) because I presented a thoroughly naturalistic, ghost-free account of the mind in How the Mind Works, including an analysis of religious belief as an interesting puzzle in psychology. After having written Better Angels I now have a stronger intellectual and moral commitment to Enlightenment humanism, classical liberalism, and the ideal of human rights, because I saw how those ideas were instrumental in bringing about the best things that have happened in human history -- the reduction of institutionalized violence, and the development of knowledge and technologies that have increasingly allowed human beings to flourish.