Stephen Pinker: “The Blank Slate”

Not only does this book do what Olson suggests with respect to the social sciences (i.e., it’s engaging and compelling), but Pinker ups the ante by pointing out ways that social science theories have influenced public policy–which means it’s critically important that social science theories be *correct*, and not based themselves on ideology. In fact, the primary subject of the book is the problematic relationship between ideology and the social sciences.

It’s an excellent read, and I honestly think it’s important enough that everyone should read it.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by kashicat: My review, for @NetGalley, of “Don’t Be Such a Scientist” by Randy Olson. http://bit.ly/23jp8m #NGpick (If you loved Carl Sagan, here’s why)…

The two films were produced by the same person, who obviously knew the difference.

Olson would argue that insisting on “doctrinal purity” means that the message never gets out there at all. Though I think he would agree that completely misrepresenting something is another whole ball of wax. I get the impression he still tries to tell things as they are, even when he’s telling a story. So I think you and he would be in agreement there.

His philosophy might be an example of what one person described to me as “picking your battles.” He mentioned how Neil DeGrasse Tyson, the host of NOVA (I think it was him), met James Cameron on the street one day after seeing “Titanic.” All DeGrasse Tyson could say was “You got the constellations wrong in the night sky.” Olson says we can worry about smallish factual errors at the wrong moments, when it’s not as important, and it means we miss the larger message.

I did find myself, all through this book, swinging wildly between “You’ve got to get every detail RIGHT” and “But — but — Jon Stewart — !”

Olson has a theory that the reason people used to be able to sit through a three-hour lecture on taxonomy was that in the late 19th/early 20th century, people didn’t have so much mental stimulation from other places. But as modern media has our brains under such constant stimulation, the public in general no longer even has the capacity to sit through such a lecture. He tends toward the lecture mode himself. But he seems to feel like you have to work with the little you’ve got, because you’re not going to force people back into that mold.

I get torn back and forth on this.

It’s all well and good not to describe every detail of something. It’s something else to misrepresent it. When I’ve seen people do so to get the idea across, it makes me very very sad.