Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

46 J HOW THE MIND WORKSone of the founding documents of the SSSM, and when the anthropologistDerek Freeman showed that she got the facts spectacularly wrong,the American Anthropological Association voted at its business meetingto denounce his finding as unscientific. In 1986, twenty social scientistsat a "Brain and Aggression" meeting drafted the Seville Statement onViolence, subsequently adopted by UNESCO and endorsed by several scientificorganizations. The statement claimed to "challenge a number ofalleged biological findings that have been used, even by some in our disciplines,to justify violence and war":It is scientifically incorrect to say that we have inherited a tendency tomake war from our animal ancestors.It is scientifically incorrect to say that war or any other violent behavioris genetically programmed into our human nature.It is scientifically incorrect to say that in the course of human evolutionthere has been a selection for aggressive behavior more than forother kinds of behavior.It is scientifically incorrect to say that humans have a "violent brain."It is scientifically incorrect to say that war is caused by "instinct" orany single motivation. . . . We conclude that biology does not condemnhumanity to war, and that humanity can be freed from the bondage ofbiological pessimism and empowered with confidence to undertake thetransformative tasks needed in the International Year of Peace and in theyears to come.What moral certainty could have incited these scholars to doctor quotations,censor ideas, attack the ideas' proponents ad hominem, smearthem with unwarranted associations to repugnant political movements,and mobilize powerful institutions to legislate what is correct and incorrect?The certainty comes from an opposition to three putative implicationsof an innate human nature.First, if the mind has an innate structure, different people (or differentclasses, sexes, and races) could have different innate structures. Thatwould justify discrimination and oppression.Second, if obnoxious behavior like aggression, war, rape, clannishness,and the pursuit of status and wealth are innate, that would makethem "natural" and hence good. And even if they are deemed objectionable,they are in the genes and cannot be changed, so attempts at socialreform are futile.Third, if behavior is caused by the genes, then individuals cannot be